Games Review

Obviously, I am still a child. Not only do I play with games and toys, but I'm a sucker for a good cartoon. However, being an adult child, I am a little picky. For instance, I don't have the patience to sit through Adventure Time, and although Clone Wars is a cool-looking cartoon, I can't watch it because I know what happens to everybody (and it is not good).

But even with my distaste for superhero comic books, I still find cartoons I can dig. And my current time-eating favorite is The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. It's got all kinds of stuff I don't like - dimensional travel, silly costumes, Kirby-inspired face-masks, and a horrible theme song - but it's also got lots to love.

For instance, this cartoon (unlike the movie) got its background history right. The founding members of the Avengers were Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Wasp and Ant Man. Captain America doesn't come on the scene until the originals find him frozen in ice. The cartoon got this part right.

Another thing that makes Avengers worth watching is the banter. Clearly, this team is built on both the original, Stan Lee creations and the newly minted movie versions. Tony Stark in particular is the cocky, brash genius made interesting in the movies, which we didn't see in the comics until he had been around a while. The dialog between Cap and Stark, between Hulk and Hawkeye, between Wasp and every villain she shoots in the eye, brings dimension to the heroes.

I also like that this team that saves the world on a monthly basis has its share of interpersonal dilemmas. Ant Man leaves, then comes back. Hulk leaves, then comes back. Hawkeye likes Black Widow, then he hates her, then he likes her again. There's a lot of tension between the heroes, which makes for interesting stories even for a comic book that is largely about punching things with magical fists.

But really, all those other things could be merely palatable as long as the story holds up. And while I am tired of time-traveling world conquerors, dimension-tramping frost giants and pseuo-Nazis with magical powers, the stories built on these characters are pretty darn good. The stories build from one episode to the next, culminating in a massive showdown that has been in the works since the first half-hour. If you're even remotely able to find a reason to sit through an invasion by aliens in space spandex who travel through time, The Avengers will have keep you entertained, at least for 18 minutes at a stretch.

Actually, make that 17 minutes. You'll want to fast-forward through the opening music. It is painfully obvious that Danny Elfman was not available to record the theme song, because they apparently had to go with a cheesy boy band that rhymes 'one' with 'won.' As in, 'forever fight as one, until the battle's won.' I could only hear this once, and then I had to fast-forward to guard my sanity.

There are still better cartoons than this one, but The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes has one thing going for it that makes it attractive to me - it's all on Netflix. Both seasons are right there, so that you never have to wait a week to see if Hulk's super-soldier serum will give him shiny green gonads. Plus there are 26 episodes in each season, for more than 15 hours of campy cartoon fun.

So The Avengers has goofy armor. It has dorky villains pulled right out of 1968. It has the new, racially correct Nick Fury (who I would like a lot less if he were not Samuel L. Jackson). It has a theme song that is very similar to musical torture. But the stories are good, the characters are enjoyable, and the show is fun. If you have a whole bunch of time to kill, you can check it out on Netflix.

It's time for another zombie game review!

(I wonder if other reviewers get as many requests for zombie game reviews. Does Tom Vasel get hit up to write about zombie games every three weeks? Does that binswanger who does the flashy video reviews get zombie games thrown at him like confetti at a parade? Is it just me, or is everyone getting buried in games about the walking dead? And is there no other theme we can drive into the ground, hopelessly abused, until we're sick of seeing even the fun zombie games? If a zombie game falls in the forest, will it still be a boring, tired theme that desperately needs to be replaced with SOMETHING ELSE?)

The topic of this week's review is a game called City of Horror, in which you and a bunch of friends compete to stay alive while zombies eat almost all of you. It's not a zombie-killing game, or even a zombie-surviving game. It's really a game where you bribe your friends to kill your other friends, strike allegiances and then screw the people who saved you.

It's actually very fun. It didn't have to be a zombie game to be this fun - it could have been outer-space aliens, or parasitic fungus creatures, or fourth-graders on energy drinks (that's a seriously untapped market - if you've ever volunteered in a fourth-grade classroom after recess, when all the kids smell like stale sweat and dirty Twizzlers, and seen them get cranky because they need a nap, you know how terrifying they can be). But it is a zombie game, I think because Nazis as a group are now protected by the ACLU.

