Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (Tommy Wirkola, 2014)

7/10
The follow-up to 2009's Dead Snow, one of the best horror comedies I'd seen in a long time. This one picks up immediately following the events of the first one. Martin, the sole survivor, is fleeing from Colonel Herzog and his Nazi zombie horde. Herzog loses an arm in the chase, and through a series of events, it gets re-attached to Martin (who sawed his own off after being bitten in the original). And, of course, the zombie surgeon finds Martin's arm and attaches it to Herzog. Inextricably linked, Martin must stop Herzog, who has plans to build a zombie army and storm a small Norwegian town in the goal of fulfilling the last mission given to him by Hitler before Herzog's death. Meanwhile Martin assembles his own rag-tag horde, including three geeky members of the (apparently real) Zombie Squad group in the U.S. as well as using the resurrecting powers of Herzog's arm to reanimate a troop of Soviets slaughtered by Herzog to command in the final battle against him.
If you're familiar with Dead Snow, you can probably tell that the above plot summary is quite a bit more bloated than what made up the framework of the first one, which is really the problem with this sequel (and many sequels in general, honestly). The need to do something bigger and better also means a lot of downtime is required for plot exposition and dialogue, meaning the jokes and the kills don't come with quite the same pace that made the first one a lot more fun. That said, there's still a lot in here to entertain, and writer/director Tommy Wirkola still shows plenty of inventiveness with both his humor and his gore. It's just not quite as much fun on the second go-around.

Dead Snow (Tommy Wirkola, 2009)

10/10
I had so much fun watching this movie. Seeing it with a rambunctious festival crowd probably helped, and the fact that I thought it was a straight horror at the start made the funny parts that much funnier, but even so, it was a blast. The plot is all-too familiar: a bunch of attractive young people isolate themselves at a cabin in the (snowy) woods, they receive an ominous warning from a mysterious stranger they dismiss as being crazy, and then the zombies attack. The Nazi zombies, I might add. Which has at least some relevance (Nazi Germany had a very large presence in Norway during the war) but really, is not quite integral to the film. And seems to have some people up in arms, especially with the way the film ends. Whatever. If you can't watch this movie without laughing your head off, wincing at some of the gore and kills, and get a good jump scare every now and then, you don't have a pulse. A perfect mix of horror and humor and probably one of the best zombie movies I can think of in recent years.