Korean Zombie Attack

 

 (wallpapercave.com)

TRAIN TO BUSAN-2016-A workaholic father (Gong Yoo) having relationship problems with his young daughter (Soo-an Kim) are trapped on a moving train when an outbreak causes people to turn into violent bloodthirsty zombies! It's an insane roller Coaster ride as passengers fight for survival. There's suspense, gore, action and a heart wrenching conclusion in this South Korean production directed by Yeon Sang Ho.

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The Bad Things Directors Do...

 

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THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO-2020-The weirdo who made this horror shit must have hated women. 

This is about a dumb schoolteacher Melvin (David Rucker lll) who accidentally resurrects a vampire while his home is invaded by a father, Richard (Bill Oberst Jr.), his daughter Mouse (Mary Katherine O'Connell) and sadistic perverted companion Percy (Kane Hodder who must have needed money desperately to have done this). After his wife (Linnea Quigley) is bitten, Melvin and his dysfunctional stepdaughter Caroline (Kelly Wilson Robinson) hide in a bedroom. 

Despite bloody gore, this is a talky emoting piece of crap with characters screaming and cursing. The director Jess Norvisgaard worked on TV shows like “The Biggest Loser” and “LA Ink” before this.

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Blood Drinkers

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VAMPYRES-1975-Two lesbian lovers, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka), are shot and killed by an unknown assailant. They come back as bloodthirsty vampires who pose as hitchhikers to lure unsuspecting (and horny) men into their manor. Meanwhile, a husband-and-wife artist team, John (Brian Deacon) and Harriet (Sally Faulkner) camp out near the house. Harriet is curious about the pair. Ted (Murray Brown), a guy who picks up the hitchhiking Fran and stays with her a couple of nights, finds a deep cut on his arm. He knows something isn't right but stays there anyway. Although the kill another guy they pick up, Fran lets Ted live and sucks blood from his arm a little at a time until he's too weak to leave. Harriet snoops around and discovers the pair sleeping in a dank basement during the day. There's several bloody deaths and lesbian scenes but in between there's a lot of not much happening. Sometimes it seems like the duo might not even be traditional vampires but violent killers who just like to drink blood. Or ghosts?

VAMPYRES was notorious upon its release and had trouble with censors but garnered a cult following and a reexamination years later. 

Co-lead vampire Anulka was "Playmate of the Month" in May of 1973. She also appeared in LISTZOMANIA and on British TV and is the former daughter in law of Soupy Sales! Co-lead Morris made uncredited roles in a few other movies including CORRUPTION (1968) and IT'S NOT THE SIZE THAT COUNTS (1974)).  Jose' Ramon Larraz, from Spain, directed this in England.  

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Beastly

 

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WILD BEASTS-1984-Animals go crazy and attack humans in this Italian production. First rats kill a couple having sex in a car. Then lions, tigers and elephants escape from the zoo and maul and eat employees. Then a blind guy is killed by his guide dog. Elephants cause car crashes and crush people. A polar bear eats some teachers. Cows and horses stampede a city. A scientist figures out PCP has infected the water. Meanwhile, Laura (Lorraine Del Selle), a reporter snoops around. In the finale the children at her daughter's school all turn psychotic and seem to kill everyone!

Writer/director Franco Prosperi also made the notorious AFRICA: BLOOD AND GUTS.

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Urge To Fast Forward

 

 (imdb)

URGE TO KILL-1989-A record producer Bono (Peter Gordeno) invites a would-be singer back to his swinging pad for some hi jinks. His place has cameras everywhere and a computer nicknamed "Sexy" controls everything. After a night together, the producer leaves and the singer invites her friend over. After a massage, things go awry. The singer is scalded to death in the shower and her friend is burned to ashes by a tanning machine. Later Bono has his girlfriend Jane (Sarah Hope Walker) and two other women over. After frolicking in a bubble bath, the two women disappear. Other weird things happen and it seems Sexy has taken over. The computer later manifests herself as a green woman who kills Bono by throwing him into the computer monitor. 