Every building has a certain number of spots, and every turn, you have to move one of your people and hope there's room so you don't get stuck in the street with the zombies. You have to scrounge for drugs and food and guns, and you have to share with your friends - but there's never enough to go around, so there will be some politics.

The core mechanic in City of Horror is voting. You vote to see who gets the best stuff, and you vote to see who gets eaten by zombies. The moving part is only there to make sure you don't get too comfy. The actual game play might sound a little like this:

RALPH: Oh, man, zombies are going to eat either my mom or Bob's bookie. Anyone want to team up with me to vote that they eat Bob's bookie?
GERTY: Why would we do that? I hope you both get eaten, because you made me stand outside last turn and my little boy got his arms torn off.
BOB: Ralph, I get two votes. There's no point in voting. You can't win.
RALPH: If I vote for my mom this time, and don't give you any heat, will you help me out when it comes time to eat Gerty's other child?
BOB: No, seriously Ralph, it's a non-issue. I have two votes. You have one. Your mom is dead.
RALPH: Gerty, help me out here. I'll give you this antidote.
GERTY: Ralph, are you high? I'm not in the church. I can't vote.
BOB: Ralph, dude, your mom is toast. Stop flailing.
RALPH: Hey! Debbie! Help me out and vote for Bob's bookie!
DEBBIE: Shut up, you idiot. I'm not even playing. I'm trying to watch Matlock.

The voting phase is all kinds of brutal. There's a ton of choosing who gets to die, and you'll see a lot of arguments that point out how much better someone else is doing, to try to throw your friends under the bus. It all comes down to pointing fingers at each other and hoping you didn't catch the short straw, and that means nice people tend to win this game, mostly because nobody wants to pick on the nice people. I doubt I will ever win this game.

After four turns, the National Guard shows up in helicopters and evacuates everyone who is still alive. Presumably they also shoot all the zombies, but that part is sort of vague. They might buy all the zombies Hostess pies so Spider-Man can web them and hang them up in front of the police station. It really doesn't matter. But it is fun to picture all the zombies getting distracted by apple pies.

(If you don't get the Hostess pie/Spider-Man reference, ask a nerd who read comic books in the 70s.)

City of Horror is an interesting social experiment, if nothing else. It's interesting to wonder if this is how actual live-or-die encounters would go in real life - would your best friend force you out the door to save a crippled old lady? Would he kick you out to save himself? You hope not, but let's face it, you'll never really know. I would sleep with one eye open, if I were you.

If you're a fan of games where social interaction is more important than making the smart play, and you're not tired of zombie games yet, you might really like City of Horror. I had a great time, though I don't see a scenario in which I can ever win the game. I enjoyed the backbiting and deal-making and underhanded politics that went into making sure the toddler on the tricycle died before my jaded businessman. The art is brilliant (it's from Asmodee, so that's a given), and the rules are straightforward and easy to grasp. Which is more than I can say for my aging comic-book references.

Summary

3-6 players

Pros:
Excellent social interaction
Massive body count
Get to know which of your friends are real bastards

Cons:
Cardboard standup zombies (not that I need any more plastic zombies)
Ye Gods! Not another zombie game!

If you're not tired of the zombie-game craze yet, you can get a copy of City of Horror at Noble Knight Games:

THE TIRED UNDEAD

Oh no! Not another road trip!

Do you love games, and just hate when you have to leave your house and all those wonderful games? Well, we want to introduce you to a wonderful new product, designed just for you! It's the Minigame Library, and you're going to love it!

The Minigame Library delivers magnificent games that you can play any time, whether you're driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour or sleeping in the car while a bear shreds your tent.

(Drake's Flames does not recommend playing games while driving, unless you're on a closed course and you're not at home. It's fine to try stupid stuff you see on TV, as long as you're not at home.)

 Boring night at the in-laws house? Liven up any party with Grimoire Shuffle, a team game for either 4 or 6 players where the board shifts all the time and every player has special moves! Your wife's mom will hate you forever if you don't eat her horrible lasagna, but she'll forgive you when you break out this hilarious game of high-spirited hijinks!

Of course, we couldn't call it a library if we only had one game, so we added Noir, the game of sliding cards and deduction. Two players face off in this hunt to flush out your opponent's secret identity, and the only way you can do it is to slide cards around and see if the other guy says 'yeah, that one is me!' Add another player or two and try a whole different game! Literally, the rules are completely different.

