Found Footage February Day 18 Frankenstein's Army!!

Day 18

Frankenstein’s Army

With a name like that, it sold me. Not only for this list. But after what we went through with the last film. I need something dumb, gross and funny. If you can’t create something dumb gross and funny with the concept of the given title? Why even make it. It’s even put out by a company who makes films of….Well, they range from amazing to red box. But I still enjoy it. It’s the same range companies like WIldEye and SRS find themselves.

I have heard about this film off and on, It’s crossed my path a few times but with the title it had, I just couldn’t bring myself to try it. But it persisted to show up and a lot of people I trust talk about it on their podcast, and reddit to a point I felt why not. It’s going on the list.

I will have questions.

Like why would a soldier be recording constantly during World War 2. Also did they have duffle bags full of film that they field edited into 84 minutes of film.

What will an army of Frankenstein’s look like and will we see Frankenstein Hitler.

Actually no I wont ask about the film question. But I really do want to know if this film is going to go all out crazy and give us FrankenHitler. You’d be surprised how many low budget 80’s films gave us for NO REASON AT ALL a Hitler, other than to give us a face of evil and a joke. Which is always appreciated. But not always needed.

So lets get right into it then shall we? Please cleanse my brain of aliens and barns.

The Film

 Well before we even get off and running this film is pulling up its pants to show off its big Texas sized belt buckle of accolades. Which. Good for them, but give me the damn movie! I came for freakish creations not awards!

Let’s say hi to Dimitri

Dimitri! He has been entrusted by glorious leader Stalin to film the heroic actions of this squadron, it is a commissioned production and alright that sounds fair, you’d absolutely keep filming even if you were dying when Stalin themselves tells you to film everything. That was, quickly resolved it seems. Well fuck me fancy and take me to Popeyes! They have multiple cameras in a bag, Replacing each as needed and when film is near its end.

Well hot damn they are just right out of the gate giving a few answers to shit everyone could bitch about, I dig it.

The opening of this film absolutely knows what it is trying to be and bless them for immediately selling it. We get a very patriotically shot bit of propaganda filming. Showing the compassion of the soldiers, the commitment of the men to serve their country, and the fun they manage to have in horrific conditions.

They are absolutely all going to die and they are not the greatest of guys, it’s a fun use of the films premise to also take a moment and show the reality of what patrols on all sides of the war had been reported doing to varying to degrees of escalations. Raiding small farms and villages for supplies, beating and sometimes killing the residents to take what you want as your own. Men coming off less as liberators and more as conquerors.

It’s again used as a setup to show us yes these men are not the purest of people and we can enjoy their deaths later. Which I am really amped for in the hopes of silliness but more so the possibility of entertainment and not just oozing cheese for the sake of.

While the film may start us off with a majority of the footage being day to day life and a cameraman’s struggle to do the best job he can for glorious leader, we are also setting up our recon groups path of engagement. A small mining town in the hills where a group of fellow soldiers are radioing for help. No one can respond to them, so they keep repeating the same calls for help, identifying themselves as a Tiger Bear, which for me translates roughly to Tony the Tiger.

I appreciate the angles the cameraman is using and how a majority of this is being shot. It all follows what you’d be familiar with from other war time films. Right down to how the actors pose themselves and their planned marching through fields to look more professional and ever vigilante.

But we need some horror to help remind us this film is indeed going that way. Thankfully it’s a huge what the fuck am I looking at scene and it’s….surprisingly held back. Good on them.

The squad is assempled and heading toward the mining town to help their men. On their way as they get closer to the town, they find a dead German soldier laying face down by a tree.

The cameraman decides to investigate the body a bit as he notices the hand is rather, bloated and odd looking. When we get closer, we noticed the hand is nearly double its size and on top of that. It seems to have metal protrusions sticking out the top of it. It’s kinda funny but they look like little microphones or sensors. Finding this incredibly odd, Dimitri rolls the body over and, well we get the bloated face of a dead German soldier with his eye bulging out, and once Dimitri is juuuust close enough, the eye explodes, the corpse gives out a death gasp, shakes and is once again we hope dead for good this time.

Get ready for a lot of pausing, appreciation and holy shitness. Goddamn this movie was a good choice.

