More out of curiosity than anything else, Claudia (Rosie Akerman)
performs a past life regression on her good friend Ralph (Mark Drake) -
which to his greatest dismay unmasks his former self as a member of the SS
who secretly invaded England in World War II to spread terror with random
acts of violence. The memory is so vivid that Claudia and Ralph decide to
go on a camping trip and pay a visit to the village where this all is
supposed to have happened, each bringing their better half, Lucas (Miles
Jovian) and Andrea (Sophie Barker). Lucas and Andrea though are not even
half interested in Claudia and Ralph's regression experiments, and are
more than happy to let them go off alone every now and again - and that's
first and foremost because Lucas and Andrea have an affair, so the farther
they know their respective partners away, the better. But while they have
sex in one of their tents they are knocked out, tied up and dragged off by
an old man (Julian Glover), who for no apparent reason at all seems to be
mighty pissed at them ... Walking the countryside, Ralph starts to
remember more and more of the past, like he murdered a bunch of innocent
children and their mother, and he thinks he even sees the spirits of those
he killed haunting him ... and that is more than just a little disturbing.
And then he and Claudia find out Lucas and Andrea have quite obviously
abducted, which is even more disturbing. But most disturbing might be that
the kidnapping obviously has to do with Ralph's wrong-doings in his past
life ... Backtrack: Nazi Regression is a rather
interesting thriller indeed - and that said, of course you might think the
whole past life regression part of the film is just gobbledegook, but if
you can suspend your disbelief in favour of the story, you will be
rewarded with a weird tale of crime and punishment where the lines between
good and evil are more than just a little blurry, carried by an
atmospheric directorial effort (also helped by wonderful locations), a
decent ensemble cast, with the occasional piece of explicit violence
thrown in just for good measure.
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