Let Dead Nazis Lie

It's been some time since I wrote about cheap ass exploitation films, so I figured we'd tackle three of the original Nazi Zombie films together. Even though I, like many others, have had it up to here with the recent zombie mania. Still, there are old movies out there that are actually worth seeing, as opposed to the "remakes" of Romero's films and the Walking Dead and shit like that. However the three films we're about to tackle aren't really known to be classics of the same level as Fulci's or Romero's films.

It was inevitable I guess. Zombies and Nazis are the two greatest evils you can imagine, and considering how many dark occult myths are associated with the nazis it was just a question of time before they mixed. And it's no wonder. Our fear of nazis returning to haunt us mixes well with our fear of death, and undeath. The deeply psychological image of undead nazis coming out of the deep (whether it's water, snow or the desert sands) symbolizes this well, and is used throughout all the films in the genre. This evil from the past has remained hidden for years, but is now back to exact punishment and death. It's so jungian you can cut it with a knife. Or something.

The first film to explore the genre was Shock Waves (1977), with famous actors Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams and John Carradine. That's right, Cushing didn't just blow up Alderaan in 1977 he fought nazi zombies too. And this film establishes a pattern followed by its copies. After encountering a ghost ship a group of seafarers, led by Carradine, land on a tropical island to repair their ship where they run into the marooned hermit Cushing and eventually the undead SS death squad. The film takes its time establishing mood and plot, and the first scene involving a zombie is unsettling. We immediatly understand that this dude is dangerous as well as determined. This applies even more to the scene of German soldiers rising from the water, one by one. It's a memorable scene, and as such is has been enthusiastically copied. As opposed to the two next films we're about to review it is also pretty consistently well photographed and edited, and the music is great.

It turns out that the zombies are supersoldiers developed for submarine warfare by the Third Reich. They are more or less invincible, as well as sadistic and murderous and were stranded here by their former commander. They've spent some good deal of time under water, but have recently determined to surface and get even. Slowly they murder their way through more or less the entire cast before the film ends on rather dark note. While our heroine escapes she's clearly lost her sanity and the less than living aquatic aryans are still out there somewhere.

Shock Waves is clearly the best film of the genre and it's actually a good horror film too. Absolutely worth seeing for all horror hounds out there. It's not the Exorcist, but it's certainly on par with most John Carpenter films. In fact much better than his newer films.. Establishing a link between the nazis' real interests in the occult, their horrendous medical experiments, the fierce reputation of the SS and the popular zombie genre was a brilliant idea.

Zombie Lake (Le lac des morts vivants 1981) is a strange little film, directed as it is by Jean Rollin. Yup, you heard it Jean "LSD-nudity" Rollin. He thought the movie was a piece of shit however, so he directed it under the pseudonym J.A. Laser. (Incidentally Jesus Franco, another schlockmeister pulled out of this project at an earlier phase.)

First full frontal nudity appears at about a minute into the credits, and as this Laura Gemser-lookalike is randomly and prolongedly showing us her muff in an underwater scene she is accosted by an aquatic zombie in Wehrmacht uniform. We don't get to see what he wants with her, but it's safe to say he's not out to get laid. (The underwater sequences have beautiful colors btw.)

The Feldgrün corpse and his buddies then venture forth from the bottom of the eponymous lake (which is obviously just in the film for a chance to plagiarize the memorable scene from Shock Waves) and behave like a bunch of bastards, biting people and stuff.. The results are less then pleasant, especially for the women. The reason is of course revenge. The soldiers were killed by local resistance fighters near the end of WWII, and dumped in the lake. Incidentally the zombie make up in this film is so shitty you'd guess it was done by a group of kindergarten kids with watercolors.

If you were an intellectual of some sort it would be tempting to see the film as an allegory for the nazi rape of the French nation during World War II, but that would be forgetting who directed this film. As it is with Rollin's films it has some neat scenes (fewer than usual), but it's also quite incoherent. In fact it's not even close to up to his usual insanely low hallucinatory standards. Frankly it's barely watchable and I'd rather recommend you watch some of his famous vampire movies - of which this is a pale copy. In fact, the only reason you should see this film is for the scenes of nazi zombies groping a small busload of naked women half way through. I shit you not. A busload!

Finally we have Oasis of the Zombies (La Tumba de los muertos vivientes 1982) the director of which is none other than the aforementioned Jesus Franco. Now, Jesus Franco is a chapter all to himself, but if you know his name you know what to expect. You might be disappointed though as Lina Romay is nowhere to be seen. Honestly though Rollin makes Franco look like Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg, and this movie is a great deal better than Zombie Lake (still not exactly Oscar material though). The film starts with two (clothed) women getting attacked by unseen undead nazis in an (drum roll please) oasis, filled with left overs from some long forgotten battle. As according to genre dictates you do get to know what happened, and the German soldiers are portrayed as someone worth fearing in this one. A murderous crack squad carrying nazi gold (as opposed to the whiny ass grabbers of Zombie Lake) who massacres anything in their way - untill they are "stopped".

The zombies aren't half bad, but they look nothing like German soldiers. In fact they look like a bunch of local long haired(!) layabouts in random army surplus clothes. Which is probably what they were. Still more convincing than a great deal of similar attempts. Not that that's saying much but all in all this is a proper zombie film and worth seeing if you're into that sort of stuff.

Usually Franco's films are nothing but an excuse to portray women without clothes (such as in Vampyros Lesbos or Female Vampire), but films like this one and his Dracula shows that with an honest budget and a proper script Franco could've possibly made a name for himself among others than people like me. However if you want to see an interesting spanish zombie film I'd much reather recommend Tombs of the Blind Dead, an eerily atmospheric and strange film about zombiefied knights...

Still. All these films are more memorable than the more recent Dead Snow (Død Snø 2009), for a variety of reasons. Most importantly these films have something of a genuinity that is nowhere to be seen in Dead Snow. It's better to try and fail than not to try at all. Dead Snow is a satirical collection of poorly executed scenes that look more like an overdrawn trailer than it is a film. And of course, it's much too clean. You could show it to your grandmother without blushing for fuck's sake... No depravity at all... And where are the famous Norwegian milk maid titties? Where?? If you haven't seen this film there's no reason to either. It has all the cliches such as nazi zombies coming from the deep to protect their gold, young people away for a weekend of wilderness debauchery as well as chain saw death. What it lacks however is trying to be more than a compilation of cliches.



There's more nazi zombie flicks out there. Including one called Night of the Zombies from 1981, but this one is evidently so bad I haven't bothered seeing it. And there are newer films such as the Bunker or Nazis from the Centre of the Earth. Don't waste your time on these films. They are pure shit. Blood Creek on the other hand is modern day undead nazi film worth seeing, if you're into that sort of stuff. So that's nazi zombies for ya! Now, while you're at it how about some cannibal films?