Zombie Movie Review

Operation: Nazi Zombies

About the Film:

Release Date: Released on DVD May 1^st, 2012
Date: Filmed in 1999. Produced and originally released with the title “Maplewoods” around 2003.
Director: David B. Stewart III
Main Cast: Thomas Reilly, Elissa Mullen, Christopher Connolly, John Weidemoyer, John Martineau
Supporting Cast: Steven Brown,Francesco Costante, Brian Dugan, Peter Hock, Sean Hutcheon, Victoria Katz, April Moyer, Jerry Puma, Mike Russo, Robert Schiller
Executive Producer: David B. Stewart III
Producers: Robert Schiller, Thomas Reilly, Joseph DeChristopher Sr., John Weidemoyer, John Martineau

Plot Summary: (Contains spoilers & plot details)

A soldier’s father was responsible for some biological zombie experiments gone wrong back in the 1970s. In a top secret lab, secret experiments were being done to expand on research conducted by the Germans during the war. As one would expect with top secret biological experiments, things got out of control. The military recruit s the soldier, General John Gibbs, to go clean up his father’s mess and destroy all evidence and “specimens”. Sounds promising right?

Nope.

Right off the bat we learn that a CIA agent will lead the troops on this death mission. The only reason given is because he knows the land and has studied the maps. Ha! I would think an elite team of super soldiers could glance at a map and find their way, but fair enough.

Once the soldiers arrive at the top secret lab (it resembles little more than a wooden barn deep in the woods) they learn they have to proceed to the lower level where the secret lab is actually hidden. One soldier is sent to turn on generator power so the elevator to the lower level can be used. Half of the team is sent down into the lower level while the rest remains up top at ground level.

For reasons that were never explained, we discover the CIA agent was sent to betray the team and to sabotage their efforts. He assassinates the soldier after he turns on the generators and then cuts power to the elevator trapping the team of soldiers in the lower level. Of course they are quickly devoured by the “specimens” shambling about. One wounded soldier manages to stay alive long enough to radio up and report there is a bomb set to go off in “thi….” He never manages to utter the detonation time.

Of course General Gibbs doesn’t just abort the mission right there. Instead he makes the logical decision to go down to the lower level alone to see how much time they have left before they are blown sky high. He drops down into the lower level and manages to single-handedly gun down the zombies. While doing so he loses radio contact. Some of the soldiers at ground level decide the General’s lack of response means he’s been eaten by the undead. They decide to abort the mission and run off into the woods even though it’s pitch black outside and the grounds are crawling with zombies. They also have no clear destination or plan in mind. Seems legit!

After the cowards bail on the mission the General comes back to report the bomb will go off in the morning and it’s big enough to blow up anything within the vicinity. They have to flee on foot to escape into the safe zone.

Meanwhile pretty much all of the cowardly soldiers who bailed on the mission in the night were eaten. Big surprise there!

On their long stroll to safety the survivors meet a lone child zombie dramatically carrying a doll. General Gibbs has to turn his head as he shoots the zombie kid. I then have to turn my head and try to ignore some terrible acting. Gibbs drops to his knees and screams and damns his father to hell and curses him for these horrible human experiments. The General then comes to the hard realization that these zombies aren’t the enemy…. “we are”. Ugh! Yes it is as painfully hokey and horrible as it sounds. Meanwhile the noise has attracted other zombies and the team scurries off to make their escape.

As the soldiers walk to safety the team is eventually narrowed down to two sole survivors: General Gibbs and a female soldier. Unfortunately she’s sniped by a soldier hiding in a tree. It seems the team has randomly walked for many hours to the safety of a random safe zone that wasn’t so random after all. Somehow the military that betrayed them knew exactly where they’d end up and was patiently waiting for them.

A brief shootout ensues. After coming out on top, General Gibbs hops into a car and speeds off to safety while the bomb dramatically explodes in the background.

The entire story has been told in a flashback interview style while General Gibbs is unfairly held in a prison. At the conclusion of the film the soldier interviewing General Gibbs basically tells him it is extremely unfair that he has to spend the rest of his life in jail and there is nothing that can be done about it. He then exclaims that “this is your only escape” and walks out of the cell. The film ends with the sound of gunshots, leaving the viewer to decide for themselves just what in the hell happened.

I found the basic plot to be a little confusing. It also seemed unfinished and was full of holes and unanswered questions. Why exactly was the CIA agent and the military betraying the team? Couldn’t the military just assassinate General Gibbs at their first meeting if they thought he had some secret knowledge of his father’s Maplewoods project? Why was the team sent into this facility if someone had already managed to infiltrate it and plant a bomb anyway? Why in the hell did the one soldier go all crazy section 8 and start killing soldiers? How did the military know right where to be waiting for the General when he popped out of the woods into the safe zone?

Our Breakdown:

Call me crazy..but I expect a film about Nazi zombies to actually have some Nazi zombies in it. Operation: Nazi Zombies has a few poorly done zombies and even fewer Nazis.

Don’t let the awesome cover art fool you. The front of the box contains more Nazi zombies than the actual movie does. Seriously. There is a total of one zombie in the film that resembles anything remotely close to a Nazi. One zombie briefly appears wearing a Stahlhelm, the well recognized steel German helmets worn by German soldiers during WWI and WWII.