Featuring nudity, cat fights and mud wrestling, this movie sucks! The director Derek Ford made many sexploitation movies in England, wrote several books and came to a bad end, dying in 1993 at the age of 62.

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Not Andy Milligan

 

 (imdb)

LEGACY OF BLOOD-1971-Relatives gather at the home of the recently deceased but still rich Preston Dean (John Carradine) for the reading of his will. They will all get a share of his estate, but they have to immediately stay overnight at his old house.

 They are all a bunch of neurotics with various hangups including Gregory Dean (Jeff Morrow) and wife Laura (Merry Anders; in her last film role), Veronica Dean (Faith Domgerue) and Frank Mantee (John Russell). The sheriff (Rodolfo Acosta; also in his last movie) is called when a dog is killed but he's the first victim when his bloody severed head winds up on a plate in the fridge. "This is getting to be like some kind of horror film" says one of them. All their problems seem to stem from Dean's verbal and physical abuse of his family. After death by electrocution, the weird masochistic butler/ handyman Igor (Buck Kartalian) seems a likely suspect. There's more deaths and it ends on a comical note. 

Andy Mulligan made a horror movie with the same title the same year. This LEGACY OF BLOOD resembles a Milligan production but less sleazy and shoddy. Also known as WILL TO DIE. Morrow and Domgerue, of course in better days had co-starred together in THIS ISLAND EARTH.

Director Carl Monson later made PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER! (1973), a soft-core porn version of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which Kartalian starred in. 

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36 Years Later...

 

MARK OF THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES-2004-Reptillian like aliens come to Earth and release astro-zombies on the unsuspecting populace. In the opening bloody attack they use machetes to kill. Reporter Cindy Natale (Brink Stevens) investigates a second attack. She interviews some people running from the slaughter (they are very funny). After the president (Gene Paul Jones) has a meeting with his staff in a little conference room (the oval office was unavailable…??), Cindy meets her FBI boyfriend Jeff (Sean Morelli) and we meet mad scientist Dr. Mikacevich (director Ted V. Mikels himself) who has preserved the head of Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine's character in the first movie) and talks to it. It also talks. He wants the secret of the astro-zombies. He's barely introduced when Malvira, the sister of Santana (also from the first movie here played by the same actress, the one and only Tura Santana) bursts in with her dimwit henchman and shoots him. Then she stomps him with her high heel. The same thing happened to Mikels' character in 10 VIOLENT WOMAN! 

The president and his staff try to formulate a plan with 3 weird looking doctors but the aliens can hear all their communications.  A woman painter (Liz Renay) who claims to have been abducted by aliens doesn't seem to have anything to do with the main story. The zombies attack periodically with machetes through heads and necks and a motorcyclist is decapitated.They also kidnap some doctors and scientists.  Meanwhile Cindy tries to sell a phony astro-zombie to some foreign powers. Eventually some good aliens arrive and destroy the bad aliens and the zombies. 

This shot on video low budget craziness is very talky in spots but the bloody attacks by the astros is pretty funny! There's a lot of talk, bad acting and bad SFX leading up the the promise of a part 3. This is director/writer Mikels' first sequel (yes, he made 2 more!) to his notorious ASTRO ZOMBIES released in 1968! It features some gory deaths but when the zombies aren't around it drags.

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Killer Bunnies!

 

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS-1972-A rancher Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun) is over run by rabbits. He asks a college prof. Elgin Clark (Deforest Kelly) to help. Clark calls in environment friendly husband and wife scientists Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman & Janet Leigh) who decide to do a hormone experiment on the bunnies. Unfortunately their little daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) switches the test subject hare with a regular one which escapes literally down the rabbit hole. After a truck driver and a miner are mutilated by giant bloodthirsty rabbits they also terrorize the daughter. The old sheriff (Paul Fix) investigates after a family of campers is killed. They dynamite the mine the rabbits are hanging out in but that doesn't do much good. The hungry hares go on a rampage scaring horses and cattle and bloodily killing townspeople. 

