SNOWPIERCER is crazy underrated. I don't understand how people have a problem with the tone of that movie and not his other films.
Haven't seen it yet, but presumably it has to do with the barrier of language being removed. It's perhaps easier to accept outlandish things when they're said in a foreign tongue and then translated into English (which makes one more forgiving of the language being used), than it is when it's your own language. The foreign language adds a layer of artifice which helps with making things just "off".