Frankenstein's Army (2013)

Title: Frankenstein’s Army (2013)

Director: Richard Raaphorst

Cast: Karel Roden, Alexander Mercury, Luke Newberry, Hon Ping Tang, Andrei Zayats, Mark Stevenson

This one slipped through the cracks for me when it was first released, but I decided to give it a go because of all those positive quotes on the dvd case saying such great things about it. And to be honest, for a low budget straight to video release, the movie rocks; and it rocks even more so because normally, Nazi zombie movies just aren’t that good, but this one is, so there you go. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve only seen one really good Nazi zombie movie and that’s Dead Snow (2009), it’s the only one that’s really satisfied me. I mean, yeah, I’ve seen Shock Waves (1977) which had awesome visuals but was incredibly slow at times. And speaking of slow, Oasis of the Zombies (1982) and Zombie Lake (1981) are two Nazi zombie films that I’d rather forget about, they bored me to death! I’d also seen another one that I consider moderately good called Outpost (2008), my only problem with Outpost was that you didn’t get any Nazi zombies till really late in the film, something that Frankenstein’s Army does not suffer from. And speaking of Outpost, it has many similarities with Frankenstein’s Army from the way it was made; shooting in solated locations to the basic premise of having soldiers enter abandoned claustrophobic buildings with re-animated Nazi soldiers. But anyhow, I can safely say that Frankenstein’s Army is one of the best Nazi zombie films out there, read on and find out why.

On Frankenstein’s Army we follow a troupe of Russian soldiers who are on their way towards rescuing these Russian soldiers from the clutches of the evil nazi’s, their orders are to infiltrate this location and rescue them. Along the way they find some weird things, like dead bodies with weird shapes and appendages. The further in they go, the stranger things get! It isn’t long before they uncover a mad scientist conducting grotesque experiments dealing with the reanimation of dead Nazi’s! But the strangeness does not stop there!

Director Richard Raaphorst fooling around with his creations

This film comes to us from director Richard Raaphorst, a director who first started in the filmmaking business through working in the art department on various films, including work as a conceptual/story board artist in films like Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? (1998), Dagon (2001), Faust: Love of the Damned (2000) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003), which is a good thing in my book because it means that we have an artist behind the camera, which means we will probably end up with a film that has a strong visual style, which is the case with Frankenstein’s Army, there’s a real effort on the way things look. The film might be low budget, but director Richard Raaphorst makes the most of his locations. You see, Raaphorst knows the one trick that most low budget filmmakers live by: a great location makes your film look good. In an interview for Daily Dead, Raaphorst said that he didn’t know if the film was going to be made until he found that perfect location, once he found it, he was certain the film was going to happen. Frankenstein’s Army was shot in various abandoned buildings, which were made to look like the laboratory of a German mad scientist, the resulting look is very effective.

The film was shot “found footage” style, now, I’m not a hater of documentary style films because to me they are the best way to get us as audiences completely immersed in the film. The found footage style works great on Frankenstein’s Army because there’s many claustrophobic environments and dark corners, you feel as if you are walking down these creepy halls with these Russian soldiers, you feel as if something might jump out at you from the shadows at any given moment. Best part is that the creatures in Frankenstein’s Army are pretty horrific!

Raaphorst is the driving force behind the look of these creatures, which he designed himself. You see, Raaphorst had been dreaming of making this movie for many years now, he’d always been designing these monsters from childhood. The strange creatures that the mad scientist creates are composed of dead nazi soldiers joined with machines, creating a weird breed between zombie and machine, in this way Frankenstein’s Army has some elements of the cyber punk film, that idea of joining flesh with machine. The further the Russians go down the rabbit hole, the crazier the creatures get. Gotta hand it to Raaphorst, the creatures were the highlight of the film! They look like something that Clive Barker might have cooked up if he’d ever made a Nazi zombie flick. I enjoyed Frankensteins Army a lot, the locations were eerie and the monster designs awesome, but I couldn’t get past the idea that the movie should have gone further with its ideas.

