Metelitsa: Winter of the Dead, Zombies in Russia

Great quotes from Russian Cinema? Here is the one that we have all heard, "F#@K! There are zombies! That's Resident Evil...everyone dies at the end." Yep, the keynote oration from "Battleship Potemkin." Er...actually, it is from 2012's "Metelitsa: Winter of the Dead." True poetry on film! Filmed in Belarus, directed by Nikolai Pigarev, this zombie film may be a metaphor of Vladimir Putin's crusade against a grouchy all-girl band and all free thinking Russians...but probably just a bloody zombie flick from a land with a fast-growing sense of humor.

Summer in Russia...and its snowing! Constantine (Michael Borzenkov) is a Moscow reporter sent to an unidentified Russian city to cover some protest. Uh oh, the summer snow isn't the only messed up phenomenon. The dead are coming back to life and within hours the entire population are zombies except for a motley crew of Russians. Constantine immediately joins up with teen rollerblader, Iskra (Tatyana Zhevnova) who kills zombies with a nail gun. Also, Khan (Sergey Shirochin)...an oil industrialist who is running for governor. He takes the occasion of a zombie apocalypse to film a campaign add promising to restore the region to normal. As Khan and his bodyguards (who will all be eaten) fight for their survival, Constantine and Iskra (who is also Khan's daughter) seem to be trapped.

Enter Igor (Dmitriy Kozhuro), the last surviving soldier...and his machine guns. He saves our duo, but then he'll need rescuing. Enter Dariya (Yuliya Yudintsova) who is taking on the zombie apocalypse in a little black dress and stiletto heels. This is Khan's trophy wife and Igor is her lover. Iskra sees her as a mortal enemy, but this motley crew of survivors will have their hands full killing the undead and surviving an inconvenient apocalypse. As the snow gives way to a night fog, decapitated zombie heads fly through the city as Father Michael (Aleksandr Abramovich) and his axe joins the survivors. As all looks hopeless our gang come up with a plan and perhaps a theory of why all this is happening.

Will Khan's election chances depend on American meddling? Will Iskra and Dariya put there differences aside and work together to defeat the horde of undead, or will they engage in a cat-fight? Will the snowy apocalypse spread to Moscow and all parts west? Fast-paced and bloody, this Russian gore-fest is a neat little zombie flick that looks big-budget. For some neat zombie drama from the land no longer behind an 'iron-curtain,' see "Metelitsa: Winter of the Dead."