What they find within this town, is grotesquely beautiful. Which is a thing I rarely say but man do I love it when I get too.

The town is a wasteland of carnage and war. Bodies on both sides scattered across the town streets, but in the midst of all this, is a straight up reference to the film Alien, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

We have a one man turret cannon with a dead soldier sitting inside it. At least at first glance. The more you look though. You soon realize. This solder has no lower half.

What you have is the torso of a masked soldier, held in place, almost built into this machine, with various wires and cables connecting him to it. But the way it’s filmed by Dimitri, is comes off more as an idle curiosity like someone trying to understand a piece of art and wanting to note its finer details, but not being sure how to process it.

It’s very reminiscent of the Space Jockey scene from Alien and I freaking love it. It’s just odd enough to stare at and want to know more about, but we’re going to move away from it, because oh there is more left to see, and the more these men stare at it, the more questions they might have, which you don’t want.

In the midst of this battle scene we have a surprisingly well done and put together….well. Bonfire of nuns.

Some of whom are stll alive despite having been laid together and torched with a flamethrower it’s pretty gross stuff, and holy hell, this film man. Like I said, I expected over the top what the fuckness, but the way a lot of this is going so far, It’s proving so much more, and it’s great.

We’re starting to also get right into the Frankenstein elements of the film too. As we discover the church which was emptied and bodies burned, the graveyard behind it has been dug up. Cofffins left void of their bodies and tombstones knocked over. Once the group finds their way inside the church. They discover the place is less of a church now, and more of a converted factory. Some might say laboratory. I would because that’s another word I really love.

All of this is pretty creepy, and the response from the men is great. They all have no idea what it is they’re looking at, what they walked into, and who the hell would do this. It only gets better.

Discovering the whole place is wired, Dimitri is asking one of the men to find the generator room and bring some life back into the place. Because sure why not. The soldier rightfully questions him on this and why the hell you’d want to. But he is promptly told to shut his trap and just do it. It’ll help with the filming. So the man locates the generator room and puts his back into it as he cranks the generators to life with all he’s got. Immediately upsetting their commander as the place begins to spark with life and lighting. But their commander has a very good reason for being upset about this.

The rest of the squad has located. A thing. A featureless human, with an odd device fused to its arm, and electrical current charged fingers. As the juice begins to flow back into the building. This thing begins to kick back to life and stand up. It’s a subtle creepy thing and weirdly beautiful in its simplistic design. It looks almost like something from Silent Hill. But the moment we see it do a Dr Strangelove nazi salute we can relax a bit and laugh, because of course it is.

They all learn two things very quickly. First they learn this one time human being, is now blind and cannot see them. Their commander also learns, that the odd device attached to this things arm, is not only equipped with a bayonet, But a powered wheel that extracts your organs upon puncturing the body.

If you ask how their commander found this out, I, just don’t know what to tell you. But the man is now dead with all of his intestines covering the floor, and this mutated thing of metal and flesh is also shot dead. So now we have a squad with no leader, a creature straight up out of nightmare creation, and a church heavily wired to run as a factory for…these things.

This is only 25 minutes into the film, and they are going full steam ahead into it. I love it.

Well now being minus a squad leader, and a horrific creature, we are left with some very tough choices. Which for some of them seems to be the question of leadership, and how it should be based on seniority versus rank. Oh you Russians.

Well thankfully the group is set on following rank because well. No one wants to face tribunal. Does that mean our question of authority is done with? Naturally, of course not. It’s absolutely going to persist, bet on it.

Well it’s time to search the town for the main reason they’re all there to begin with. Finding Tiger Bear squad. Who are still very absent, which is odd for a group in dire need of help who were continuously broadcasting for help to be suddenly so silent. I mean not really they’re all dead or never existed in the first place likely but still. At least this group is wondering about this as well.

This group does have names within it. But really I’ve only stuck with identifying the camera man because as quickly as a lot of these men pop in and out of scenes and some end up prime for the chopping block so no offense to them but, they’re all meat for the grinder in the end, and really no one speaks out too much. Well except for Sergei and Vassili. But we just settled things for them.

