Shock Waves

A group of passengers charter John Carradine's boat for a little pleasure cruise and find themselves on a mysterious island where an old SS Commander Peter Cushing is keeping an old experiment going from World War II. Back in the day when manpower was getting scarce the Nazis started creating zombies out of dead soldiers. A few even got into combat as legends tell. But it was too late and now Cushing sits out on Caribbean island waiting the day when the Reich shall rise again. The only surprise here is that John Carradine is not the mad scientist, but merely an eccentric old sea salt. The whole thing is fun and quite campy. But in an unintentional way.

The film opens with a narration that goes something like this, "shortly before the start of world war 2 the German high command began the secret investigation into the powers of the supernatural. Ancient legend told of a race of warriors who used neither weapons or shields and whose superhuman power came from within the Earth itself. As Germany prepared for war the SS secretly enlisted a group of scientists to create an invincible soldier. It is known that the bodies of soldiers killed in battle were returned to a secret laboratory near Koblatz where they were used in a variety of scientific experiments. It was rumoured that toward the end of the war Allied forces met German squads that fought without weapons, killing only with their bare hands. No one knows who they were or what became of them. But one thing is for certain, of all the SS units there was only one the Allies never captured a single unit of." Then the opening credits play, after which we see a small boat drifting aimlessly in the ocean. A fisherman (Clarence Thomas) sees the boat drifting and rescues a young lady named Rose (Brooke Adams) aboard. After more narration, this time by Brooke's character, the next 75 odd minutes is a flashback. Unfortunately at this point the film has made it's first big mistake as we can already guess that only Rose will survive whatever is about to unfold. An old boat called the Bonaventure lazily sails through the Caribbean ocean, hopping from island to island. On board there are four tourists, Norman (Jack Davidson) and his wife Beverly (D.J. Sidney), Chuck (Fred Buch), Rose plus the boats Captain (John Carradine) his deckhand Keith (Luke Halpin) plus galley hand Dobbs (Don Stout). That night the boat is nearly hit by a large liner that was running without lights. The Bonaventure is damaged. The passengers and crew are forced to abandon ship and sail toward a nearby island. There they find an abandoned hotel inhabited by an old SS commander (Peter Cushing) who warns them to leave the island as soon as possible. Meanwhile something under the ocean is stirring and has been awoken. Soon they are all faced with genetically engineered Nazi zombies who were designed to operate underwater. It quickly becomes a fight for survival and the odds aren't in their favour. Co-written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn I thought this was an average horror film. It has a nice atmosphere, especially when the SS zombies rise from the ocean and is generally well made but it has a couple of major flaws that I just cannot forgive, nothing happens for long stretches and becomes incredibly dull to watch. And there is no blood, gore, violence or nudity at all during the entire running time. The zombie make up is cool but the human characters don't really fight back and the Zombies themselves just drown people, no intestine eating here, absolutely criminal. All the death scenes are tame and unimaginative. Carradine and Cushing are a little underused, Carradine is killed off early on and doesn't share any scenes with Cushing which is a bit of a waste of two horror icons. Acting is OK with Cushing adding some class the film doesn't really deserve, as usual. The music by Richard Einhorn consists of eerie electronic tunes and works very well with what appears on screen. Photography is fine, nothing special but it does the job. I liked the island location with it's lush green jungles and swamps, it helps create a cool atmosphere of isolation. Overall, a bit disappointing really, dull at times, no excitement, it stupidly reveals who's going to die and who's going to survive within the first 5 minutes, no blood, gore, violence or nudity and lets not forget this is meant to be a zombie horror film. However, having said that I still found it sort of watchable for what it was. Average at best.

To my knowledge, Shock Waves has the distinction of being the first bona fide Nazi Zombie movie (a couple of films dallied with the idea in the forties and fifties, but they don't really count). It's a concept that has proved rather popular with horror film-makers over the years, with titles like Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies, Outpost, and Dead Snow amongst those that have appropriated the idea. But just because it was the first, doesn't make it any good. The film's prologue recounts how the Nazis conducted bizarre experiments during WWII, exploring the supernatural in the pursuit of creating an invincible army of the undead. The film then cuts to the present as a catatonic woman, Rose (Brooke Adams), is rescued from a dinghy found adrift in the sea. The rest of the film is a flashback, in which we learn that Rose is the only survivor of a group shipwrecked on a remote island after their pleasure cruise collides with a freighter in the night. As if that wasn't bad enough, a strange solar phenomenon has awoken the long dormant Nazi zombies that lurk at the bottom of the sea. The problem with Shock Waves is that it really doesn't do anything of interest with its promising premise, with a long, tedious build up to the arrival on the island, followed by lots of aimless and extremely boring meandering through swamps and undergrowth, and a succession of rather dull and completely bloodless deaths. Peter Cushing crops up as the German officer in charge of creating the 'Death Corps', but is given very little to do, and John Carradine plays the salty sea captain of the damaged boat, but even the presence of these two horror legends cannot save this one from being a total waste of time.