I’ve got very few negative things to say about this one, but there’s the idea that these are Russian soldiers that we are following, but for some reason they speak English the whole time, and I’m like, okay, so they speak English with a Russian accent, fine. But then, their Russian accent comes and goes, and some don’t even have a Russian accent no matter how hard they try, so they come off as American actors trying to sound like Russian’s speaking English? And sometimes it just doesn’t work, but whatever, that was a minor hiccup in the film, it didn’t bother me so much. Also, we get to see cool monsters left and right and the film is filled with gruesome moments and vistas, but sadly we don’t get that big finale which the film seems to build up to, you are left wanting more; which in a way is a good thing because I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel! But considering the budget these guys were working with, I think they got away with a decent horror flick, you get the feeling that Raaphorst could have done more if he only had a bigger budget for effects work, but still, the film is pretty cool none the less. Hopefully some producer out there will notice the great work done here and will give Raaphorst and crew a few more millions to play with. So anyhow,  this is one of the best Nazi zombie films out there, I say give it a shot!

Rating: 4 out of 5   

Outpost (2008)

Title: Outpost (2008)

Director: Steve Barker

Cast: Ray Stevenson, Julian Wadham, Richard Brake, Michael Smiley,

Review:

My search for that awesome Nazi zombie continues. So far Dead Snow continues to be the #1 Nazi zombie movie for me, nothing out there has topped it yet. Outpost was one of those nazi zombie movies that has managed to elude me. The other two being Oasis of the Zombies and The Bunker, but Im not in a huge hurry to see them. Still my Tireless Reader, I promise to get to them, just so we have that whole Nazi zombie sub-genre thing covered in its entirety.

Outpost is the story of a group of mercenaries who are getting payed by a private firm to search out an abandoned military bunker in Eastern Europe . They are promised that it’s a small operation, in and out, 48 hours the most. The leader of the mercenaries isn’t quite sure that they are going to search for minerals as he was told. The whole team suspects that the true meaning of their search is another. Soon, they discover that the abandoned military bunker used to belong to Nazis that were participating in some sort of experiment that deals with the re-animation of dead soldiers! It isn’t long before the team begins to get attacked by Nazi zombies! What exactly has this team of mercenaries been sent to look for? Can the team escape from the bunker with their lives?

So this low budget flick has a lot of good things for it. First of all, I have to give props to the filmmakers for making this film look better than it should look. This is a very low budget production, the filmmakers even mortgaged their home to make it, but their efforts paid off because the film got some critical acclaim and it was released in theaters in Britain, the films country of origin. These filmmakers were smart, since they had little money they cut back their costs by setting their film in the woods and in a claustrophobic military bunker, filled with shadows and darkness. The bunker setting made me remember films with a similar premise, like for example John Carpenter’s The Thing. You know the premise because its been reused to death in horror films. Basically you take a bunch of paranoid/scared dudes, you locke them up in a claustrophobic environment and then you have them go nuts amongst themselves. That’s what we get with Outpost. During the course of the film, characters get on each others nerves, they betray each other, despise each other, but they have to learn to pull together or perish.

I thought it was interesting how the film addresses the issue of belief. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot films and documentaries that kind of question the way things are. I swear I’m not doing this on purpose! These are the kind of themes that are appearing in films today, questioning beliefs, questioning society, defying the way things are. For example, on Outpost we have two conflicting characters. One is a soldier who beliefs in god and country, going to church and all that, while we have another constantly defying his beliefs, telling him things like “nothing happens after we die, we just die” and this happens a lot during the movie, the questioning of the idea of god and what happens after death. This theme matches perfectly with the film because in essence this is a ghost movie. It’s never really explained very well, but apparently what we get in the film is a mix between zombies and ghosts. Kind of like the same thing that they did in Blood Creek, where we had a mix of zombies with vampires. So amongst other things, this film questions the afterlife and our belief in it, something that is commonly done in films that deal with the supernatural.

This movie handles suspense and atmosphere very well. The setting of the bunker is appropriately spooky for the kind of film this is. Lots of dark corners and passageways, you get a feeling of claustrophobia. My only problem is that the Nazi zombies take a little too long to appear. For a huge part of the film we don’t really see them up close and personal. This is another great way to save money in make up effects; you keep your characters hidden in the background, in shadows and silhouettes. On this movie, Id say that this worked great, it makes the group of Nazi zombies look more menacing.