So onward and upward, our group is heading out into the town and searching for their comrads. Which leads them to, the only place that seems to have any signs of life. A kennel of sorts.

Just filled with a lot of different animals. From wolves, to little puppers, cute rabbits, to squirrels and everything inbetween. All ran by a german man with a song in his step and a joy for feeding his animals. Until he gets shot in the leg, interrogated, and loses a finger tip. Russian efficiency!

Yes unfortunately the one sign of life they find ends up being a loan man who’s only job is to feed the animals for ‘The Doctor’, and he gets shot in the leg. Dimitri ask to interrogate the man and tries to inquire about what all the hell is going on around this town. The church, the experiments. All of it. It’s the first time we hear of ‘The Doctor’ and how they all do work for him, that he knows nothing of a group of Russian soldiers and only knows about his animals. This isn’t good enough for Vassili, so he takes over the interrogation and cuts the mans fingertip off. Just like that this man suddenly knows where these soldiers are and is more then happy to take them all to Tony the Tiger.

Or tiger bear. Whatever.

IT’S TONY THE TIGER!!!

So we are now being lead into a tunnel thanks to Vassili and his work in interrogation, or you know cutting peoples limbs off. I mean if it works right? But will this venture prove worthwhile? Or a trap!

It’s a trap, I mean come on, you take someones rabbit, then you slice off a finger just for funsies. What do you expect? A warm welcome and a map to a hideout? Well our pet feeder does indeed lead them somewhere. But it’s nowhere any of them would want to ever be. I imagine at least.

Which means get ready for fun times ahead! The moment they find themselves in this tunnel, their prisoner vanishes and they are on their own. Well technically on their own. They have some guest with them. Like a man with Sickle’s for hands and a blank canvas face guarding one hallway tunnel. Another man with oversized lobster claw like hands which, are amazing. Naturally. A truly unique nightmare creation straight off of creepy pasta, a German Soldier with a welded gas mask and steam powered blade stilts for legs…and arms.

And the Russian chomper! I don’t know what to call this thing except that because holy shit is it amazingly fun. It’s a fully metallic skin suit claw hands, and a rotting head stuck inside a metal head that chomps anything near it. The creation is amazing. It’s an over the top nightmare, and easily could have come out of a Rob Zombie stage show.

The design on these soldiers is…something. I mean rats off to their team of effects artist. This was pretty amazing stuff and they’re all unique enough to stand out. I mean if you’re going to go completely baslls out in a monster movie, this is how you’d do it. Because holy hell are they doing it, and we’ve only just begun.

Our men barely make it out of the tunnel traps. One of our men, Ivan managed to barely survive having his head crushed by the Russian Chomper, though it seems his helmet that ‘saved’ him may actually be all that’s keeping him together too. Needless to say this outing did not go well, and they really should have brought back the guy for interrogation instead of torturing him.

Well thankfully someone managed to find some people for interrogation. With everyone now back to the church, our second team comes through with 4 people, a nurse named Eva, two German soldiers Fritz and Hans, and a yet to be named child.

Eva is the voice for this group as they try pleading and reasoning with the Russians. She explains to them that everyone in the village is either dead or ran. Those who didn’t run were used in the doctors experiments. She knows nothing about team Tony the Tiger, or any other Russians. She just wants to not end up killed by one of those mechanical abominations. Which is very understandable given the Russian Chomper. Being a nurse she decides to offer her services to the group in an attempt to keep herself alive. The Russians may not be willing to listen to her about killer machines, but they certainly are willing to accept her help in saving their nearly head crushed friend.

I mean honestly if you have one group of men telling you they were ambushed by things worse than a body kept running off of electricity, and now a woman telling you the two German soldiers with her would rather be killed by the Russian men than left to be killed by those abominations. You maybe might want to consider her argument on safety precautions for furthering your survival, or at the very least the realization you are severely fucked.

But no matter. It’s time to save our comrade! She grabs hold of his stuck helmet and begins to pull in an attempt to free his head of the crushed helmet, and it’s a surprisingly efficient success!

She not only managed to pull the helmet off, she pulled off the top half of his skull with it as well, and his brain so. I mean a victory is still a victory right?