The whole Nazi theme you would expect is pretty much non-existent. There’s some pictures of Hitler flashed in the opening credits. There’s the one zombie wearing the helmet. The words “Nazi” and “German” are mentioned once or twice. There is a very brief hint that the zombie virus was discovered in Berlin in 1945. Other than that, except for the title, you’d have no clue the film was supposed to be about Nazi zombies.

Even more surprising is the fact that this film also has very few zombies. They are few and far between. When they do appear they are pretty poorly done. Most of the zombies are nothing more than a few extras that walk slowly. I’m all for your classic shambler zombie, but they have to have some edge. They have to at least look hungry and desperate for human flesh. They should be dirty, decomposed and disheveled.

There are a few brief moments where the special effects crew tried. There’s a zombie strapped to a table in a lab that won’t stop screaming. His face is pretty well done. The actor violently shakes and wildly attempts to free himself from the restraints. After a few minutes his screaming in the background gets pretty annoying. Just as I joked that someone should shoot him so he’d finally shut the f**k up, the main character of the film turned and did just that. The zombie execution was complete with a horribly fake splash of thick blood splashed in the shooter’s face. Sadly the poor zombie was probably the best acting in the film.

The acting in this film is horrendous. I do realize this is a low a budget film but the acting is sub-par even by those standards. Pretty much everyone in the cast gives a robotic and dull performance. The attempts at emotions such as anger and grief are so forced and unconvincing it’s almost uncomfortable to watch at times.

We’re supposed to believe the main characters are handpicked members of an elite squad of special ops soldiers. The awkward weapon handling and terribly uncoordinated actions of these soldiers makes that very difficult to believe.

They all have sidearms as their primary weapon. That’s right! This is a unique group of elite soldiers that uses pistols only. They must be VERY good. The only thing that resembles firepower is the single pump shotgun that sees a little action.

At the start of the film this squad of “the best of the best” of the military must stealthily sneak across a field. They proceed to do so in their bright freshly starched and pressed dress uniform shirts. They stick out like a sore thumb against the vegetation in the field. Pretty sneaky guys.

Don’t expect a captivating plot to rescue this film either. I will say the potential was there. So much could have been done with the whole Nazi biological experiment theme. The core details of the beginning of a plot were there. Unfortunately things just weren’t developed. It’s almost as if someone sat down to brainstorm some random ideas for a rough first draft of a zombie film plot and things never developed beyond that point.

What’s No So Great:

The opening credits take for-f%ckin-ever. Seriously. They literally drag on for like 5 minutes and you wonder whether the movie will ever begin.
The acting is terrible.
Not enough zombies! There just weren’t enough scary zombies in this film. Most of the zombies look pretty unconvincing and the zombie acting is typically unremarkable as well.
The plot is terribly unfinished, confusing and full of holes.
The lighting is bad. In most of the night scenes you can’t see anything. Lighting is also pretty terrible in most of the zombie scenes in the lower lab area.
The audio is awful. Most of the actors speak in dull muffled tones so difficult to understand you have to crank up the volume on your TV. Even more frustrating is the fact levels are inconsistent. In the opening scene three men are talking. Two of the men have a reasonably audible voice. The third man sounds like he wasn’t within 50 feet of any sort of microphone. You have to have the remote nearby to constantly fiddle with volume so it isn’t ridiculously loud in some scenes and basically muted the next.
Too much smoking. I think 80% of the “acting” in this film involves an actor lighting a cigarette. I wish they would have pulled half of the cigarette budget and applied it to ANYTHING else. It could have only improved the film.
Underpowered Special Forces? I would think a team of elite soldiers would carry more than a bunch of pistols and a shotgun behind enemy lines.
The entire film is told in an annoying and seemingly unnecessary flashback style.
Even the ending of the film is anti-climactic, confusing and leaves you wondering what on earth actually happened.

What’s Not So Bad:

Still Entertaining. Although the film is pretty bad in some areas, it actually has some decent entertainment value. My family and I had a good time laughing at the film and providing our own critique. It may not be the way Dave Stewart intended, but we had a fun time watching the film.
Special Effects. When present, the gore and special effects aren’t horrible considering the film’s budget and the fact that it was filmed over 12 years ago
The cover art for the DVD case is pretty awesome.
This film didn’t resort to gratuitous nudity or unnecessary sex scenes to keep the viewer’s attention like so many low budget independent horror films do. That may be disappointing to some but as a parent of a 10 year old I was thankful.

The Last Word:

You shouldn’t sit down to watch this film expecting a great zombie movie. Go into the experience expecting a low budget, badly scripted, campy B movie that you will have a good time making fun of you and you won’t be too disappointed.

Although I have been pretty hard on this film I do appreciate the fact that it was done on a shoestring budget. Given his lack of a big Hollywood budget, David Stewart did manage to put together a few brief moments of zombie magic in Operation: Nazi Zombies. Unfortunately they were too few and too far between.

Sadly this film just didn’t live up to the potential that was there. So much could have been done with the whole “Nazi Zombie” theme. As a last resort, any zombie film can always resort to what zombie film fans love most: scary zombies and lots of blood and gore. We zombie fans can forgive horrible acting, bad scripts and gaping plot holes as long as the zombies make up for it. Unfortunately this film didn’t take that approach. Operation: Nazi Zombies simply fell short of all that it could have been.

Our Rating: 2 out of a possible 5 stars.