It should have been a simple search-and-rescue mission in Romania - but
only one (Philip Berzamanis) of the Alpha team actually returns, and he
seems to be more than a little off, so much so that he needs to be
questioned by a psychiatrist (Bob Lee) and guarded by a special agent
(Jane Haslehurst) at all times. His story's pretty wild, too, after
leading his team through a warehouse full of lifeless human bodies, he
finds three Nazis brutally torturing a woman (Dawn Hills). He manages to
save her, even if risking his own life doing so, but she dies in his arms
cursing him with her last words "Do you know what you have done,
stupid English?" And really, all hell breaks loose as soon as she
has died, Alpha One is captured by Nazis, tortured, sees the lifeless
bodies come to life (they are Vril, supersoldiers created via occultism in
hibernation), frees himself to kill some Nazis and see them come back to
life, sees his comrades killed, and and and ... Eventually, he gets away
thanks to another agent (Rudy Barrow) - but nothing in the world he
returns to is the same anymore, as the Nazis he has fought now plague his
dreams - and after a time, not only that ... Dead Walkers:
Rise of the 4th Reich is an odd little movie - and very entertainingly
so: On one hand it's very complex in structure and plays with levels of
perception in a way almost resembling surreal cinema, on the other though,
director Philip Gardiner delves deeper into pulp fiction than ever before,
using every nazisploitation mainstay in the book to make his story float,
from the allied superagent to the undead Nazi supersoldiers, via torture,
sexy but sadistic Nazi vixens (special mentions go to Nikki Webster,
Eirian Cohen and Melissa Hollett), plenty of bizarre blood and guts and
the like. But add to that a genuine talent for unusual editing and
camerawork, and you got yourself a pretty entertaining and otherworldly
yet still pulpy enough likeable little movie. Recommended!
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