Its both hilarious, gross, and amazing. The death is not amazing, but what is, is the subtle scene that happens during the helmet removal. As the helmet is removed, blood splatters onto the camera lens, so Dimitri has to clean it off, angling the camera upward. As he does, we get a shot of Alexei in the rafters with his rifle, and lowering from the ceiling, attached to wires, we have our German soldier with the sharpened stilt arm and legs, spindling down from the ceiling like a spider behind the man.

The next time we see Alexei, he’s screaming and an elongated drill head is punctured through his head. It’s pretty intense honestly and I swear these creatons really do look like they could’ve come out of Doctor Satans lab. Shit I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s who’s tied to this.

I really love this machined design though. Just the look of this creature is terrifying and cool as hell.

Needless to say the moment it attacks all hell is breaking loose and more monsters show up to attack. It’s mass pandemonium and in the middle of all of this, I shit you not. Someone fires off a pistol and they use the goddamn Han Solo blaster effect. I know somewhere in my head the exact origin of that sound effect, but how it fits here I couldn’t say.

We are having any and all creatures thrown in at us now and it’s great. They all manage to keep their own identity without being reused which is still surprising to me given how many of these things we’ve seen so far, and we STILL have a good bit of film left to go!

These things really are damn near works of art, especially when they get further and further away from the human form. There’s one specific monster that just looks so weird and funny, but it stands out so well. It’s like a walking turret head with a large Nazi symbol search light looking counterpart. What this thing does I have no idea, and I would not want to find out. For all we know it could be a flamethrower or just a crush your body into jelly with its feet thing. All I know is it looks weirdly cool. All of these do.

Now you’d think we are about to get a break, but hell no! There is no time out in war! Also we have some secrets to reveal. Which sadly are not as spicy as we’d hope, or as you might imagine. It seems that during our teams escape and temporary safety underground, our commander came across something of Dimitri’s.

It just so happens to be a jamming device which, wouldn’t you know it? Just so happens to be the same jamming device that was preventing the group from contacting anyone upon arrival. Not only that BUT…but. He apparently was the one sending out the Tony the Tiger calls for help!

Yes, our trustful camera man who’s only job is to take pretty pictures, has a lot more behind him other than a full pair of pants. He is here on a top secret mission of his own. From Glorious leader Stalin, Dimitri was made an officer, outranking all of them, he has a blackmail list on all the soldiers to ensure his safety and we learn that not only is there no Tony the Tiger, but that Russian intelligence KNEW of the doctor and his attempt to build Hitler a super human army. They just did not know to what extent his work had reached, and especially had no idea about the monsters he created. It seems Russia wants to steal the doctor away and have him work for the motherland instead of the fatherland. So with that, we begin our search for the doctor. If he won’t serve Russia, then he must be killed to stop the Germans from possibly winning this war with their super soldiers.

There isn’t much room for debate, between a letter from command detailing the names and locations of every soldiers family should they not comply and keep Dimitri safe, and an army of Frankenstein monsters behind them. It’s not a good situation or space for argument against going after the good doctor.

Oh speaking of monsters behind them. Those monsters are still behind them!

Which means it is time for them to bust through the door like the Kool-Aid man and remind us they are still an active threat.

I give it to the movie, because you really can’t root for either side. I mean on one hand we have the Russians we were filmed brutalizing villagers, beating women and taking their only food supply, now trying to fight for survival against evil nazi robot monsters. And as cool as they look, you realize you shouldn’t cheer for the evil nazi robot monsters.

We can though, in the end. Enjoy together the carnage and death that awaits all of them undoubtedly.

Which brings about what has to be thus far my favorite moment in the movie. They discover a room, with a large crate of body parts. Which are being tossed down a chute by a monster with a large battery pack on his back, with the help of a legless soldier dragging cables behind himself. The men kill the body part dumping monster and decide they should investigate where this chute leads. But no one is wiling to go down there. I do not believe they wish to die a horrible screaming death, and I support that wish to remain alive and not mutilated to death.

So lets use the kid!

Yes! They remember they still have a little German boy in their group. So who else better to go down a tube of possibly death, that they can easily handle and pull back up should things go south?

