When i was a kid I was exposed to a lot of WWII history, either through watching old History Channel documentaries, going through my childhood friend's dad's books of pictures of the holocaust, and even having a holocaust survivor come and speak to our 3rd grade class. Yeah that's all pretty heavy for a kid to comprehend, but it did leave an impression on me and Nazi's, especially those using the occult or mad science, are probably my favorite type of bad guy. So I was super excited for this, was a happy with what I got?
Well yes, mostly. If there was one glaring flaw with this movie, its that it also a found-footage movie. I really ought to do a whole article on the found-footage sub-genre, because its become a fucking stain on the cinema world at this point. And I don't know why, because most people don't like it. In this movie, they did take some steps to explain why its being filmed: we have a soviet cameraman, some sort of propaganda journalist, who is filming (we find this out later) because they are trying to convince this doctor to join the Russians before they kill him and record all his experiments so that if he doesn't then they can try to replicate them later. Somewhat plausible, but the rest of the team, the regular soldiers don't know anything about this, they think they are on a rescue mission for soviet POW's. When they do figure out what is going on they become reasonably upset. And that is basically the entire plot. They explore the compound, get lost, get attacked a lot by amazing and inventive costumes, and get brutalized one-by-one.
Now there are parts where they did try to create the effect that this was really some lost footage of an absurdly grotesque Nazi experiment, and it eases us into the nightmare by first exploring this seemingly abandoned stand of buildings in war-torn eastern Europe. It is effective at creating atmosphere and the overall story telling isn't bad for what it is but the actual cinematography is pretty bipolar. There is shaky-cam aplenty, and yet all the action is still caught in frame. We see the cameras they are using are period pieces of equipment but they film in modern clarity and color with audio. Its sort of half-assed. If they had stuck to an actual period feel, with that surreal, silent, black and white, low-frame so rate everyone walks to fast feel, it would have actually increased the feeling of authenticity that is indeed found footage from the period. Then they could have pulled a sort of Cannibal Holocaust and had a b-story of people searching for and finding the footage and watching it in a place where some of these things could have still been around. Or they could have just filmed it in a more traditional style, and just had more of a Dog Soldiers deal where a group of grunts just end up in a really bad place behind enemy lines and try to survive. But those are just changes to make the movie something really great, what we have is a pretty damn entertaining piece that fans of practical special effects and red corn syrup are going to dig.
If there is anything to spoil in this movie, it is not the plot, it is some of the very inventive gags, props, and costume pieces not shown in the trailer. The movie is absolutely worth watching for all of that, if you can find a place to stream it cheap enough. I believe its 3.99 on youtube, more than that per-view may be pushing it. It is likely netflix candidate, keep your eyes open for it because despite its camera work it is a visually impressive movie and in a world where that statement normally means a metric-shitload of cgi bullshit spinning across a variety of lens-flares for three hours, the grimy, dark atmosphere where you literally don't know what kind of insane monster is literally lurking around the next corner is a breath of dankly "fresh" air.
The FrankenBomb
1 oz Vodka (cheap as possible)
1 oz Jaegermeister
6 oz of Monster Energy Drink
Add the two liquors in a Boston shaker full of ice and hold it like its a camera, now shake it like you are filming a found footage movie. As the dark, foul German liquor combines with the harsh, no-nonsense Russian vodka contemplate how you would be a more efficient drinker with bottle openers or shot glasses for fingers. Strain and pour the shot into a shot glass. Now pour only about six ounces of the disgusting green energy drink into a glass, now drop the shot glass down like a mortar shell and slug back the concoction into your dirty mouth hole, remember to take your gasmask off first.