Very strange Bert I. Gordon like horror film was produced by AC Lyles and is not as bad as it's been written about. It also features familiar character I. Stanford Jolley in his last feature role. Director William Claxton does an acceptable job of mixing real blown up rabbits with close-uos of fake ones while throwing in some bloody scenes to make you forget how ludicrous the plot is. It's based on a novel by Australian writer Richard Braddon. To read about the novel go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Angry_Rabbit

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TV Classic

 

THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES-1968-In a pre-credits scene a woman is bludgeoned to death by a skull mask wearing killer in a garage getting blood on her classy white Mustang convertible. Toy robots are shown during the credits. Then an auto accident victim is removed from some wreckage by a weird looking guy. Dr. Petrovich (Victor Izay), FBI director type Holman (Wendell Corey in his last role) and agent Chuck Edwards (Joseph Hoover) discuss the experiments of disbarred scientist Dr. DeMarco. Another agent Eric Porter (Tom Pace) hangs around. Meanwhile spies Satana (Tura Santana) and Juan (Rafael Campos) buy an audio tape from a guy with a German accent. Then they have him rundown. 

After this we meet DeMarco (John Carradine) who's doing experiments on a dead body with the help of his assistant Franchot (William Bagdad), the weird guy who removed the body from the car wreck. This scene goes on forever and is only made watchable by the presence of Carradine who makes his talk about preserving great minds sound plausible. Meanwhile Satana lounges and smokes while listening to a tape of DeMarco expounding. Then one of Dr. Petrovich's nurses is stabbed to death by someone wearing a skull mask. It/he stabs her multiple times even when it's obvious she's dead. 

So it seems DeMarco is creating "astro-zombies", reanimated dead with special electrodes in their brains. Tura wants the secret for her government. Our govern-ment wants to stop him. When one Astro's power pack is destroyed he puts a flashlight to his head for power. 

There's a little gore and a severed head during the climax which is about the best part of the whole movie. It was directed and co-written by Ted V. Mikels who would make a sequel almost 35 years later that featured Santana and Carradine (well, not really..you'll see!). Future member of the MASH TV show Wayne Rogers was co-writer and co-producer.

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Fulci

 

ZOMBI-2-1979-A mysterious boat is discovered in the NYC harbor. It seems abandoned but 2 coast guard members discover a rotting flesh eating zombie on board which kills one of the guards. It turns out the boat belongs to a missing scientist. His daughter Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) teams ups with a NYC based British reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch) to find his whereabouts. They hitch a ride with another couple (Al Cliver and Auretta Gay) on their boat to reach the island of Mantool where it turns out Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson) is trying to stave off a zombie invasion. After an underwater zombie fights a shark, the quartet meet up with Menard. Meanwhile the doc's mistreated wife (Olga Karlatos) is killed and eaten (a splinter going through her eye is an infamous scene). Eventually zombies start turning up everywhere and the four take refuge in Menard's church/hospital.

 It's very gory and fast moving but director Lucio Fulci ran into a lot of problems with the producers (their original choice for director was Enzo Casarelli) and he wasn't that happy with the results. The ending is kind of laughable. Still it was a big hit. Called ZOMBIE in the US, it's original title was ZOMBI 2 since George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD was called ZOMBI in Europe.

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'80's Slasher Stuff

 

FINAL EXAM-1981-Typical '80's slasher movie obviously influenced by HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th. After a couple is killed by a masked killer, it's mostly talk and false scares for 40 mins. until the next murder occurs. Eventually an unknown killer knocks off most of the jerks but one overage teen manages to stop him. 

The director Jimmy Huston also made MY BEST FRIEND IS A VAMPIRE.