The men politely ask the German boy if he would kindly go down the chute for them, and obviously there is a communication break down as the boy just keeps repeatedly telling the men his age is 9. Why that matters who knows.

It’s a good joke, somewhere someone laughed at that.

So yes, the boy is screaming his objections at the men, shouting ‘NEIN NEIN NEIN” and the men just assure him he’ll totally be fine, as they lower him down the chute. Surely he will be just fine, outside having his head pushed into a mound of dead body parts.

This kid is so fucking toast, and it’s one of the best scenes and entrances. But it also is something worth suing Capcom over.

All we see is the men holding the boy by his legs. We then see two large legs stand over the boy and suddenly a large cloud of smoke as a machine whirs to life. Whatever it is, it’s killed the boy. The men fall back coughing, and from the chute comes the coolest cosplay of a Resident Evil Village boss. I am not joking, and Capcom owes someone some credit and money.

This is a pair of large legs and a torso fused with a plane engine and propeller head. Yes this thing lunges forward with its spinning death blades, and yes it looks cool as shit.

Unfortunately they cheese the boss fight and cut its fuel lines, which then set it on fire. Someone got a shit ton of XP killing that thing and robbing the rest of the group. Its still by far a memorable monster and again yes anyone who played Resident Evil 8 will immediately see that and know. They’ll KNOW!!

So. The group is minus a German boy, but they did take out a big boss so, good on them I guess? Dimitri at least is ready to continue their journey further to find the Doctor, however the rest of the group not so much. Between nearly dying over the course of the last hour,and not having killed a child and had an all to close encounter with a propeller headed engine man. They decide living is much better and easier to do when fighting German soldiers, versus traveling underground in a place swarming with mechanical nightmares. Which to be fair, I can understand. It’s not a journey meant for everyone.

With that decision made by the group the issue Dimitri and official ‘Get Fucked’ and send him down the body part chute with his camera and bag of film. Leaving him to his fate as the rest of the group is headed hopefully for freedom. Or likely terrible mangled metal death. Which sounds like an AWESOME band name, Terrible mangled metal death.

With his a heavy heart having lost his friends and potential meat shields from the hoard of horrors, Dimitri soldiers forward, continuing the film every beast he comes across. Which is a shocking amount. I really mean it too, these people went all out on their budget for monsters, and every single one of them stands out as being their own, it’s really fantastic and I love the absolutely show of force behind these practical effects.

What Dimitri uncovers as he goes further down this labyrinth of tunnels, is a production factory for monster assembly. You see mine carts cull of mechanical bits as well as human parts. Everything loaded up with purpose for the doctors work, and we even spot some of the familiar earlier creation bases, like the half man half canon base. But more importantly. We have discovered the doctors laboratory. Which is every bit of what you’d expect Frankenstein’s lab to look like. Of course I love the shit out of it. This is amazing and something you’d have to explore on your own. Like this whole thing just drips with serious OUTLAST vibes. If you’ve ever experienced that game, you’ll know exactly what I mean. This just has so many strong vibes, the look and feel. The large medical facility rooms filled with hanging bodies, the creatures roaming around uncaring of the cameraman at first glance. Then out of nowhere they can turn around and start chasing your ass down.

This whole movie has been a big surprise and both what I expected and not at all what I’d expected. The level of detail in this is astounding, and the sets are great. I really mean it though I’d love to have just explored all of this laboratory. There’s so much to see and even less explained that you WANT explained. Like in what looks to be the doctors private study, we have the Frankenstein family crest, and a picture of Frankenstein Senior whom the novel was based on, in the rooms center we have a glass animal cage with. A teddy bear that’s had its body fused to a womans head. Which is very alive, and moaning out staring at Dimitri.

I do not want to see that thing moving or talking. But I would like a kind explanation for just why the fuck that thing exist in our world.

There’s a large rectangular room converted into the largest ice box with hundreds of bodies hung from the ceiling, Several rooms like this actually, remember that village above used to be full of people, here’s where most of them ended up.

There’s a shower room now converted to a charging port of sorts for various guards. And locker rooms full of more and more terrifying creations. Including our recently dead Ivan. Who has comically had his hands replaced a hammer and sickle. The doctor is an equal opportunist in his endeavors.

