Search - Horrors of War on DVD

Nazi zombies, how I love thee.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 12/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Horrors of War (Peter John Ross and John Whitney, 2006)

As strange as it may seen, the Nazi Zombie subgenre of horror movies has been around since World War II. Aside from a brief surge of popularity in the late seventies, there haven't been a great many Nazi zombie flicks, but even so, there are certain conventions that all of them save the very first few have honored. I'm not sure whether Ross and Whitney were aware of these when they made Horrors of War, because none of them are here. That alone makes this worth checking out; where most other Nazi zombie movies are generally predictable (though I rush to add this makes them no less fun to watch, in the main), there's a lot about Horrors of War that doesn't fit the mold, and that's always a good thing. On the other hand, this is very much a microbudget film, and it shows in many respects.

Plot: Towards the end of World War II, when things are starting to look bad for the Axis, the Third Reich stumble upon a new weapon--undead soldiers, impervious to pain, able to shrug off bullets. By coincidence (or perhaps not, only OSS knows for sure), Lt. John Schmidt (Jon Osbeck of the upcoming Eternal) finds himself facing these beasts on mission after mission. Finally, OSS sends him, along with a small, hand-picked team, behind enemy lines to find the source of the beasts and destroy it--for Schmidt has a secret weapon of his own...

I've seen a number of people complain about the pace of the movie, which is glacial for the first half. I have no problem with that sort of thing as long as it involves getting to know the characters, which it does, and actually giving us characters that aren't cardboard cutouts, which it also does. Score two for the good guys. The drawback is the acting, which ranges from competent to awful, sometimes with the same character. The other big problem is something of a spoiler, so I can't get into it here, but I just trashed a very famous novel for exactly the same thing, if you follow my reviews.

If you put aside those two things, though, there's a lot to like here. The storyline gets disjointed at times--one assumes a great deal of this was left on the cutting-room floor--but what there is is intriguing. (That said, a warning: the ending will drive you up the wall. I assume it was done that way with an eye toward a sequel.) And if you separate the characters from the actors playing them, there's enough development in the main characters for us to at least partially empathize with them. Minor characters tend to get less of that, but then this is a war movie, and thus many of the minor characters are walking around with EXPENDABLE tattooed on their foreheads from the first time we see them. I expect this in a war movie, so it didn't bother me. And, of course, there's the fact that this is a Nazi zombie movie that actually goes its own way. Either the writers and directors (yes, there was more than one of each) had never seen Shock Waves, the 1977 film that seemed to define the genre for all the movies that came after it, or did see it and made a conscious decision to do everything they could to make a movie that didn't resemble it in any way, shape, or form. In either case, I consider it a success from that standpoint.

There are a thousand things that could have been done to improve this movie, had it had a bigger budget, and I can infer from reading some of the crew comments at IMDB.com they are fully aware of this, but are unapologetic. You've got to admire the cojones on a crew that dreams big and refuses to let a little thing like lack of money stop them from doing their best to realize those dreams. No, this ain't Saving Private Ryan or (thankfully) Pearl Harbor, and it shouldn't be compared to movies of that ilk. For what it is, it's not a bad little movie at all. ** ½

"

FAUX PAS EMBULAS

Larry Johnson | Arizona City,Az.U.S. | 03/08/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I was attracked to the cover & subject matter of this flic. After I received it I put it on the shelf in plain veiw and stared at it for a few weeks. Then I played it and.... (besides the nice retro credits...very cool) it had a (made in the back yard with moms old video camera look to it) style not all it's own. But I soldiered on figuring it's probably gonna be a piece of work.
Still... puttong all the "B" qualities aside, it was a rather enjoyable "B" flic. They did the best with whatever sourses they had and the plot was far from unenjoyable. I don't give away plots. I believe movie trailers have pros & cons and being tricked many times before by awesome trailers for dud flics, well, if you can keep your emotions out of it you can use trailers to some advantage. (LEGION was my latest trailer blunder-what crap) So with 5 STAR being unbelievably awesome-4 STAR being great 3 STAR is pretty good 4 STAR is just not worth it & 5 is trash."