So how much would you pay for a box that had two great games in it? If you said 500 dollars, you're insane! Nobody would pay that! But if you said 100, you're STILL too high! The Minigame Library can be yours for just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling). Amazing!

Too good to be true? Not yet! Because if you act now, we will also add Infinity Dungeon, a game so stupid that just opening the box will make you a little dumber! It's like a role-playing game that you play with cards, especially because nobody wins! (Technically, the rules say that the person who had the most fun wins. Sadly, that means nobody wins.) You'll cross a dark room full of pit traps using a laser blaster and a pirate ship, and make sure you steal the garden gnome or... There is no or else! Not only is there no reason to try to win this game, there's not actually any reason to play in the first place!

Now how much would you pay? Don't answer yet!

We know how much you love games, so we just kept shoving them in there. For those times when you've got a reasonable good-sized tabletop and half an hour you don't want any more, you can play Master Plan! Become a comic-book villain on a death-race TV game show, and beat your opponents to the trophy while avoiding bombs and pit traps! Yes, we added more pit traps! This game is at least not stupid, though it does get a little slow, but you'll probably love it because it beats the hell out of getting eaten by bears!

All these games can be had for the low, low price of just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling), but we're not done yet! Call in the next ten minutes and we'll add Blades of Legend, a game designed for people who have a lot more friends than I do! At Drake's Flames, we hope you'll really like Blades of Legend, because we don't have enough gamer friends to play this wild hidden-identity game! And we've been sitting on this review for almost two months as it is, so we're writing it anyway!

What an amazing deal! Act now, and you can get Grimoire Shuffle, Noir, Infinity Dungeon, Master Plan and Blades of Legend for just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling)! That's five games for the price of one! Or two! Maybe! I mean, they are card games. Those aren't usually sixty. Those are more like 20 or so. So maybe it's five games for the price of three! Yeah, we'll go with that.

But wait! There's more! We've gone flat-out buck-wild crazy, and we're adding one more game! Get your hands on the Minigame Library, and score your own copy of Pixel Tactics! We've saved the best for last, because Pixel Tactics is pretty kick-as! This two-player, head-to-head game of smart plays and smarter plans is the highlight of the Minigame Library, and the best candidate in the box for the game we could sell without all those other games! But you can't get it on its own, so pick up a copy of the Minigame Library and buy five mediocre games and one great game for the price of three decent games!

(Offer not valid in Wisconsin or the Giza Strip. Well, if you want it that bad, maybe they'll ship it to you. I'm just the lawyer. I am also required by law to tell you that some of these games are fun, at least one is too stupid to have ever been printed, and one is downright bad-ass. The idea of putting six games in one box is pretty cool, but it would be even cooler if they were all more awesome. If 99 Designs sells Pixel Tactics by itself, pick it up, because it's pretty wicked. The rest - you could take them or leave them. Especially Infinity Dungeon. Leave that one, for sure.)

Summary

2-12 players, depending on the game you choose

Pros:
Really cool idea, putting six games in one box
Some of the games are actually OK
Nice quality cards and some entertaining art
Pixel Tactics was kind of awesome

Cons:
Doesn't seem like a great deal when you're selling me games I don't want
Infinity Dungeon is dumber than a bag of hammers

If you want more information on the Minigame Library, check out the 99 Designs site at:
http://www.lvl99games.com/?page_id=1459

I swear, I have not started playing for the other team. I still dig chicks. But I also loved Pitch Perfect, a movie where a bunch of nerds enter competitions where they sing and don't have any backup music. Again, I am not gay.

 The thing is, Pitch Perfect was freaking hilarious. From the disturbing little Japanese girl who whispers that she starts fires to feel joy to Fat Amy doing horizontal running, the movie is jam-packed with laughs. Every character in the movie has a funny line at some point. The one guy from Workaholics is in there, and he's funny as hell, too. The whole movie is just damned funny.

But there are plenty of comedies out there. You could watch one of those ridiculous Wayans brothers send-ups, if you just want a comedy (and if you can find absolutely nothing else to watch). Pitch Perfect doesn't just make you laugh. It makes you smile.

There are essentially two or three stories running alongside each other. You've got the classic romance - will the guy get the girl? You've got the team battle - can the all-girl singing squad win the national competition? And will the main character, a stand-offish hottie who pushes people away from her, be able to overcome her general mistrust of everybody and make some lasting friends? OK, there's really nothing earth-shaking here, but that's fine. Pitch Perfect is a likeable movie, a fun movie, a smiling movie. It's not a brain-stressing indie film, and you'll smile at the outcome to all these stories, as you watch the lead girl discover herself in the great big world.