And we are about to meet that doctor. Thanks to Ivan having spotted and taken care of Dimitri for the doctor. The doctor as it turns out, was the man they found earlier who was tending to the animals. They never realized the man they cut the fingertip off of was the very man they had come to collect.

No he is not going to kill Dimitri, at least not yet. He has other uses for him now. He wants to keep Dimitry alive to document his work. Which I mean again, that’s fair. When faced with the offer of being turn apart by freakish personal designed robot men or eating eintopf and filming in a lab. I’d take the eintopf. Which is braised short ribs and squash. Though it is highly likely the short ribs came from humans. But again still preferable over the alternative. For some of us.

So here we go. A grand tour of the master doctors laboratory. Where we learn of his wish to continue his fathers work with creating life. Only he had his own vision of that future. Not just of reanimated human tissue, but the betterment and strengthening of that flesh. By using machines, a new industrial human revolution.

His father never approved of his sons work. He beat him when he saw him fusing cats with machines. The Germans imprisoned him once the war began and killed his father. But when they saw what he’d done to those cats, the immediately asked if he could do that to humans. When he said he could. They freed him and gave him his own lab. It sounds unreal but do remember in Japan there was testing done during WW2 with nearby villagers where they would cover them in water in the freezing snow to find out how long it would take for limbs to freeze. Setting off grenades in fields of people tied to poles to test the effective range of explosives, and performed surgeries without anesthetic to see how long a person would last before dying. Everyone did horrible things during the war and the ones who created a world destroying bomb were the ones that they declared the winners in the end. Those scientist who tortured people by the way were all pardoned and their work  later on became how we knew to treat frostbite and more. History is an odd sad thing sometimes. But anyway.

Dimitri is filming everything they come across like a kid in a candy story, and the German human machines get weirder and more out there. And even still they have yet to use the same design twice. Someone out there had a sketchbook of monsters and these guys just brought all of them to life.

We learn that unlike his ancestors and father who needed lightning to give life to their creations, his relied entirely off of a super charged electrical system, or the worlds first D battery.

What’s more, is these are not just simply machines. They aren’t puppets or mindless robots. They are indeed alive. They need food to live and they have minds, albeit somewhat limited but still they do.

He’s about to demonstrate his process for us which is really cool of him, and it seems his test subject, is one of our Russian friends Vassili. Who apparently did not escape after they dumped Dimitri down the flesh chute. Which does not bode well for the rest of the group.

Though it seems at least some of them MAY have made it out, or at least radio’d for help as we can hear off in the distance Russian bombing, which Dimitri informs the doctor means they are coming and if he agrees to work with Russia, they an assure his safety. But The doctor seems not that concerned with the offer of “Help us or we’ll destroy you and your work”

Which in retrospect. Is not that great of an offer to make someone, when you are balls deep inside their lab, and they can kill you in an instant, with their own weapons, or one of their literal hundreds of abominations. But the good Doctor assures him he will consider this. He just wants him to continue filming his work for now while he thinks it over. So what shall become of dear Vassili? Well he’s gonna die. Of course. He’s not very useful. However, someone who IS useful to the doctor, and a part of his ultimate goal, is their commanding officer, whom has also been captured, and subsequently had his head shaved. “I can end this was Dimitri.” With that, the doctor brings up his two subjects. Dimitri’s former commander, and a nazi officer. We get to watch in glorious gory detail as the doctor uses a bone saw and cuts the skull caps off both men and…removes one side of either brain. Yes he’s going to do it.

The doctor is fusing together one part communist, one part nazi, to create a shared mind and usher in a new era of peace, the world over.

Or at least he would if the man survived being brought back with a car battery. Spoiler alert. He didn’t.

But this is why we experiment! You’ll never succeed if you don’t try. As the bombing gets closer Dimitri is growing even more impatient. He needs to get the doctor out of there and on their side. But the Doctor doesn’t want to go yet. He’s still considering the offer. And he has one more experiment left to do. Fortunately we learn that, the fresher the body, the more successful his experiments are, the stronger they are. But having taken out the two commanding officers well. That leaves him a bit short on living fresh subjects. Unless anyone else cares to volunteer.