On the downside, the film is so low budget that its scare techniques are very low key in nature. The Nazi zombies actually take a while to show up on screen, you get impatient when its been more than 40 minutes without a freaking zombie. But on the plus side, it does build up suspense very well, so I guess it compensates for that. Whenever the Nazi zombies appear in the forest, they do so with a blinding bolt of light that comes from the forest. The soldiers are attacked by a supernatural gust of wind. The Nazi zombies are some times kept far away in the woods, we see their silhouettes far in the woods, and whenever they get close and personal their faces are kept in shadows. Still, for a low budget flick, I say it could have been worse. If anything, what the film demonstrates is that all these filmmakers need is some cash to make a truly great film. So its one of those films that shows promise, but is set back by its budgetary limitations. Dead Snow is still my top choice for best Nazi zombie movie, followed by Shockwaves. Outpost could go on the #3 spot. Not a bad film, but it could have been so much more. Maybe things will turn out better in the proposed sequel: Outpost II: Black Sun.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Blood Creek (2009)

Title: Blood Creek (2009)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Dominic Purcell, Michael Fassbender, Henry Cavill

Writer: David Kajganich

Review:

What the hell happened to Joel Schumacher? The guy has directed some fine movies in his life time. The Lost Boys, St. Elmos Fire, Flatliners, A Time To Kill are examples of his good ones. Of course, like any other director, he’s had his couple of duds. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin come to mind. Damn, the guy is known as the director who killed the Batman franchise! But hey, all directors are entitled to one or two misses in their careers. Schumacher does has some decent flicks under his belt, which is the main reason why when I saw Blood Creek go straight to dvd I was a bit surprised. Joel Schumacher straight to dvd? Oh how the mighty have fallen! Then I noticed Blood Creek is  a Nazi zombie movie, so for that alone, I was attracted to rent the film. I thought “at least this straight to dvd horror flick has got an experienced director behind it. Plus it’s a Nazi zombie movie” So I rented it, expecting Id get at the very least a decent straight to video horror film. Boy was I wrong!

The spooky farmhouse where most of the film takes place

Story is all about Hitler and his supposed interest in the occult. According to this film, Hitler was after some ancient runes that could supposedly bring the dead back to life. A family’s farm in West Virginia rests on top of one of these life giving runes, so Hitler sends one of his henchmen to the United States to investigate the rune and retrieve it. The family quickly accepts the nazi's offer because of the monetary compensation they get. Fastforward to modern times, and this evil nazi is now trapped in the basement of the home, and is looking for a way out. He has been kept alive for years and years by feeding on helpless victims. Apparently he has been gathering his strengths, waiting for his chance to live again. But one of his victims manages to escape! And this victim is looking to get some decent payback! Will he be able to destroy the Nazi zombie and his servants?

My special bone armor will protect me from evil!

The same thing that has happened with practically every Nazi zombie movie I have ever watched happened again. The thing about Nazi zombie movies is that they have a cool premise to play with, yet they always screw it up! These movies never take full advantage of the supernatural elements in their premises. Nazis, the occult, the supernatural…that’s a winning combination right there. So how come filmmakers are never able to make a decent Nazi zombie movie? Well, let me take that back. I did enjoy Dead Snow (2009). That one was pretty decent. Lots of gore, cool looking zombies. But Dead Snow is an exception to the rule, because as far as I know, every Nazi zombie movie I have seen blows. Blood Creek (or Town Creek as it is also known) was terrible. Why was it so bad?

For starters, the story doesn’t make much sense at times. This absence in logic could be due to a couple of things, but I believe one of them is the way the film was edited. I don’t know if Schumacher had anything to do with the editing process, because sometimes films are just taken away from directors by the producers and re-edited, but the way that this film is edited doesn’t really help you follow the story very well. Not that it’s a complicated story; it’s actually maybe too simplistic. For crying out loud, the whole film takes place in a farm! But if a movie can’t even tell a story that is “simple” in an understandable fashion, then you know something is definitely wrong. The script is filled with many plot holes and inconsistencies. You’ll be asking lots of questions and getting no answers with Blood Creek. I read there were some differences between writer and director. Schumacher decided to re-write some scenes himself. Would the movie had been any better if Schumacher had not tampered with it? I guess we'll never know. All I know is that the end result was a mess.

Which is actually kind of sad really, because they had the elements for a decent horror movie. The main villain, the Nazi guy, is a pretty cool looking villain. The make up work on the villain is actually really good. He looks like a zombie, feeds like a vampire; his skin regenerates itself with each feeding. And that’s another thing, it’s never really explained if he is a vampire or a zombie. But he feeds on blood to continue living, so I guess he is more of a vampire. Then again, he brings things back from the dead, so right there, there is a connection with the living dead as well. The movie has one moment that I thought was pretty original where the Nazi zombie guy brings a dead horse back to life and turns him into a zombie horse. People shoot the horse with shotguns and he keeps on attacking, then the Nazi dude rides his zombie horse around! Pretty cool visual, if only the rest of the film had as much of originality and energy as these scenes.