I don't think I'm actually selling this very well. Usually, a sing-off in a date movie is the exact opposite of a compelling reason to watch a movie. In fact, until my wife chose this one because it was her birthday, there was no possible way I was going to consider watching Pitch Perfect. Which is why I'm going to have to ask you to trust me. Pitch Perfect is so good, I watched it twice.

I've saved the best part for last - the musical numbers. Let me reiterate that I am not the least bit romantically interested in men. Furthermore, I hate musicals. Why anyone thinks it ever makes sense for a regular conversation to suddenly break into song is beyond me. I heartily dislike Andrew Lloyd Weber, and I have very little patience for most Disney movies. I would rather clip my toenails than watch Glee. Yet I couldn't wait for the singing to start in Pitch Perfect.

This is not a musical. The characters do not start singing unless they have a good reason. Nobody is just walking along, minding their own business, and then they start serenading the birds. The songs happen when they should, and they're amazing (except the ones that are supposed to be boring, and that's OK because they are occasionally punctuated by spontaneous projectile regurgitation). They're incredibly fun because they're original and fresh and upbeat. When the lead character breaks into her solo at the end of the movie, my smile got so big I was afraid my face would get stuck that way and completely ruin my reputation as a grumpy old man.

A funny thing happened to me since I saw Pitch Perfect. I mentioned it to a friend at work - who absolutely loved it, and I was surprised. Then I mentioned it to my best friend, who is a cop and a bad-ass, and he had seen it, and HE loved it. I'm not just blowing smoke up your skirt as a joke - Pitch Perfect really is an exceptionally fun movie, one that will make you laugh and smile and maybe dance a little. I swear.

As lots of people know, I had a house fire a year ago that destroyed every game I owned. It also almost killed my son. Since that time, I've replaced a pretty good number of those games, though happily, I didn't have to replace my son. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to buy a new teenager? Probably not that expensive, actually. Most parents would probably pay me to take their teenage children off their hands.

A few people have asked me what games I replaced, and I thought it would make a handy article, and give me something to write about so I don't have to plow through eight episodes of Band of Brothers just to have a blog post.

1. Warhammer Quest.

Yep, it's still my favorite. The insurance gave me $500 to replace it, and I spent the whole thing. I got the base game in great shape, and it was even unpainted (bonus for me, since I prefer to paint my own minis). The merciful soul who sold the game to me also had a huge mess of extra minis and all the White Dwarf mags that had Warhammer Quest articles, and I got four of the expansion heroes, to boot. I was happy.

2. Heroscape.

My good friend had some extra Scape, and since that's pretty darn close to my favorite of all time, he let me buy it from him cheaper than he should have.

3. Frontiers, Nostra City and Wicked Witches Way.

I lump these all together because they were wicked cheap on Tanga and I got them all at the same time. I love all three of these games, especially Nostra City. When you have a game where you can rat your opponents out to the FBI while you peddle heroin and run whores, it's a winner in my book.

4. That's it.

See, the insurance gave me money for the games, but the repairs on the house went over by almost 20 grand. I wasn't able to buy replacements, because I had to fix my house. So those games are the only ones I was able to buy again. However...

5. Sentinels of the Multiverse.

When the guys at Greater Than Games found out about the fire, they sent me out a copy of the enhanced edition of Sentinels. Holy crapcakes, that's a fun game, and I've been playing the hell out of it. Mad thanks to the Greater Than guys, and also...

6. Super Dungeon Explore.

Same deal with the Cool Mini Or Not marketing dude - he replaced my copy of Super Dungeon Explore, because not only is he awesome, but I can't very well review expansions if I don't have the game.

7. 7 Wonders.

I actually do freelance work for the head marketing guy at Asmodee, and so on top of a bunch of other stuff, he hooked me up with a replacement for 7 Wonders after I helped out at BGG Con.

8. Russian Board Games That Are Actually Card Games.

The Russian guys who make the excellent Potion Making Practice sent me all the games that were lost in the fire, and threw in the expansions. I love those guys.