Ahem.

Once Dimitri wakes back up after suddenly blacking out, somehow. He finds himself laid out on a table and secured to it. While the doctor operates the camera and politely informs Dimitri that after considering his offer he will have to turn it down. He has his own plan, and agenda. He will take his work and continue it, in Italy. Germany put him in a camp, ready to kill him until he was useful. Now Russia threatens to kill him if he doesn’t help them. So he figures fuck y’all I’m feeling like Olive Garden tonight.

So the Doctors last fun experiment? He will fuse a camera into Dimitri’s skull!

Of course that’d be appropriate, and it means he can always be with the doctor to continue filming his work for the world. However the bombing has arrived and, it is too late it seems. There is no time to work on creating a literal camera man.

But there is absolutely still time for Dimitri to make one last plea with the Doctor to leave with him. But he cannot accept this. He knows he must leave, and he cannot take his army of creatures with him. So he knew he would have to leave them to die. Which he finds unfortunate. However he also is going to leave Dimitri and must tell him that as he is going to be left there alone strapped to the table. He is going to need to be prepared for what will happen.

Once the Doctor leaves, the creatures will turn on one another. They only follow his command, so without him there to do so. They will lose focus, fill with rage, and destroy not only each other, but everything around them. Including the Russians coming to attack. So you know. Be ready to have your body ripped to pieces by whatever isn’t fighting another monster at the moment.

However providence is smiling down on the red nation. Someone, some loan gunmen has managed to kill the doctor! What good news! Dimitri is saved!

Or at least he would be if not for the fact the gunmen was the last surviving member of his former squad Sasha, who is doing the smartest thing anyone could imagine to do in that very moment. Sasha is collecting not only all of the doctors notes, but he is taking the doctors head. Because he heard the doctor specifically say “All of my knowledge, the key to my work is in my head” so, you know…take the brain back to Russia and you win the war.

It's funny and fucked up, I fucking love this movie.

Dimitri is trying is hardest to reason with Sasha, begging him to release him, but Sasha is not hearing it. He apologizes to the man but he is outta here! He will be the one to deliver the goods back home to glorious leader, and he will receive the hero’s welcome and eat Shashlik with the big wigs.

As he parts however, In the background we see the doctor did not fail in his final project of fusing the minds of a communist and nazi together in Dimitri’s officer. He succeeded after all! It just took a while. And this new creation has half a mind to remember he promised Dimitri with his dying breath, that he would kill him. So yes. Yes indeed. The man is mad and taring at his own flesh. But he is set on saying hello to Dimitri and literally, not figuratively begins eating the mans face.

As the camera feed comes to a close, we hear a Russian patriotic anthem begin playing, and a picture appears, of a smiling proud Sasha, beside Stalin. Apparently they rewrote history and won the war with Russians own supercharged human race.

What a way to finish this trip.

The End

Sweet lord that was refreshing in every way. It’s funny how mindless dumb fun can do that. It’s why I grew up loving films. Even when I could be absolutely upset and grumpy, the moment I see a silly movie, I lose my shit.

Prime example was the first time my dad made me. MADE ME sit down to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I was mad, I was a kid, I didn’t want to watch some boring old movie and I threw a tantrum. My dad made me a deal. He said if I watch just the first 10 minutes and I don’t laugh even once. He will turn it off, and we will watch whatever it was I wanted to watch instead. I lost it. I was laughing none stop and he won. It became one of my favorite films and I find myself using the line from Hellraiser 2 when thinking about that experience. “And to think, I hesitated”.

This movie was a great balance of both campy cheese, and horror. It never fell over into one category, it kept itself right on the edge of both. It had suspense and gore, well setup scenes and story. The creations were fantastical and insane. The movie moved along quickly with the story and it was entertaining.

It was a fun premise and sold itself well. I almost wish it were longer, just because we could’ve explored more of the wasteland of the town, and the lab. We could’ve seen more of the monsters, and those things were already super insane with the amount of detail. Like pausing on different models of these soldiers. It’s amazing the detail in each of them. Like you could easily see these existing in a video game world. But seeing them brought to life is just something else all together.