Unfortunately, the film decides to hide its faults behind the annoyingly frenetic shaky cam. The film aspires to have a fast pace, which is probably why everybody talks really fast and is always running and doing things  in a hurry. Unfortunately, we can never see what is happening because of the shaky cam and the poor lighting. We need to see what is happening on screen, and if on top of shaky cam you have poor lighting and fast editing, then you will fail to connect with the audience because the audience cannot see what is happening on screen. This is exactly what happens in Blood Creek. It kind of reminded me of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) which suffered from the same problem. But while the filmmakers behind AVP: Requiem were amateurs, Schumacher is an experienced filmmaker who should have been able to recognize these elements that only serve to bring down the picture.

Unfortunately, Blood Creek was a huge let down. Sometimes, Lionsgate produces a good horror film and then doesnt give it the proper promotional push. Some of their horror movies get a limited release in  theaters and then get dumped on dvd.. They did it with Midnight Meat Train (2008) which was a horror film that deserved a whole lot more exposure then what it got. But Blood Creek isnt one of those good horror films that got mistreated by Lionsgate. This one was just a bad horror film that deserved to be dumped on they way it did by Lionsgate. I was so disappointed to see Joel Schumacher involved in this mess, but I guess it happens to even the best of directors at some point. I’ve still got two Nazi zombie movies that I haven’t seen. One is called The Bunker (2001) and the other one is called Outpost (2008). Let’s hope they are better representations of what a Nazi zombie movie should be like.

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5

 

Dead Snow (2009)

Title: Dead Snow (2009) 

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Writer: Stig Frode Henriksen, Tommy Wirkola

Review: 

The Nazi Zombie sub-genre was never one of the best sub-genres in horror. Theres a reason why there are so few of these nazi zombie movies out there. Now, I don't think this has to do with people not liking nazi-zombie movies. I think it has to do with the fact that the nazi-zombie movies that have gotten made simply aren't very good films. For example, take Zombie Lake directed by Jean Rollin in 1981. The story with this one is that a group of nazi's were killed and buried in a lake. A couple of years later, they are revived and the come back to get revenge upon the town that laid them to rest. The problem with this film is that its so boring! The zombies themselves look like they simply have green paint on their faces! It simply wasn't a good zombie film. The cover of the film is a whole lot better then the movie itself, so I guess that says a lot about the movie. It was simply an excuse to show naked girls skinny dipping in a lake. The movie feels more like soft porn then anything else. Its the kind of movie that feels like it was made by a group of pornographers looking to get out of the porn business by making a legitimate movie. In other words, the film stinks. 

Another example of the nazi-zombie genre is Shock Waves (1977). This one was directed by Kevin Wiederhorn, the guy responsible for directing Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988). Thing about Shock Waves is that its considered to be the best of the nazi-zombie movies. Which is strangely true, but its only the best because the others that came before it were so bad. Shock Waves is a shockingly boring affair. Though the movie does have its virtues. For example the thing I like the most about it is the cinematography. Those images of the zombies emerging from the water are awesome! The zombies have these goggles attached to their faces that makes them look even creepier. One thing that Shock Waves got right was the look of the nazi zombies. But striking images aside, the films major flaw is its pacing. Characters end up in an abandoned mansion in an isolated island. A cool setting in deed, everything looks so abandoned. But aside from a spooky setting, and some nifty looking zombies, the film is so slow you will be bored to tears. One other good thing the film has about it is that Peter Cushing stars in it in an extended cameo. He is the one responsible for telling us the background story for the nazis. So, Shock Waves, though visually interesting at times is still not a great nazi-zombie film.

And heres what always bothered me about Nazi-zombie movies: they have such a cool premise, yet somehow they always fail to live up to it. Think about it, the supernatural roots of the nazi movement, the undead, those scary looking nazi uniforms. I mean, right there, you got all you need to make a cool movie if you do it right. Unfortunately, these nazi zombie movies always end up being a freaking bore. Another fine example of just how boring nazi zombie movies can be is Oasis of the Zombies (1981) directed by Jesus Franco. So in essence what Im trying to say here is the nazi zombie movies have never really been all that great. Until now. Until Dead Snow! Literally, without a shred of a doubt I can say that this is the best nazi zombie movie ever made to date! The movie isn't a masterpiece (for reasons I will go into soon) but it doesn't commit the same mistakes previous zombie movies made in the past. Its not boring at all!

