It took me thirty years to finally watch this crazy little flic, but now I'm glad it did. I think I thought it'd be incredibly disappointing, but nope - what a Blast!!
Where to begin on the things I love about a B-movie starring
Brooke Adams and
Peter Cushing ...and oh, yeah -
NAZI ZOMBIES!!!
..so fun - the whole premise is like a twelve year old's fantasy - beautiful woman in a bikini - mad scientist - and again,
NAZI ZOMBIES..
As a film, it's a bit of a surprise in that the structure is a bit smarter than the average fare, though these 70s entries often "shock" me with a dash of genuinely good filmmaking.
We open on one of the coolest leading ladies to come out of that era - in a little lifeboat, clearly on the end side of some harrowing ordeal - flashback to the whole adventure with
Mr. Cushing and pretty soon we forget how it opened.
I like touches like this - noteworthy for elevating the story, if even only slightly.
The FX are pretty impressive, and the choice to have so much of it take place by day was a pretty courageous one. The
NAZI ZOMBIES(though not technically zombies) are kinda creepy actually - bet they were fun sequences to plan/shoot, especially in the 70s ..lots of residual Nazi fears, and some good on-set joke material.
The spooky part of the movie for me was the intro - the weird orange light, and the confused path on the ocean - evokes thoughts of
The Incredible Shrinking Man -
pretty cool ...strange for sure, but the
NAZI ZOMBIES walking along the bottom -
very cool - can't say this movie shouldn't have a remake - could be extremely fun, and big time
3-D.
There's a funny quality to a lot of 70s "endings" - not happy, but not horrific - more of a "we're all in the same shitty boat together" kind of wrap-ups ...they just don't make 'em like that anymore, and I really do love movies like this.
Long and the short of it -
Brooke Adams, Peter Cushing, and
NAZI
ZOMBIES - if these don't interest you, yer just not the same kind of
horror fan as this kid.
 |
| "we're creepy" |