The feel of the film was perfect. It knew what it was and ran with it, It was presented as propaganda that turned into a mission which turned into video evidence to be studied. Everyone in the outfit felt genuine and had their own character even if given zero dialog or few moments. They all felt and acted like a single unit would. The accents were not exactly the most believable or amazing. But eh. Had the film been boring, or the effects horrible. It’d be a different story. This thing absolutely had a budget behind it and they used it well. It would’ve worked fine on its own as a horror film, but shooting it as a found footage was definitely a different choice, but it was well. Not amazingly well but it worked. There was a feeling very early on in the movie that had a feel of authenticity to it with the camera and the filters they used. In sort of the same way and feel that 1974 felt with being shot on 8mm film. But there was a shift with the film, which they did show in the movie to try and help explain it. That they used a different more modern camera of the time, which was their way of saying we are going to use a regular camera now and not this vintage shit.

You can notice the transition and it’s a little disappointing as it would’ve been fun keeping with that feel and grittiness of the other camera. But I get it. It just stops the movie from really feeling like it fully embraced the period it exist in, and becomes instead a ww2 era horror film.

Granted it gave us a prettier and clearer image, but still. It would have proven fun if they had stuck with the original camera. But the film as I recall early on presented itself as Dimitri had run out of film with the old camera and he was given from his large heavy duffle bag a newer larger camera that held more film and had better lenses, so. Yeah.

There were times the film felt a bit rushed, but it had a short run time and we needed to get things moving. So like when we bring in the 4 survivors from the town, there was some possibility to do more with them, question the group, use them for something like they had with Eva trying to help Ivan. But they didn’t. They were meat bags. Though Eva did show up later as a monster nurse working for Frankenstein. At least I believe it was her. It’s only for a moment but it was enough to give her character a fate in this story.

But it did feel like they could’ve possibly done more. But that itself is just again wishing for a longer run time. They had a lot to play around with and it would have been fun getting more out of it. But at the same time it raises a good argument for the less is more. When the film finishes and leaves you wanting to see more, and you still enjoyed it. Then that’s a good experience. Like I still want to go back and look over the design of those monsters just because they really were that grotesquely beautiful.

Especially the spider like german with knife arms and legs and a drill beak for a mouth attached to its gas mask.

Seriously so many of these things are just amazing to stare at.

Which makes sense given this film had been in production gathering art like this since early 2000 when it was being titled as Worst Case Scenario, and eventually turned into what it is now. It had a huge following behind it and absolutely earned the love its gathered.

What blows my mind though. Yet makes sense. Is how this film was considered made on a very shoe-string budget.

Apparently they really went low tech with their cameras, and the vast majority of the budget, shit. I’d say the ENTIRETY of the budget. Fed right into the practical effects of the film. Which absolutely shows in every frame. It’s one of those cases where the line “Put every dollar on screen” actually is there. You can see it and bledd their hearts for that.

The director and writer of this film, Richard Raaphorst, has a pretty nice film profile behind him and made a film that sounds like myself when I was in my early twenties called The Rocketeer, about a man obsessed with Star Wars his becomes an organ donor to get the cash together to purchase the original discontinued for safety concerns Boba Fett Rocketeer figure. In Star Wars lore it’s a grail of an item as they stopped making the toy that fired his jetpack rocket because it was a choking hazard.

Seriously everyone that worked on this deserves praise. It was fun, partly comedy, full on horror, and it built a great atmosphere. Like I am still stuck on wanting to go back to the wasteland of the town and just look over everything in the background, especially their space jockey nazi soldier. It just looks, gah. You get sucked into the details, I love it.

This was a very needed cleanser after the previous night. Again not that the last film was a failure and so bad I wanted to bash my head into a Nazi Chomper, but it was just badly done. This thing was beautifully done and looked beyond its budget.

We are getting down to the nitty and the gritty here with his month, and it’s feeling like an up hill battle. Both with writing these AND recording them. But we are almost there. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is thankfully not the search light of a nazi machine fused human being. It’s a Russian transmutated war machine, apparently.

So with that good friends and reader. Until tomorrow, in a world of communist and nazi’s. Be a furry.

It sure as shit beats being a Brony.