If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you'd have to assume that things couldn't get much worse. In Martin's case, that was only the beginning.
- Scott and SharonJuly 1, 2026Great find!!! A Helluva lot better than the first film. Did not expect that at all. Fun times!!!
- jackmeatDecember 22, 2025My quick rating - 6.6/10. Dead Snow 2, later rebranded as Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead, kicks off with a recap of the first film delivered by Martin (Geir Vegar Hoel), the unlucky survivor who famously hacked off his own arm in pure Evil Dead 2 fashion. If you’re worried the sequel might gently reset things, don’t be. It literally starts right where the first one ended, tossing Martin straight back into a snowy slap-fight with zombie Nazis. And I am glad it does. After yet another narrow escape, Martin wakes up in a hospital and quickly discovers that his severed, infected arm has been surgically reattached. You don’t need to be a horror scholar to know exactly where that’s going, and Wirkola wastes no time milking it for both gore and laughs. The arm has opinions. Violent ones. And it sets the tone perfectly for a sequel that understands escalation is the name of the game. Tommy Wirkola returns as writer/director, and this time he’s clearly been handed a bigger budget. Thankfully, more money hasn’t sanded off the rough edges. Instead, it just means Wirkola can afford a tank, more locations, and a significantly higher body count. The zombie Nazis are no longer content to loiter ominously in the mountains. They have ambitions now. World War II ambitions. After a stop at a WWII museum, Martin figures out the undead horde plans to finish the mission they were slaughtered before completing. Naturally, this involves recruiting more soldiers, the only way zombies know how: killing people and then touching their faces. Here’s the twist - Martin’s zombie arm can recruit people, too. Suddenly, it’s undead fascists versus undead resistance fighters, which is not a sentence I ever expected to type with a straight face. While all this is happening, Martin accidentally alerts the Zombie Squad, an elite American team of undead-fighting specialists who fly over to Norway to help. They’re led by Daniel (Martin Starr), whom I realized I have been watching on Tulsa King, and his crew arrives armed, confident, and wildly unprepared for just how insane things are about to get. Why stop there? Wirkola certainly doesn’t. The solution to the Nazi problem might involve resurrecting the Russian soldiers Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), the zombie Nazi leader, massacred during the war. Along the way, the Nazi advance leads to some wonderfully excessive pillaging, with intestines becoming frequent, enthusiastic participants. The bumbling policeman Gunga (Hallvard Holmen) is an idiot in the most lovable way, and the group’s zombie buddy (Kristoffer Joner) delivers consistent comic relief without wearing out his welcome. The action is surprisingly well-choreographed, the Gore Factor is gleefully over-the-top, and the whole shebang has a morbid finale to the tune of Bonnie Tyler that’s just as expected. It even leaves viewers pondering that age-old question: Is sex with a zombie considered necrophilia? Dead Snow 2 sits comfortably alongside the original - same silly tone, same extreme gore, and the same sense that the filmmakers watched Dead Alive on repeat and thought, “Haven't seen Mum yet.” A must-see for horror-comedy fans around Christmas who like their splatter served with a wink and a chainsaw.
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Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead was released on February 12, 2014.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead was directed by Tommy Wirkola.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead has a runtime of 1h 40m.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead was produced by Kjetil Omberg, Terje Strømstad.
If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you'd have to assume that things couldn't get much worse. In Martin's case, that was only the beginning.
The key characters in Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead are Martin (Vegar Hoel), Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), Monica (Jocelyn DeBoer).
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is rated R.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is a Horror, Action, Comedy film.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead has an audience rating of 6.9 out of 10.
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead has made $37,473 at the box office.