Norway

Interview by: Johnny Butane By now there’s really no way, if you read the site on a regular basis, that you’re not at least somewhat aware of Dead Snow. The zombie film from Norway has been getting all kinds of attention thanks to its eye-catching ad campaign, and the fact that it’s a movie about frozen Nazis coming back from the dead to eat the living. Not even in the U.S., where we pride ourselves on how clever we are, has anyone set a zombie movie in the snow. Until not, not only had the Norweigans not, either, but they had zero zombie output to speak of! We managed to grab the attention of Dead Snow producer Terje Stromstad, currently enjoying the balmy weather (compared to Norway, at least) of Park City, Utah. Last night Dead Snow has its premiere at Sundance 2009 and from what we heard it was a rousing success! Let’s find out how it got there… Johnny Butane: How is the Norwegian film industry right now? How difficult was it to get Dead Snow made? Terje Stroemstad: It´s tough, Especially when you make this type of genre film. It’s never been done in Norway before, and people are skeptical. We ended up not getting funded by the Norwegian government. The film was made with the help of private investors, private bank loans and selling waffles on the streets. JB: What got you involved with Dead Snow in the first place? TS; I met Tommy (director) at film school, and have since that produced everything that he writes and directs. JB: The internet seems to be really buzzed about Dead Snow, why do you think that is? Do you think it’s the Nazi element that sets this apart for fans? TS: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing to see all the different opinions that people have about the film. I think in general, people just LOVE the concept about the worst zombies you can get: Nazi zombies! Also Dead Snow is exotic. An army of nazi zombies running in the beautiful nature of north of Norway; could it be better than that? JB: Was it important to pull back on the gore overall since the film is a comedy at its heart, or was it felt that was an essential element? TS: We had no intention to pull back on the gore. We were pretty surprised actually after the cut when we saw that there was a lot more comedy elements that we thought! JB: Was it a dream come true to get into Sundance? TS: It was unreal. Remember, I got the phone call at 1 a.m. and I had big problems sleeping after that! Being here now, knowing that people from all over the world are looking at your film, is really cool. We couldn’t have dreamt about a better start than this for the film. JB: You worked with director Tommy Wirkola on Kill Buljo before this, so that’s two violent comedies in a row. Any plans to do something without comedy together in the future? TS: Yeah, we talked about doing a sequel of Notting Hill. Or not. We are here to entertain, so comedy will be a genre we will stick to. But you never know… JB: And speaking of straightforward horror, what is the status of Backwoods? TS: Backwoods has been sold to 25 countries, and has been the main platform for the director Patrick Syversen to get work in LA. JB: Have there been any discussions about a US release or are you waiting to see how it does at Sundance first? TS: I can say that there are several distributors that are very interested in the movie. Especially after our world premiere at Sundance yesterday, that was a HUGE success! So hopefully the American people will be able to see it around fall on cinemas. Ein zwei DIE! Thanks to Terje for taking the time out from the Sundance limelight to answer our inquiries! I’m sure we’ll be hearing some good distro news about Dead Snow very soon, so keep your eyeballs on Dread Central!