Nazi Germany gave us a visual shorthand for evil, huge scope for horror film makers, and Fanta. There’s a fair spurting of blood though. The plot, which to be honest is the least of your concerns here, consists of a Russian reconnaissance team moving into Eastern Germany while being filmed by Alexander Mercury’s Dmitri for propaganda purposes. Their radio is being jammed, but then they receive a distress call from another squad, and move into an abandoned village to answer it. It does not go well. Kept in the village by the distress call, they investigate further, torturing a farmer for information. This leads them down into some tunnels, where they meet more strange hybrids of men and machinery. Due to the camera being someone’s point-of-view, and the continual ominous echoing reverberations in the background, it really does feel like a computer game. The reveals all feel more like things you’ve seen in first-person-shooters than, say, Outpost (another film that utilises Nazi experiments as a starting point for carnage). This does mean we get some effective jump-scares, and the occasional spatter of blood across the camera, but during action sequences it does make it quite hard to tell what is going on until the dust and intestines have settled. When the monsters start appearing, Frankenstein’s Army livens up a bit more, and we get some more deaths, and some people turn up just so they can die. We’ve moved from horror to light splatter, with an air of black comedy pervading before we move onto body horror, then onto an insane scientist (referred to throughout as ‘The Doctor’, but let’s not read anything into that) with a gleefully silly plan. This last section feels tacked on after the film has suggested its own earlier denouement, and brings yet another change in tone. It’s director Richard Raaphorst’s first full length movie, and I suspect he’s tried to cram as many ideas as possible into it rather than stick to one or two tones. Raaphorst’s background is in conceptual artwork, storyboards and design, so it comes as no surprise to see that he designed many of the brilliant steampunk monstrosities we see. Their design and realisation makes the movie something distinctive and novel, rising above its thin script and indecisiveness. Practically achieved, macabre, and grimly amusing, they’re enough reason to see this film by themselves. When Frankenstein’s Army cleaves nearer to the ludicrous over-the-top nature akin to House of the Dead then it’s an entertaining flick. There are possible interpretations of the experiments as a commentary on the inhumanity of Nazi eugenics, but that’s not really what the promotion of the film suggests. It suggests a barnstorming gore-strewn nightmare, and in this respect the film succeeds, but only for about thirty minutes. It’s a shame that such inventive design work couldn’t find a better film, and while Raaphorat’s creatures are brilliant in themselves (and worthy of an extra star rating, if that’s alright with you), you can’t help but feel that they might have been handled more effectively with another creative team behind the camera and storyline. Still, Fanta’s pretty good isn’t it? Please, if you can, support our charity horror stories ebook, Den Of Eek!, raising money for Geeks Vs Cancer. Details here.