Nazi-zombies sound like a perfect combination to me to bring an entertaining horror flick with. There are actually quite a few movies that feature this combination, however for some reason none of those movies really work out, mostly due to its often poor production values and execution. The concept of having a small group of Nazi-zombie left overs from WW II, inhabiting a small island, decades after the war has already ended, sounds like plenty of enough good material to create an entertaining horror-flick with. Besides, the movie stars two big horror legends; Peter Cushing and John Carradine. It makes it all the more disappointing that the actual movie offers so very little. It takes quite a long while for the movie to grab some pace. There is often too little happening in the movie. It isn't until far into the movie that the first horror finally starts to kick in. The movie is obviously low budget, which not only means that its production values are poor but also its acting performances are painfully bad to watch at times. The movie is really cheaply put together, with some bad editing, that prevents the movie from ever flowing well and a real lack of tension. As a genre movie this one simply doesn't have enough to offer, not even for its most die hard fans. The only excitement and interesting aspects the movie has to offer are its moments of having the zombies submerging from the water and walking underwater. It has some good looking moments in it but overall it's of course not all quite enough to make the movie any more exciting or interesting to watch. It's of course still nice that the movie has Peter Cushing (who looked a bit like a walking corpse himself in this movie) in it and it. No matter how bad a movie ever was, Cushing always managed to give away a fine performance. It was also nice to see John Carradine in this but his role is really too small to leave any impression. It's a bit of a pointless movie to watch and above all things a real waste of a fine concept. 5/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

It took me awhile to get around to seeing "Shock Waves." I have to say, I wasn't missing a whole lot. I saw "Zombie Lake" awhile back and while "Shock Waves," by conventional standards is clearly better than that, it was kind of dull. I liked the whole plot: a group of vacationers break down in the Caribbean and find a deserted (mostly) island. Nazi-zombies rise out of the sea to kill. Nazi-zombies maul and munch and mutilate. Doesn't that sound great? Yea, not so much. They hardly maul and they do not eat their victims which really doesn't qualify them as zombies in my book. At least we don't get to see them eating anyone. They mostly just pull them down under water. There is no gore in this flick. I don't even remember seeing any blood. The zombies are pretty well-done with good make-up and decent costumes. I liked how they kept popping up in any body of water on the island whether it be a tidal pool, a stream or right out of the sea. Those little buggers must have morphed into guppies when they weren't busy being the socialist undead... The film does boast a creepy atmosphere and a decent soundtrack, but it wasn't quite enough to save it. Could have used a lot better zombie killings and several buckets of fake blood. On the back of the DVD I got it refers to this as a "70's horror sleeper..." I think I know why. Yawn. 4 out of 10, kids.

If this is supposed to be a horror movie, where's the horror? I didn't find any. This movie absolutely fails at creating suspense. The score which is obviously supposed to be eerie just gets on my nerves. As pooped as the concept is, I don't have anything against Nazis as movie villains. They make good movie villains. But a bunch of mute tall blonde men with pale faces, wearing diving goggles and Third Reich uniforms aren't scary at all. If you've read the plot summary for "Shock Waves" here at the IMDb you know almost everything there is to tell about the story. There are no twists and turns. The final outcome (who survives and who doesn't) is already spoiled by the movie itself at the very beginning. The only two persons in this movie that can actually be called "actors" are Peter Cushing (SS commander) and John Carradine (Captain Ben) and their screen time is rather limited. The other characters are about as three dimensional as a sheet of paper. The most noticeable thing about this movie is Cushings fake German accent, which is actually quite good. Settings, props and costumes are as cheap as it can get. Well, not everyone has a multi million dollar budget, but you can make better movies with less money. If you want to see good low budget horror, watch Blair Witch Project or the early works of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. There may be people who enjoy this kind of trash. I for sure didn't. Wasted another 90 minutes of my life.