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The Original

THE EVIL DEAD-1981-Ash (Bruce Campbell) and 4 jerky friends (1 guy, 3 girls) go to a secluded cabin. There's a lot of strange noises and there seems to be something in the woods. In the basement (where there's a THE HILLS HAVE EYES poster) they find some ancient books, artifacts and a tape recorder. The tape has a doctor talking about Sumeria, The Book of The Dead and resurrecting the deceased. The taped chanting of the doctor seems to bring up some force and a tree crashes through a window. At night one of the women Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) is attacked by tree branches then chased through the forest by an unseen force. On the tape the doctor says his wife is possessed. Cheryl becomes a ghoul and threatens the rest, stabbing Ash's girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker) with a pencil. They lock her in the basement. The third girl Shelly (Sarah York) becomes possessed and attacks Scott (Richard Manincor), the other guy. Shelly gets partially burned, has her hand cut off, then dies after being dismembered in a very gory scene. Then Linda becomes a giggling demon. Ash yells: “You bastards! Why are you torturing me like this?!”. When Scotty dies, Ash is left alone to fight the demons. 

There's a lot of bloody effects, decapitation, demon attacks and of course poor Ash is beaten, stabbed and generally terrorized but manages to destroy the demon and survive....or does he? 

This was director Sam Raimi's first feature film (he'd only made short films before this) and seems to be influenced the low budget horror film EQUINOX (1970). It still packs a wallop today. Followed by two sequels and a cable TV show many years later.

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Go Ape On Mexico!

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES-1969-A woman named Lucy (Laura Lazareno) is a red masked pro wrestler. During a match she throws her opponent out of the ring and an ambulance has to be called. Meanwhile a doctor and his assistant go to a zoo and drug and capture a gorilla. The injured wrestler needs an operation and a specialist Dr. Krallman (Jose' Elias Moreno) is called in. The same guy who drugged the gorilla. He has a bed ridden son Julio (Augstin M. Solares) and his assistant Goyo (Carlos Lopez Moctezuma) calls him “master”so you know he's up to no good. When Krallman is told his son’s days are numbered he decides to transplant the gorilla’s heart into Julio’s body and then give him the gorilla's blood. It’s a bloody operation. 

Lucy’s policeman/boyfriend Martinez (Armando Silvestre) and his force search for the missing gorilla. After Martinez has to stand Lucy up to meet with his boss, Julio turns into an ape man, escapes and kills a woman. He's recapture and the doc decides that maybe a gorilla's heart wasn't such a good idea (gee..ya think?). It's better if they get a new living human heart and put it in Julio. The reluctant donor is the comatose wrestler Lucy fought! While the duo goes to get their “donor”, Julio the ape man escapes again. He tears out a guy’s throat while his girlfriend runs away conveniently tearing the top of her dress off. He rapes the woman (not shown), stabs a good Samaritan and plucks a passerby’s eye out! Then he’s recaptured. The doc who besides being nuts is also head of the hospital reprimands his staff for losing their patient and the toady doctors all agree to a cover-up. Meanwhile through fingerprints, Martinez proposes that the killer isn't a gorilla but some kind of man beast hybrid (good guess!). His boss thinks he has been watching too many “movies of horror”. Later Julio changes back into man but while the doc is out he becomes the man beast again and kills Goyo. Doc confronts his son but trips and hits his head. 

Julio goes prowling and kills a policeman (he scalps him) and then chases Lucy into a park. Martinez goes after them but so does the doc. Julio and Martinez fight and Julio turns into his old self. They are both taken to a hospital where Julio once again transforms and kills a doctor and a nurse. He then grabs a sick little girl and heads for the roof. Martinez and dad follow and the doc convinces sonny to give up the child. He/it is then fatally shot by the cops below. Dad loses his mind. 

Mindlessly bloody sleaze with real gory footage of open heart surgery. Mad scientist portrayer Jose' Elias Moreno had the lead as jolly old St. Nick in the Mexican made SANTA CLAUS in 1959!, which was directed by BLOODY APES director Rene Cordona who had a prolific career as a director and actor in Mexico (and a son who became a director).

