Zombie movies that trade blood and gore and social commentary for strictly atmosphere are rare. Some may find this movie boring or underwhelming, I think the atmosphere here is great. While this was filmed in West Palm Beach and Miami it looks like the hottest tropical island in the world with some swampy water. I could feel the sunburn on me and the dirty water while watching this. I can't think of any other movie that has made death by drowning seem scarier or quite as memorable. The idea of Nazi Zombies and the backstory with them gives this movie a Raiders of the Lost Ark type of historical fiction relevance. Peter Cushing is charismatic as ever. Not only does the tropical island setting work but the abandoned hotels among other things give this such a lost at sea or marooned type of feel that is incredible. The snyth-scape sounding score only adds to the atmosphere.
Synopsis: An old Nazi's (Peter Cushing) sunken battalion rises from the sea as a death corps of begoggled zombies.
I like how early on you spend time with the people in the ship. I like seeing Brooke Adams in any movie from around this time. Same goes for John Carradine. I like how every character gets a name and when we find out a little about them. I really enjoyed the sunny orange mirage effect when the ship's navigation system goes off. How many movies since this have used the trope of a ship suddenly appearing in front of the people on the main ship. Ghost Ship and Event Horizon to name a couple. This movie does it too. I enjoy how the ship looks like a giant skeleton version of a ship during the day. The group of survivors quickly makes their way to an abandoned hotel that just looks like something out of a nightmare. There the survivors meet a man played by Peter Cushing. He eventually reveals he was an SS commander who commanded a death corps of zombie soldiers designed for survival in any environment. His specifically were made for aquatic warfare. This is another interesting departure for typical zombie movies as zombies either usually aren't in the water much and they certainly aren't primarily aquatic creatures. It also gives this movie some factual basis in Nazi occult type lure. Nazis experimented with a ton of interesting things and this seems like it could be real. The zombies have a very interesting look with their water logged bodies and the goggles they wear. They kind of look like the face of Butterball from Hellraiser mixed with a green looking zombie pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean. Almost like Stellan Skarsgard's character from those movies.
Spoiler Section
Eventually Cushing and most of the survivors are killed by the zombies. The way the synth-score is done during the suspense scenes where the zombies are rising out of the water and killing people is great. The ending to this movie is quite interesting in that it circles back to the beginning of the narration that Brooke Adams' character was writing about the start of the movie and what had happened. Did this all happen? Is it all in her head? Has she gone crazy after being lost at sea after escaping the zombies? Did the orange mirage thing make her go crazy? I really like the ambiguity of the ending. Credit to Richard Einhorn for his score that helps the atmosphere and suspense. Ken Wiederhorn makes a different type of zombie movie here that is one of the best in terms of atmosphere and the nazi zombies only make it seem more real and adds some pathos to it.
Rating; 8/10
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