Frankenstein's Army (2013)

nTitle: Frankenstein’s Army (2013)

nDirector: Richard Raaphorst

nCast: Karel Roden, Alexander Mercury, Luke Newberry, HonnPing Tang, Andrei Zayats, Mark Stevenson

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

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

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nDirector Richard Raaphorst fooling around with his creations

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nThis film comes to us from director Richard Raaphorst, andirector who first started in the filmmaking business through working in thenart department on various films, including work as a conceptual/story boardnartist in films like Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? (1998), Dagon (2001), Faust: Lovenof the Damned (2000) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003), which is a good thing in mynbook because it means that we have an artist behind the camera, which means wenwill probably end up with a film that has a strong visual style, which is thencase with Frankenstein’s Army, there’s a real effort on the way things look.nThe film might be low budget, but director Richard Raaphorst makes the most of hisnlocations. You see, Raaphorst knows the one trick that most low budgetnfilmmakers live by: a great location makes your film look good. In an interviewnfor Daily Dead, Raaphorst said that he didn’t know if the film was going to benmade until he found that perfect location, once he found it, he was certain thenfilm was going to happen. Frankenstein’s Army was shot in various abandonednbuildings, which were made to look like the laboratory of a German madnscientist, the resulting look is very effective.

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

nRaaphorst is the driving force behind the look of these creatures,nwhich he designed himself. You see, Raaphorst had been dreaming of making thisnmovie for many years now, he’d always been designing these monsters fromnchildhood. The strange creatures that the mad scientist creates are composed ofndead nazi soldiers joined with machines, creating a weird breed between zombienand machine, in this way Frankenstein’s Army has some elements of the cybernpunk film, that idea of joining flesh with machine. The further the Russians gondown the rabbit hole, the crazier the creatures get. Gotta hand it tonRaaphorst, the creatures were the highlight of the film! They look likensomething that Clive Barker might have cooked up if he’d ever made a Nazinzombie flick. I enjoyed Frankensteins Army a lot, the locations were eerie and thenmonster designs awesome, but I couldn’t get past the idea that the movie shouldnhave gone further with its ideas.

nI’ve got very few negative things to say about this one, but there’s the idea that these are Russian soldiers that we arenfollowing, but for some reason they speak English the whole time, and I’m like,nokay, so they speak English with a Russian accent, fine. But then, theirnRussian accent comes and goes, and some don’t even have a Russian accent nonmatter how hard they try, so they come off as American actors trying to soundnlike Russian’s speaking English? And sometimes it just doesn’t work, butnwhatever, that was a minor hiccup in the film, it didn’t bother me so much.nAlso, we get to see cool monsters left and right and the film is filled withngruesome moments and vistas, but sadly we don’t get that big finale which thenfilm seems to build up to, you are left wanting more; which in a way is a goodnthing because I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel! But considering the budget thesenguys were working with, I think they got away with a decent horror flick, younget the feeling that Raaphorst could have done more if he only had a biggernbudget for effects work, but still, the film is pretty cool none the less. Hopefullynsome producer out there will notice the great work done here and will give Raaphorstnand crew a few more millions to play with. So anyhow, this is one of the best Nazi zombie films outnthere, I say give it a shot!

nRating: 4 out of 5