Frankenstein In Italy

FRANKENSTEIN '80-1972-After the credits a woman is attacked and her organs removed by a gurgling killer. Later we learn Dr. Otto Frankenstein (Gordon Mitchell) has stolen a secret formula for regenerating organs and is building a creature who he dubs Mosaic (Xiro Papas). When it’s fully assembled It goes out killing women. First it rapes and strangles a prostitute. Karl (John Richardson; BLACK SUNDAY, ONE MILLION YEARS BC), a reporter hunts down the story and meets Frankenstein’s “daughter” Sonia (Dalila Di Lazzaro). The doc is pretty nuts using various body parts from hapless victims but without a new brain the monster becomes unhinged and kills his creator. While the police search, the lumpy worse for wear monster kills a stripper, a derelict, a guy taking a piss at the Grand Prix and a couple in a parked car. Karl and Sonja fall in love and he goes to the park to get investigate and when he comes back the monster is hiding in his car trunk. Mosaic terrorizes the couple until it’s brain disintegrates and it dies bloodily. 

This made in Italy too dark in many scenes time waster is just an excuse to kill off naked woman. 

It was the only film directed by Mario Mancini, the cinematographer of KING OF KONG ISLAND. In better days US born Gordon Mitchell had been in many “Sand & Sandal” productions and being a muscle man in some Mae West revues. Female lead Dalila Di Lazzaro was later in Dario Argento's PHENOMENA and Klaus Kinski's PAGANINI.

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Frankenstein in Italy

FRANKENSTEIN '80-1972-After the credits a woman is attacked and her organs removed by a gurgling killer. Later we learn Dr.Otto Frankenstein (Gordon Mitchell) has stolen a secret formula for regenerating organs and is building a creature who he dubs Mosaic (Xiro Pappas). When it’s fully assembled it escapes and rapes and strangles a prostitute. Karl (John Richardson) a reporter hunts down the story and meets Frankenstein’s “daughter” (Dalila Di Lazzaro). The doc is pretty nuts using various body parts from hapless victims but without a new brain the monster becomes unhinged and kills his creator. While the police search, the lumpy worse for wear monster kills a stripper, a derelict, a guy taking a piss at the Grand Prix and a couple in a parked car. Karl and Sonia fall in love and he goes to a park to investigate one of the murders and while there the monster hides in his car trunk. Mosaic terrorizes the couple until it’s brain disintegrates and it dies bloodily. 

This too dark in many scenes Euro-trash time waster is just an excuse to kill off naked woman. This is the only directing credit for Mario Mancini who was usually a cinematographer (KING OF KONG ISLAND, FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS).

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Bava

KILL BABY... KILL-1966-Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart; in WAR OF THE PLANETS the same year) goes to a small village to perform an autopsy after being called in by Karl, the burgomaster (Max Lawrence). The place seems to be under a curse after a young girl died. Her ghost comes back periodically and anyone who sees her dies by bleeding to death. Eswai and a local woman (Erika Blanc) investigate. 

Wonderfully crazy Gothic horror from the master Mario Bava, WHO MADE DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS the same year. Great sets, lighting and suspense. Lead actress Erika Blanc was later in the horror films THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF HER GRAVE and THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE. 

Nice movie... terrible title…

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Alaska

30 DAYS OF NIGHT-2007-In Barrow, Alaska the residents experience a period where there's 30 days of total night. Most leave but some stay including the sheriff (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife (Melissa George). Too bad for them because a bunch of ancient vampires lead by Marlow (Danny Huston) descend on the place. This senseless violent mean spirited mess is based on a comic book..oops..sorry graphic novel but it seems more influenced by 28 DAYS LATER than anything else. 

Director David Slade started off making music videos. His first film was HARD CANDY and later he made the 3^rd entry into the TWILIGHT series. After that he produced the TV shows HANNIBAL and AMERICAN GODS.