This movie was definitely cult, in that only a FEW people actually like the movie and with good reason. I like cult movies, but this one is NOT one of them. As far-fetched and ridiculous as the idea is, alone, it is not bad enough to ruin this movie. I've enjoyed movies with worse premises/plots and still found something to like. Ken Wiederhorn's presentation, pace, and timing were awful. His direction is the main reason why I dislike this movie. He did absolutely nothing with the story. Amateurs have been able to evoke more emotion and fear than what Wiederhorn did. I was yawning 15 to 20 minutes into the movie. He set a very serious tone from the beginning and genuinely tried to get the audience to be scarred. What is there to be afraid of? Is it the idea of Nazis? Is it the idea of zombies? I say "idea" because these zombies have virtually no impact in the movie. Not even in the end. Also, the movie takes place in broad daylight. Yeah, really frightening. The death scenes are not violent, but implied. Usually tackling into water or bushes is the preferred method of Nazi zombies. Very little special effects here. I understand the budget was small, I mean it was shot in broad daylight for financial reasons not aesthetic ones. Not even cheesy blood was used in this thing. I don't care what budget this movie was on, but a toddler's weekly allowance could have purchased some fake blood. My main argument is that Wiederhorn could have used timing and brutality to make up for these shortcomings, and he didn't. Shockwaves was pathetic and boring. There was NOTHING redeeming about this movie. I gave it a 1 out of 10 only because the scale goes from 1 to 10. It really deserves a fraction in between 0 and 1.

... when on a remote island surrounded by an unknown number of enemies. The acting was below low budget, the script may have been a good idea but was poorly implemented... I have seen worse movies but not many... there is just so much WRONG with this film the viewer finds them self scratching their head wondering what in the world the director was thinking... Lessons we learned: When you have an enemy known to be water based, stay away from water When you are only but a few, and get separated, do NOT scream out for each other lest you attract said enemy If you DO find yourself in a body of water and you cant see your feet, don't take off your shoes.... (this is common sense anyhow) The way to kill a supposedly invincible water bound zombie is take off their "sunglasses" Don't stand up in a boat that's in water (duh) I can go on and on of things that were stupid about this movie, which was not frightening in the least and very predictable, but I don't have time to write a novel :). The ONLY redeeming quality about this movie was the "The End" at the end.

The reason why this underrated cult gem is so unappreciated (almost hated) probably is because most people don't have enough imagination to really enjoy a flamboyant tale like Wiederhorn's "Shock Waves". The plot and make-up effects might not be very convincing; I assure you that the film makes up for this in atmosphere and goodwill. Even though the makers didn't have much to work with, suspense is created by a horrifying electronic score and viciously bleak locations. It already starts out terrific, with an eerie voice-over informing us about the despicable experiments of the Third Reich. Hitler & Co supposedly formed a bloodthirsty zombie squadron that never stopped battling their opponents. Without weapons and appearing out of nowhere. When the Germans were close to losing the war, SS commander Cushing exiled along with his troop to a tropical deserted island. For some (rather unexplained) reason, they arise after forty years and go after a group of tourists. Shock Waves features long shoots of swampy wastelands with the Death Corps constantly lurking…Okay, the murder sequences are bloodless, tame and rapidly paced. We're even denied some of cast members' death and yet you still forgive them for it. The few special effects it does feature are nauseating is a very subtle way, like the decomposing of an undead exposed to the sun. Even though this production credits Peter Cushing and John Carradine as the major stars, their screen time is merely limited to remarkable cameos. Still, Cushing rarely looked so creepy with the giant scar and famishing appearance. Cushing's role just states what an unpretentious and versatile actor he was. The premise of experimental Nazi-zombies was repeated a few times but rarely as efficient and scary as here. "Death Ship" was rather sublime, probably because it was driven by atmosphere as well. If you truly are a horror lover, you simply have to see "Shock Waves"! It easily joins the endlessly long list of severely underrated 70's treasures. As weird as it may sound, the image of zombies slowly walking out of the water feels intriguingly realistic.

Man, I tried hard to find something about this film that I liked. Reason being I vaguely remember watching it when I was a kid and being freaked out. Oh well, that was then, this is now! The film starts out promisingly enough, with a great intro about the 'death corps' and a girl gets rescued after floating at sea in a dinghy. Things pretty much go downhill from here! A series of slow moving, disappointing sequences follows, as the annoying characters are shipwrecked and are picked of one by one by the death corps (who must have an amazing laundry person as their SS uniforms look in great nick after more than 30 years underwater!). The deaths are quite anticlimactic. If these were scarier, gorier or more inventive the film would definitely benefit! I thought the concept of the film was wasted. One only wonders what this film could have been with a better script, better action sequences and better direction! Peter Cushing and John Carradine do their best to carry the film, putting in OK performances as the reclusive SS commander and the grizzled old sea captain. But even these two mighty thespians are unable to rescue this shipwreck of a movie.