Reviews

So, we follow the exploits and losses of young gay man, Ryan (Montgomery), through a, frankly, bizarre and ever-shifting perspective: the hand-held camera and the constant switching of video stock doesn't help. I don't know who likened this to John Cameron Mitchell's "SHORTBUS", but whoever did seems either to have missed the entire point of that great film, or confused its message with that of this dreary attempt. "WRECKED" is certainly inclined towards being sincere; its problem lies in relying too much on the explicitness to keep the audience's attention throughout, and then spends less than 20 minutes chronicling the downfall of our protagonist. Evidently shot with only a rough outline for each scene and no script - at one point the producer of the play even says, 'I can't believe that kid can even read English.' I appreciate unwitting irony! - the delivery of the dialogue is reminiscent of a gay porno; not as OTT as straight porn, but not what you might call 'naturalistic', either. In fact it has been described as 'porn with a plot', but I'd contest this on the grounds that porn is meant to arouse; WRECKED seems to presume that showing sex explicitly is daring, that it pushes the envelope for decency, and that's a fair assumption. The execution, however, is lacklustre; throw two guys together on a bed and say 'Go' ('Action' just sounds desperate in this context!) and an edgy, artsy, gritty film you are not making! That said, it redeems itself by not relying on stereotype. Effeminacy, check - but that's just life, although the play's director was a 'fabulous' bridge too far!

All in all, I'm reluctant to give it any higher than a 4/10; a sincere effort, but without a script, decent cast or a crew who knows which end the lens is on, WRECKED is just, well... a wreck.

Author and attorney, Mike Godwin, observes that with enough elapsed time, any given subject will inevitably turn to or include Hitler or the Nazis. And so it now is with the zombie genre. It was only a matter of time, I suppose. I'm sure a less publicised B-movie about Nazi zombies may have slipped by relatively unnoticed, but now the variation on the theme is in the mainstream.

When I first came across the film, it was the box art that struck me first; an evident zombie dressed in a high-ranking (Standartenführer – as I later came to learn) Nazi uniform… I'm not sure, but I think my initial reaction was to hold my head in despair. But, on to the film, which, I'll admit, was not so deserving of my disdain. From the get-go, I wasn't alarmed to find all the boxes ticked; this being a veritable mash-up of the zombie and slasher genres. A woman is tearing through flora and tundra, evidently trying to get away from something in a hurry, and accompanied, oddly enough, by Greig's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King', a piece of music oft used to advertise roller coasters and the like, and only relevant – as far as I can tell – because it includes the word 'Mountain', which is where the corpus of the film is set. Nevermind; it serves a comic purpose which I shall not spoil for you.

The chase prologue complete, we are introduced to our cast of vacationing students in very much the conventional, clunky manner. Interior shots of two cars, one containing the guys, the other the girls, outline who's who, and their relationships to each other, in a matter of sentences. Most notable are brave, handsome Vegard (Lasse Valdal), plausibly strong female Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), tag-along Chris (Jenny Skavlan) and film-buff Erlend (Jeppe Laursen). I single these out for various reasons, but primarily, everyone on-screen is typical of the genre, the only anomaly being Erlend who provides the film with a self-parodying, referential conscience. At numerous points, he makes references to the sort of films that came before Dead Snow, and at his most basic is that most uncommon of things: a character in a zombie-movie who has seen a zombie-movie! Once the intrepid group is assembled in their cabin, their reasons for being there soon become less and less clear. Evidently they are on Easter break, but are they on a skiing holiday, or what? The only person who knows the area is Vegard, and upon his departure to look for his girlfriend, one is left wondering if the sole reason for their isolation was to set up their eventual slaughter. I suspect this is, indeed, the case. Anyway, once settled, they are paid a visit by a mysterious and somewhat unnerving hiker who proposes that they be careful where they tread, lest the evil in the mountains get them. In brief, his tale establishes the hows and whys of there being zombie Nazis (or is it Nazi zombies?), and is, alas, a gossamer-thin justification for the films' premise. And so it begins. One character after another is gruesomely dispatched by increasing numbers of undead Nazi soldiers, in evermore graphic fashion. And that's OK. That's what you've paid to see! What appears on the screen, in terms of make-up and special effects, is, at its worst, amateurish, but at its best competent. Overall, there are decent moments of suspense, the gore is… liberally dished out, and at times the film is genuinely funny. There are references aplenty for any avid horror fan to spot, and it is accessible in its simplicity and familiarity. However, the thing that prevents me from praising it on its merits is that it has few. There isn't any real innovation to speak of; it's one of those films where the writer and director got together and thought 'wouldn't it be cool if…'. Paul W. S. Anderson makes those kinds of films; Uwe Boll makes those kinds of films, and it's unfortunate to have to tar these competent new-comers with the same brush. But let's not be unfair; this is an independent, low-budget film, and what Wirkola and his team accomplished is certainly noteworthy. In fact, within promotional material, the crew themselves speculate that audiences may comment on its amateurish feel, but that is part of its charm, and once you recognise it, you see past it and enjoy the film for what it is; an unapologetic bloodbath, paying homage to exploitation horror cinema. It owes a lot to everything that came before it, but at least it doesn't try to hide it like so many lesser (and more expensive!) films. I'd call it a surprisingly good effort; entertaining, but nothing to scream home about.