9. Nightfall.

The guy at AEG is a prince. I ran into him at BGG Con and he said to tell me all the games that I didn't have any more so that he could send me replacements. To be honest, I still haven't taken him up on the offer, because I feel obligated to plow through my current crop of review copies before I go asking for more. But the point is, he's a prince, and I can get Nightfall again when I finally have room in my review schedule.

9. Risk Legacy, Earth Reborn and Race for the Galaxy.

These were gifts from my old man. He's pretty awesome. Seriously. I can't emphasize enough how cool my dad is.

10. Rush N Crush.

My friend John saw a copy of Rush N Crush on sale at GenCon, and when he saw it, he remembered me talking about how much I like it. So he just up and bought it for me. He wouldn't let me pay him back, either.

11. Risk Black Ops.

The best one of all of these is this one right here. This is a bigger collector's item than Warhammer Quest, and I was certain I was never going to see it again. But my friend who worked at Hasbro finagled me a copy, and so I will bear his children,if he asks.

That's it. I would love to show you a long list of stuff, but for one thing, I wouldn't replace a long list of games, and for another thing, the money ran out. There weren't a whole lot of other games I would have bought anyway, and I actually got replacements for more than I thought I would. I'm lucky as hell to have some great friends, and a great dad, and I know some great people in the gaming world. While I would not recommend burning your house down just to find out how lucky you are, I'm not altogether sad it happened. Sure, it put an end to VixenTor Games by destroying all my tools and inventory, but it gave me something more valuable - it let me see how many incredible people I know.

And now I owe all these guys beers. My bar tab is going to murder me.

Yeah, you read the title right. The name of the game is Chicken Caesar. It's a political game. About chickens.

I can only imagine how the idea came to the designer. He and his girl are sitting in a restaurant ordering dinner. Being a man, he is ordering steak, maybe beer, possibly with a huge baked potato. His girl, on the other hand, asks for a salad. 'Chicken Caesar,' she tell the waiter, and the dude has this momentary flash of what he thinks at the time is brilliance. He thinks about it all night, is too distracted to pay attention to his woman, and then ends up sitting up all night making a game about roosters in the Roman senate.

It should go without saying that the theme is a little silly. Various families of chickens scratch and claw to claim the best seats in the senate and establish family legacies. Foxes eat many of these chickens, and when one of them does manage to become Caesar, that poor bastard winds up in the farmer's cook pot. Oh, and they wear togas.

But what is not immediately obvious is that the game is actually very good. This is especially tough to spot when you read the rules, because while they definitely describe how to play, they do a horrible job of telling you what you're actually doing. When you get all the way through the rules, you'll have to go back and read them again to try to understand what the hell you're trying to accomplish.

But once you start playing, and you're all competing for the best gigs in the senate, and you're bribing other players and promising favors and stabbing each other in the back, the goal becomes pretty obvious - reach the top of the food chain in whatever ugly manner makes that possible. And 'food chain' is meant politically, because the top of the real food chain in this game is the fox that makes off with members of the senate almost every turn. There's a significant body count in Chicken Caesar, and every turn you'll be maneuvering and negotiating to keep yourself alive long enough to rule, even if it's just for one turn.

Chicken Caesar is a delightfully social game, one in which the tactics are less important than your ability to coax your opponents into screwing somebody else. You'll maneuver yourself into a position to help out a fellow rooster, then extract a bribe to save his bacon. You'll offer to trade votes - you vote for me, I vote for you - and then you may or may not actually follow through. And even if you do follow through, if you're good, you'll profit a lot more than the guy you help.

And then, if you've got roosters in the right place, you'll kill the bejeezus out of all the others. This part is hilarious fun, because you have to share the chicken-killing power with up to two other people, and they'll have a pretty good idea if you're trying to kill their elected roosters. So you have to play a little nice, throw blame to other players, and ultimately send as many scheming chickens as possible to the belly of the fox.

If you prefer tactical games where you maneuver your troops into position and set up firing solutions, you are not going to love Chicken Caesar. If you like to maximize the efficiency of your gaming engine, this is not the game you want. But if you like to cajole and threaten and promise and betray, then you are definitely going to want to get your hands on this game. It's political fun, better with more players, and the art is fantastic, even if it does feature chickens in Roman robes.

