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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How Could I Forget This One!

THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS-1954-The (over-aged) Boys (in their 34^th outing!) want to get a nice place for local kids to play baseball. Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) contact a Dr. Gravesend (John Dehner) who owns the lot. Of course Gravesend is actually a mad scientist with a sister Amelia (Ellen Corby) who keeps a man eating plant, a wacky scientist brother Anton (Lloyd Corrigan) and a niece Francine (Laura mason) who's a vampire. Their butler Grissom (Paul Wexler; later the scary Indian head hunter in THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE) sometimes becomes a hairy fanged monster. Gravesend wants Sach's pea brain for his gorilla and the brother wants Slip's brain for his robot. After terrorizing Sach, the robot has a fight with the gorilla and Sach turns into a rather scary monster who almost kills Slip.

It's pretty dumb but it's probably the one entry in this series that stands out the most because of the horror setting (at least it did when I was kid!). Yet somehow I forgot to review it when I did a whole bunch of Bowery Boys movies a few years ago!The other regular “boys” Chuck (David Gorcey) and Butch (Bennie Barlett) are there as well as Bernard Gorcey as Louie. Director Edward Bernds (who made JUNGLE GENTS with the team the same year) co-wrote it with usual BB scribe Elwood Ullman.

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It's Really His Granddaughter

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER-1966-A Mexican village lives in fear of the notorious experiments being carried out in a mysterious mansion. It seems Maria (Narda Onyx), the stuck up, power mad, grand-daughter of Dr. Frankenstein is continuing his legacy of monster making, assisted by her cowardly brother (familiar TV actor Steven Geray). 

Meanwhile a bare knuckles fighter named Hank (Cal Boulder) and his partner the famous outlaw Jesse James (James Lupton) team up with “The Wild Bunch” to steal $500,000 from a bank. For some reason the gang leader's drunken brother betrays them to the Marshall (Jim Davis) forcing Hank and Jesse to seek refuge in the Castle of Frankenstein's offspring. Maria decides Hank would be a great subject for her experiments. They want to give him some kind of brain transplant and the tri-color army helmets Maria and Hank wear during part of the process are hysterical! While this goes on Jesse takes time to romance Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez), a local who helps at the lab. 

Hank becomes a hulking zombie with stitch marks around his forehead who is re-named Igor! For a short time he does Maria's bidding but he turns against her in the end. The acting in this one (especially by Onyx as Maria) is far more campy than in BTKVD.

This was the last film made by veteran director William Beaudine who's career started in silent films! He's no stranger to this blog. I figure he deserves his own entry so I'll do that next time! 

Some interesting bits about some of the players: 

Estelita Rodriguez began her career at age 14 in Republic Pictures westerns including several with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. She also had a role in Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO and was married and divorced from actor Grant Withers. JJMF'sD was her last film. She died at 37 in 1966 of undisclosed causes. (Some say it was influenza..)

Narda Onyx was born in Estonia and was appearing on many TV shows (including a re-occurring role on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES)  prior to JJM'sFD which is one of her few movies roles. She's also in 1962's HITLER with Richard Basehart in the lead, playing Eva Braun's sister. She died in 1991 at 59.

Cal Bolder was an ex-patrolman who was in some other TV shows and later retired and wrote books. He died at 75 in 2005.

John Lupton was a successful stage actor and star of the TV western BROKEN ARROW. He died at 65 in 1993 of an undisclosed disease...

As for the title..well..Abbott & Costello didn't go to Mars either...

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