Peripheral Vision: Reflecting on ‘Dead Snow’ and ‘Oculus’

My last two columns in this series profiled the environmental docu-drama The Green Chain and Velcrow Ripper's personalised exploration of activism and spirituality, Fierce Light. Both of these films dealt with serious topics so this time around I thought I should lighten up. Don't get the idea that I'm going to be talking about the indie equivalent of Anne of Green Gables or Disney's Fantasia, though. Neither of the films profiled here are family-friendly and one is definitely not for viewers with weak stomachs.

Dead Snow

Getting attacked by regular zombies has got to be bad enough, but getting attacked by evil Nazi zombies when you are in a secluded hut in the Norwegian mountains has really gotta suck! That mountain shack scenario is the premise of Dead Snow (Død Snø), a Norwegian made zombie movie that was an Official Selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

According to director Tommy Wirkola, Dead Snow is the first zombie movie to come out of Norway. If you take away the snow, however, and substitute undead Nazis for demons or psychotic members of the Vorhees family, you have a film that bears a distinct resemblance to The Evil Dead or Friday the 13th. Like those movies, the plot of Dead Snow exploits our fears of isolation by sticking a bunch of beer-swilling college students in a remote spot and having them picked off one at a time in gruesome fashion. It's a simple formula but  entertaining if you can handle splatter.

Dead Snow's setting is the snowy mountains just off the Norwegian coast and Wirkola takes advantage of the stunning scenery to provide a backdrop for the story. Seeing zombies in the snow, and Nazi zombies at that, makes a change from watching the undead chow down on the living on the streets of major cities. Not surprisingly, it's hard to take it seriously. Thankfully the filmmakers don't. Dead Snow's over-the-top gore and descent into absurdity is obviously influenced by Sam Raimi's Dead films. The filmmakers even borrowed particular plot elements from those movies, including a scene where one character cuts off his own hand with a chainsaw.

To say that the plot of Dead Snow is simple, unoriginal and predictable should not be taken as a damning indictment of the film.  Screenwriters Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen clearly had no pretence about making a movie that offers a revolutionary Scandinavian take on the genre. In fact, they acknowledge their American influences in the film's dialogue and in a comment made by Wirkola on the film's British website.

"The last few years the cinemas have been flooded with horror films that seem to have one sole purpose, and that is to make the audience feel sick, depraved and depressed," Wirkola says. "Dead Snow is a film that goes exactly the opposite way. It's a kickback to the good old slashers like Braindead and the Evil Dead series, where people will scream and jump in their seats and minutes later laugh out loud."

Regardless of how different Dead Snow is from other recent horror films, it largely succeeds in its modest ambition to be a mixture of horror and comedy that's as black as an SS officer's uniform. It is the sort of film that's made for a Saturday night in with some strong-stomached friends and a six-pack. If you start drinking at the beginning, you should get the most out of the suspenseful first half-hour and be at least tipsy by the time the silliness takes over. Make no mistake, though, this is definitely not a film for your grandma. Be prepared for severed heads, torn limbs, punctured arteries and several sets of exposed intestines. There's even a scene where a half-dead character watches as two zombies poke around in her innards looking for the best bits. If it wasn't daft it would be sick. With scenes like that, the mature rating is well deserved.

In addition to appearing at Sundance, Dead Snow won the Audience Award for Best Feature at this year's Toronto After Dark Film Festival and was nominated for four 2009 Scream Awards: Best Horror Movie, Best Foreign Movie, Fight Scene of the Year and Most Memorable Mutilation.

Dead Snow was recently released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by E1 Entertainment. The DVD screener that we were sent came in a steelbook case, which seemed fitting for a film that references the mighty military machine of the Third Reich.  There are commendable number of special features on the disc, including a making-of documentary that runs at a admirable 49 minutes and featurettes on the special effects and make-up. A selection of trailers is also included and viewers have the choice of having the dialogue voiced in English, French or the original Norwegian (with or without English subtitles). Everyone should go with the native tongue, although the dubbed American accents sound so inappropriate that they make the film even funnier.

Oculus

Oculus (a.k.a Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with the Plan) is a very different horror film from Dead Snow. For one thing, it is only about half-an-hour long. That short running time is perfect, though, for a movie that makes a virtue of a conservative approach. Oculus is a lesson in how to make a smart, subtle and haunting film with the minimal materials.

For the majority of its running time Oculus features only one actor.  Furthermore, the film takes place in one white-walled room that contains no furnishings, several cameras and monitors and, with the exception of one other thing, only a couple of alarm clocks and telephones. The final object in the room is really the film's central character: a large, ornately framed mirror.

The principal human character in the story, Tim Russell (played by Scott Graham), is convinced that the mirror has exerted an evil influence over all those who have come into contact with it. Early in Oculus he gives a brief history of the tragic and mysterious deaths that have afflicted the mirror's past owners. These include his father, who went murderously insane under the mirror's reflective gaze. Tim is convinced that the mirror is responsible and is determined to record evidence of its macabre power. Hence, he locks himself in a room with it and arranges for cameras to record everything and for check-in calls every hour from his best friend.

Early into his self-imposed incarceration with the mirror, little seems to happen to Russell. As time goes on, however, he seems to increasingly loose his grip on reality. He can't make sense of time and he sees things that don't appear in the video recordings. Is he going mad? Are the images he sees in the mirror really there or in his mind? And where did the dog go? All of these questions vex Russell and cleverly create unease in the viewer.

/>Oculus was written by Jeff Seidman and independent filmmaker Mike Flanagan. These filmmakers understand the power of subtlety and recognise that not explaining everything can sometimes make a film a more rewarding experience. Oculus is one of those movies where its not clear what is really happening and it is all the more unnerving because of that.

Flanagan began his directing career at the age of 21 with the drama Makebelieve (2000). He followed that with Still Life (2001) and later directed projects for Discovery Channel and ESPN (including The Firefighter Combat Challenge (2001) for the latter). He has also helmed another supernatural film, Ghosts of Hamilton Street (2003), which he co-wrote with Dave Foster. He directed Oculus in 2005 and is currently working on the documentary American Marriage.

Oculus won awards at numerous film festivals, including Best of Fest, Best Horror/Sci Fi Film, Best Actor (Scott Graham), Best Director (Mike Flanagan) and Best Editing at MicroCinema Fest, Best Short Film at the Dead By Dawn Film Festival, HauntCon Horror Film Festival, the Festival of Fantastic Films and Dragon*Con Short Film Festival and Best Actor, Best Short Film and Best Sound in the Hollywood Investigator's Tabloid Witch Awards. A full list of the awards and festival screenings is given on the film's Facebook page or Mike Flanagan's website.

Flanagan has self-released Oculus on DVD and it is available in a Special Edition from Amazon.com. The DVD comes with bonus features that include the trailer and deleted scenes. Among the latter is an alternate ending that is interesting but inferior to the ending that Flanagan chose. Together with the rest of the film, that decision is a testimony to his talent as a filmmaker. Oculus is a movies that anyone with an interest in independent horror films should look into.

You can see trailers for Dead Snow and Oculus by clicking the Video tabs above.