Premise for Dead Snow has a group of friends going to the mountains of Norway for a little rest and relaxation. Basically, people start playing in the snow, they run around in their snow mobiles at high speeds, they have snow ball battles, you know, your basic "fun times" montage type of deal. While there, an old man comes into the cabin suddenly and starts telling the group all about this group of nazi's that were killed and buried somewhere in the area, and that its all real, it happened, and you better watch out. Your basic "these woods are haunted" "this town is cursed" type of character. Pretty soon, the old dudes story is confirmed. Nazi zombies begin to come out of their graves and attack the group of youngsters.

Anybody seen Ash? Wheres Bobby Joe?

First, Im going to go into the bad elements of the film. Which weren't really all that many. My main gripe with Dead Snow is that its opening sequences feel way to much like other movies. What I really want to say is that this film is sucking Evil Dead II's dick all the way. I mean, fine, your a fan of Sam Raimi and his movies, thats great kid. But do you have to shove it into our faces every five seconds? The script has characters referencing a bunch of films at one moment, talking all about Evil  Dead I and II, April Fools Day (1986) and Friday the 13th. Not to mention that the token movie buff character in the film is wearing a Dead Alive t-shirt through out the whole film! So this is the kind of movie that is constantly reminding us where its influences come from. And trust me, you will notice this director just LOVES Sam Raimi. The film follows step by step the whole set up for the Evil Dead films. Lets see: 

- Characters driving up to a lonely cabin in the woods and talking all sorts of bullshit along the way? Check! 

- Characters having fun in the cabin, drinking, making out with each other? Check! 

- The evil threat comes from the woods? Check! 

- The Cabin has a tool shed in the backyard, where the characters get among other things a chainsaw? Check! 

- A character chops off his hand (actually his whole arm) with a chainsaw because he was bitten? Check!

So these are just some of the similarities this film has with Evil Dead I and II. The film also feeds off of other famous horror films like John Carpenter's The Fog (1980). There is this whole backstory about how the nazi zombies are looking for their gold, and they will stop at nothing to get their gold. Actually, in that way its also similar also to the Leprechaun movies, but never mind that. So basically, this movie has a lame sort of back story to it involving gold hungry zombies. One thing I never got about movies like The Fog and this one is: exactly what do these zombies want with their gold? Go shopping for new nazi uniforms or something? But whatever, I just went with it because this backstory is really just an excuse to see some cool looking nazi zombies, and the mayhem that ensues while the good guys try to stop them. So, did this movie deliver in that department at least? My answer to that question would be a resounding "Hell Yeah!"

Dead Snow  delivers where it matters when it comes to nazi zombie movies! First off, the nazi zombies themselves look freaking awesome! The movie does take a while before the nazi zombies actually do show up. I counted 45 minutes before things really got moving. Thats the one thing I didn't like about it, you have to go through all this predictable set up phase of the movie (which pretty much takes 45 minutes to develop) before we get to what we came here to see: Nazi Zombies! But I tell you, once the movie gets going, it only gets better and better. This movie will have you cheering by the time it finishes. There is enough zombie mayhem to satisfy the biggest zombie fan (thats me!). One amazing sequence has the leader of the nazi zombies give out this supernatural yell that wakes up all other nazi zombies that are laying around buried in the snow! Suddenly were dealing with a freaking army of nazi zombies! Great moment right there. This actually had me clapping quite a few times saying "well done! well done!" The gore is simply fantastic in certain moments, you wont be disappointed there. 

One of the things I loved the most about this movie was the make up effects for the zombies. They simply look awesome. I think what makes it work is the black and white look they have to them. They are pale and have black bruises and blood stains all over their faces, plus, that nazi uniform simply makes them look even cooler. So in essence, this movie is very inspired by other horror films, and it shows, but by the time we get to the nazi zombies, and the mayhem that accompanies them, this film more then makes up for all its flaws. The film simply gets better as it progresses, till by the last frames you will be cheering it on. This film has set the standard for nazi zombie movies, who will be next in line to up the ante?  

Rating: 4 out of 5