Icy Horror, Nazi Snowballs, Dumb Artificial Intelligence

All this apocalyptic Seattle snow (the worst in 70 years, according to the panicking news) got me in the mood to watch a few guilty pleasure snow horror movies, the irony being that we’re buried in huge, steaming piles of snow with more predicted to seal us in igloo coffins.

I have The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 30 Days of Night (2007), Dead Snow (2009), The Last Winter (2006), Frozen (2010/the teen horror movie, not the same-titled Disney horror movie), and Unnatural (2015) queued up. All that’s left to do now is crack an ice cold beer and chill. Heh.

While we’re waiting to thaw out — probably by the end of March — here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not bite like frost…

THE HOUSE (March 5, 2019)
“Set in the frozen wilderness of Norway during WWII, two German soldiers escort a Norwegian soldier and prisoner of war, but the weather is taking a toll on them. They find an empty house near the forest where they finally can get some rest. However, what seems to be a warm and welcoming shelter turns much more sinister and deadly. They begin to wonder if they have somehow have stepped into a sort of psychological hell from which there may be no escape.”

Finally — Nazis on the other end of the pain stick. I bet they start a snowball fight to end all snowball fights.

DEMON EYE (2019)
“A young girl returns to her father’s country house in the Moors following his mysterious death. There, she finds a cursed amulet that will grant her greatest wish, but at a price.”

The cursed amulet that grants me my greatest wish is a beer bottle.

AMI (2019)
“Cassie has become a recluse ever since her mother died in a car accident. In an effort to fill the void, she downloads AMI, the latest intelligent personal assistant. As their relationship quickly deepens into a twisted co-dependency, Cassie falls deeper and deeper under AMI’s spell; not realizing that everyone she knows is in serious danger.”

I wish I had artificial intelligence.

What An Ice Hole

Don’t know why, but movies set in the snow (The Abominable Snowman/1957; The Thing/1982, Dead Snow/2009, are always exciting. And hey, snow is fun! You can draw on it without using a metaphorically big pencil (don’t let the steam sting your eyes); You can make lovely patterns in it using only your butt (“snow lungs”); And you can slide on it like a freshly oiled floor and giggle like a little schoolgirl while doing it, especially if you’re drunk (every winter since I turned 21).

So it’s with anticipation  I wait for the release of The Dark Below, a new horror thriller (pending 2015) making a big splash at Fantasia. As the press release says, “In this visually stunning, experimental thriller set on Michigan’s wintry frozen Great Lakes, a brutish serial killer imprisons his still-living latest victim in the watery depths. Thus begins a uniquely chilling story of survival and shocking revelation.”

Fangoria magazine goes further and declares, “You haven’t seen anything like it. This accomplished experiment in narrative storytelling tears every convention apart.”

I’m thinkin’ a snowball fight of epic proportions.

Wishful thinking aside, The Dark Below, starring the legendary Veronica Cartwright, is a “terrifying tale about a divers struggle to stay alive beneath a frozen lake while a killer hunts them from above.”

I bet The Dark Below is a sort of distorted reality wherein the killer is some sort of reverse land Orca hunting humans to eat as they swim and frolic below in the icy water. Relentless pursuit has always been the hungry whale’s first line of culinary strategy.

German Zombies and Werewolves

An odd horror sub-genre that once again resurrects Nazis as zombies, this latest entry being Bunker of the Dead 3D (2015), shot first-person shooter (or “POV”) style. Both are boring because it’s been done some many gott verdammt times, notably dating back to 1977’s Shock Waves, in which underwater Nazi zombies come up from the sea bed to eat your head. (Note to purists: there were probably other Nazi horror movies before that, but I haven’t had my breakfast/lunch/dinner/bed time snacks yet and as yet can’t think clearly.)

In Bunker of the Dead 3D you will be subject to annoying hand-held camera POV video game style filming, with lots of swearing, gun fire and meaty zombies. Ambitious to be sure. But man, can’t someone come up with something more original that hasn’t been done one billion million times? Geez.

Not that I got that off my war chest, here’s what’s inside of Bunker of the Dead 3D: “Two friends spend their weekends trying to find a WWII underground military base. Used by the Nazis as a secret research institute, it is rumored to hide the lost gold of the Third Reich. The entrance of the cave system, however, lies right within the restricted area of a US military base. The first of many problems the two friends will have to face.” Ugh, that press release copy is as weak as the whole movie idea.

For my Deutsch marks Dead Snow (2009) and Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014) are two of the best/funniest/fun Nazi zombie movies going. For an even weirder and f’d up Nazi horror movie, you might want to check out Frankenstein’s Army (2013). Despite its limited budget, the story is far from haufen mist and it features some of the sickest monster hybrids this side of Hellraiser’s (1987) Cenobites.

Or if surreal monsters make your tum tum hurt, you could try Werewolf Hunt (2012). I haven’t seen it, but the guy who drives the garbage truck on my block insists it’s a war movie that refers to a Nazi underground bunker called Werewolf. Too bad if it’s true; Nazi werewolves (like the ones featured in a bloody dream sequence in An American Werewolf in London (1981) seems like overlooked Nazi gold.

Deader Snow

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead. Finally – a sequel to a movie that actually deserves to have a sequel. [se•quel / noun / a literary work, movie, etc., that is complete in itself but continues the narrative of a preceding work.]

The plot, as if one is really needed – “Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead follows the sole survivor of a Nazi zombie attack who battles an even larger army of zombies with the help of The Zombie Squad, a professional gang of zombie killers from the U.S.”

If you saw the utterly awesome Dead Snow (2009/Norway), you know what all of the above means: someone’s torso is gonna get opened like a wet Christmas present and the contents therein strewn across a landscape of pristine white snow. Happy entrails to you.

Dead Snow situated a bunch of med students on a ski vacation in a cabin on a snow-lathered mountain. They find a cache of gold, which belonged to a WWII Nazi Einsatzgruppe, who probably stole it. Nazis can be so mean.

By taking the gold, the party people resurrect the Nazis who are now flesh slurping zombies who need the money to buy services and goods. Or just to have it in their retirement portfolio. Once the undead dig out from the frozen sliding area, full on intestine-flinging action ensues. Put Dead Snow in the “Top 10 Zombie Movies of All Time” category.

As for Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead, put me in the “I’m writing my name in the snow with total excitement to see this one” category.