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More Killer Babes

I was just watching the Outer Limits episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" with Bill Shatner as an astronaut returning from Venus who can't stay warm. The name of the space program he's with? Project Vulcan!

IT LIVES AGAIN-1978-In this crazed sequel a couple (Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd) are about to have a killer baby. Killer baby hunter Mr. Mallory (John Marley) plans to get rid of it but Frank Davis (John P Ryan; returning from the first film) breaks up the plan and forces them at gunpoint to let the wife have her baby at a secret clinic run by mad scientists R. Perry (Andrew Duggan) and Dr. Forest (Eddie Constantine!). They have another set of killer babes in the basement which they think they can control. Eventually the babies revolt, kill their captors and terrorize mom and dad. Dad finally kills his son and then tries to warn other couples. 

This is another quirky outing by written and directed by Larry Cohen, full of cool camera work, weird acting, choppy editing and some unintentional humor (I think!).

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Shaw Brothers

THE DRAGON MISSILE (FEI LONG ZHAN)-1975-This Shaw Brothers production features another inventive weapon: a deadly boomerang. An assassin (Lo Lieh) working for an evil governor (Ku Feng) obtains some medicine to save his boss's life but it's stolen by his old friend (Tony Liu). Later using the boomerang (called “the missile dragon”) the assassin beheads his ex-friend's mother and gets the medicine back but keeps it a secret from his entourage because they are under orders to kill him once he has it. Naturally, his ex-friend wants revenge and he's joined by the daughter of the doctor (Nancy Yen) who made the medicine. They also get help from a woman (Terry Liu) in the assassin's entourage who has retractable blades in her fingers (similar to Wolverine). After some fights and decapitations, a crazy all out battle takes place where fishing nets help to battle the boomerangs. 

Director Meng Hua Ho also made THE FLYING GUILLOTINE the year before.

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You're In The Frankenarmy Now!

FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY-2013-Though a pretty terrible horror movie FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY may have done something no other movie could do. It makes the viewer feel sorry for Nazi Germany!

Sometime during World War 2 a group of stupid Russian soldiers are dispatch on mission to rescue captive Russian comrades. This event is also being filmed by another soldier on the orders of Joe Stalin himself. So of course this means more shaky found footage nonsense.

After acting like assholes the group arrives at the village to find it deserted except for many dead, mutilated and burnt bodies. Later they find a farmer who tells them about a doctor and after being tortured he agrees to lead them to their Russian POWs. But instead he takes them to some catacombs where they are attacked by incredibly strange creatures looking like a cross between HELLRAZOR'S Cenobites and Tim Burton's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS! Most of them have humanoid heads but razors and drills for hands. Nearly everyone is killed when the guy filming the whole thing reveals he is in fact a Russian captain and the mission about rescuing captive soldiers is false. Their real mission is to find the doctor and bring him back to Russia dead or alive. The 3 remaining soldiers eventually abandon the captain who after taking a taking a tour of the bloody goings on meets the mysterious doctor Viktor (Karel Roden; Rasputin in HELLBOY). He explains his mad methods and reveals that he is in fact descended from Dr. Frankenstein himself! He does brain operations on living subjects for the camera but seems ambivalent about joining up with Russia. When his experiment on one of the Russians doesn't seem to work he turns his sights on the captain but the Russian army begins bombing and the doctor decides to take off. However he is shot dead by Sasha (Luke Newbury) the only surviving trooper (who the rest of the company treated like shit) who takes the doctor's severed head and film camera back to Germany, leaving the captain's fate in the hands of his resurrected revengeful second in command (I guess the experiment did work)

The final scene shows a picture of Stalin and Sasha together.

Although this is suppose to take place during the 1940's the supposed found footage is very clear and in color (gee, like a real movie...). It's very bloody and some of the doctor's creations are weirdly imaginative but it's all very cartoonish and the finale almost seems like something out of MONTY PYTHON!

Director Richard Raaphorst made only short films before this. Let's hope he doesn't decide to do a sequel...like Dracula's Navy???

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