Summary

3-6 players

Pros:
Great visual design
Tons of social interaction
Excellent body count
Rewards scheming and plotting

Cons:
Not great if you dislike being mean to other players
Thematically silly

You can only get Chicken Caesar from Game Salute, unless you can find it in stores. You can order it here:
AVE ROOSTER

I don't generally have much interest in foreign film, whether it's French arthouse navel-gazing or dubbed Japanese classics. But every now and then, a foreign movie challenges what we expect out of cinema, elevating the art form and raising the bar for filmmaking in general.

Dead Snow is not one of those movies.

Dead Snow is stupid. It should be pretty obvious once I explain the premise - a bunch of med students going to a cabin in the mountains encounter frozen Nazi zombies - but this is a film designed for people who giggle out loud when they see brains fall out of heads. Nazi zombies, as it turns out, are fast and mean and much more dangerous than regular zombies. Mostly because they don't follow any rules, not even the rules set out by the movie itself.

Just so you can get a feel for how stupid this movie really is, here are a few highlights:

- The creepy old man comes to the cabin and tells the kids to be careful, because Nazi zombies are out there. Then he leaves, goes to a deserted part of the mountain, and sets up a tent for the night. Predictably, he is killed by Nazi zombies. Probably because, despite just having told the med students that Nazi zombies made it dangerous to go out at night, he decided to go out at night.

- The creepy old man tells the kids (before he is killed by Nazi zombies) that there were about 300 soldiers, and most of them were killed, but some escaped just to be lost in the snow and turned into Nazi zombies.  So there should be a relatively small number of Nazi zombies, right? No. Apparently they are having Nazi zombie orgies to create more Nazi zombies, because later in the movie, hundreds of Nazi zombies start popping out of the snow like they were shot out of a toaster.

- Sometimes the Nazi zombies are very strong, like when one of them grabs a kid's head, puts its thumbs in the poor boy's eye sockets, and rips the kid's skull in half. That would take some pretty impressive upper-body strength. But other times they are candy-ass Nazi zombies, like when one punches a college kid in the face and barely hurts him at all. Strong enough to pull a skull apart and weak enough to hit like a girl. No wonder they lost whatever battle left them moldering in the snowy mountains of Sweden - they just can't decide whether to be killing machines or ski bunnies.

- The Nazi zombies are killing people from the opening scenes of the film, but at the end, we discover they were just angry because the kids had their gold. Except that the kids did not have their gold when the Nazis started killing them.  Apparently Nazi zombies do not need many excuses to rip heads off college kids.

There are more inconsistencies, plot holes and idiotic moments, but if I tell you about all of them you won't have any reason to see the movie (outside watching a guy rappelling down a mountain using Nazi zombie intestines for rope). If you have a lick of sense, you also don't have a reason to see Dead Snow, but it just might be that you like campy horror movies with ludicrous bloodshed.

If you do enjoy a brainless comedy-horror flick, however, Dead Snow should be on your watchlist. It is intensely idiotic, but it doesn't take itself the least bit seriously, and it contains some rather clever moments. Some of the lines are hilarious, even when you're hearing them in Swedish and reading the translation at the bottom of the screen.

Dead Snow is also a very self-aware movie. The writers know what they are creating, and they want you to know that they know. It follows horror-movie tropes with near-religious fanaticism, acknowledging its roots in dopey slasher flicks. It even has a moment, near the beginning of the film, when the characters are discussing how many stupid horror movies start off with a bunch of kids going up to a remote cabin before they all get horribly murdered. And I love when the one college student, covered in gore and slaying Nazi zombies as fast as he can, screams, 'We should have just gone to the beach like I said!'

I first heard about Dead Snow in a promotional video created by a Swedish pop singer. It was a music video with a perky little blonde who sang a charming tune called, 'My Ass,' in which she extolled the virtues of her shapely backside. Halfway through this nearly pornographic little ditty, the singer pauses while girls carrying large cards reading 'Dead Snow' walk in front of the camera. The song has absolutely nothing to do with Dead Snow, and the promotion was so immensely out of place that I had a very good idea exactly what kind of movie it was. And I was pretty sure it was going to be inane. And I was right.

But it is fun, and the writers know they are making a stupid movie, to the point that they actually bother to reference other stupid movies. Dead Snow is an example of one of those 'so bad it's good' films, the kind you watch with a bunch of other people who are all halfway inebriated and amused by impossible decapitation. Stupid and campy and gory and fun, Dead Snow will entertain even while it lowers your functional IQ.