War is hell. This place is worse.
Directed by Richard Raaphorst
Aka Army of Frankenstein
Reviewed by Deep Red
I didn’t know this was a found-footage film when I sat down to watch it. I was very surprised. I bought it a bit ago but I’ve been avoiding watching it; I didn’t know much about it but when I read the word “zombot” somewhere, my heart sank, childish CGI-heavy science fiction maybe? Definitely not my jar of moonshine, I’m still in therapy after seeing I, Frankenstein [2014]. Last night I watched The Frankenstein Theory [2013], which restored my faith in recent horror a little, so it’s just been Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Frankenstein lately.
So, Frankenstein’s Army. Il verdetto (The verdict).
It’s fucking good! Pardonnez mon français.
It’s a Dutch-American-Czech film shot in Prague in the Czech Republic about some Russian soldiers in WWII who meet the results of secret Nazi experiments in East Germany, the zombots.
The zombots themselves are some seriously cool creations. The CGI mess I feared isn’t there, any CGI was barely noticeable. The film itself looks amazing. If you enjoy horror films set in WWII, I do, then you will love this. The cast do their jobs and do them well. The found-footage aspect stretches the authenticity a little; did they really have cameras of such quality in those days? I doubt it. But that’s just a small criticism that is neither here nor there really, the settings/costumes are great and override the slight issue of footage-realism with their own so it never became a problem. I just think as a found-footage film it falls slightly short but as just a film it looks the shit.
The plot is fairly basic but this film is a visual treat and it succeeds at that to a very high degree. I was very impressed that I wasn’t bored of the zombots after numerous appearances and that was because the film was constantly inventive I think. Even the gore, of which there is a fair bit, took second place to the presence of these fantastic creations. Reaches a decent conclusion. Check it out.
Stars Alexander Mercury as Dimitri, Joshua Sasse as Sergei, Andrei Zayats as Vassili, Karel Roden as Viktor, Luke Newberry as Sacha, Hon Ping Tang as Ivan, Mark Stevenson as Alexei, Robert Gwilym as Novikov and Cristina Catalina as Eva.
