Fantasia Film Festival Day 11: #48 Dead Snow (2009) and #49 I Sell The Dead (2008)

Dead Snow
Dead Snow is about Nazi Zombies, that's all there is to say, what can go wrong?... A whole lot apparently. Dead Snow just felt so generic. The first hour plays out more like a slasher flick than a zombie movie as a group of friends decide to go spend a weekend up in a cabin in the snowy mountains. They start by getting picked off one by one and then when they realize they are being attacked they attempt to escape through the snowy forest. The movie picks up a bit after this point but never actually feels like a zombie movie there are usually very few zombies at a time and they just don't feel all that threatening. The Gore effects are really good and a whole lot of fun. Some highlights include: A guy hanging from a cliff holding on to a zombies intestines and another guy's face being ripped in half. The movie is shot too tightly during the zombie scenes. With a zombie movie in set on a snowy mountain side I'd expected fields of blood-covered snow but they never showed the action from far enough to see such glorious massacre. The last 10 minutes of the movie are great as we are treated with some fun decapitation sequences involving snowmobiles and chainsaws but the fun of those last 10 minutes don't make up for the boring first hour. An overall disappointing movie that would be better watched as a montage of specific sequences than as an actual whole. There aren't even any topless scenes!...

I Sell the Dead
An original and funny movie, I Sell the Dead tells the story of Arthur Blake a professional grave robber from his humble beginnings as an apprentice to his adventures digging up corpses to sell to the local doctors.The story plays out as a series of tales and anecdotes told by Arthur (Dominic Monaghan) to a Priest (Ron Perlman) as, accused for murder, he awaits his execution. Larry Fessenden (who kinda looks like a young Jack Nicholson) plays Arthur's mentor, Willie Grimes, a dirty old drunk man that knows his craft. Everything seems to be going fine until some of the corpses they find don't seem to stay dead. They eventually realize that selling the undead nets them more money and make it their new job to collect as much undead corpses as they can. Unfortunately a rival gang of grave diggers are also on the lookout for these rare corpses.
The movie's aesthetic recalls that of an old creature-feature and the humour comes from playing off that genre's conventions.
Apparently playing off the current Hollywood obsession with comic books, the movie transitions through its various tales with comic book like animations. It may seem gimmicky at first but it actually works really well with the look of the film.
Good movie, very stylish, very funny, maybe a tad bit short, something I don't see often these days.