Shock Waves
Year: 1977
Director: Ken Wiederhorn
Written by: Ken Pare, John Kent Harrison, Ken Wiederhorn
Threat: Undead Nazis
Weapon of Choice: Water
IMDb page: 
Shock WavesYear: 1977 Director: Ken Wiederhorn Written by: Ken Pare, John Kent Harrison, Ken Wiederhorn Threat: Undead Nazis Weapon of Choice: Water IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
none
Rish's Reviews
I saw this recently at a double feature with Burial
Ground. This was better.
When a group of people on a boat, crew and passengers both, find themselves stuck on
a remote island due to a freak occurrence, they find that they are not alone: a reclusive
German officer lives there . . . and his elite crew of enhanced soldiers also "live" there.
I don't know where this title comes from. Obviously it was changed to "Shock Waves"
for some reason.* Apparently, this is the best of the Nazi zombie movies (I imagine
that's a sub-subgenre), and I don't doubt it. Scream greats John Carradine and Peter
Cushing appear (though not together), along with Brooke Adams (in an early role), a
few unfamiliar faces, and a handful of Nazi supersoldiers, neither dead nor alive, who
have been living for thirty years at the bottom of the ocean.
While dull and slow-moving by today's standards (and rather simplistic by any standards),
I quite enjoyed Shock Waves. It was not bad. The Nazi zombies (actually called
The Toten Corps, a great name), while not very horrifying, were pretty effective in the
silent, blank-faced way they moved, in the water and on the ground. I like that you don't
know how many they are, and often, where they are. They could have been used more
extensively (and effectively), but they're probably the best thing about this picture.
Brooke Adams was lovely in this, though the script doesn't require her to do much more
than hang around in a bikini and cringe away from danger. She's done quite a bit of
Horror, come to think of it, from Invasion
of the Body Snatchers '78 to Sometimes
They Come Back, from The Unborn to The
Dead Zone. Perhaps I should nominate her for Scream Queen status.
Speaking of which, I love Peter Cushing, and he does a German accent in this one (along
with a nice ugly facial scar), though I wish more had been done with his character. Ah
well, maybe in the eventual remake (you know someone will). Heck, I might call my
entertainment lawyer friend and ask if he can get me the rights. Like I have anything
better to do.
Film critic Roger Ebert said recently that most filmmgoers divide movies into two categories:
before Star Wars and after Star Wars. It is with shame that I admit that,
during the intermission, I asked my buddy, "I wonder if this was made before or after
Star Wars."
See kids, it's for paragraphs like that one that this website gets hatemail.
I'd Recommend It To: If this sort of thing is your bag, you could do a lot worse.
*How does "Death Corps" grab ya?
Posted: September 12, 2005
Total Skulls: 9
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup | ||
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title |  |
|
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | ||
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | ||
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location | |
|
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | |
|
| Someone investigates a strange noise | ||
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | |
|
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | |
|
| Warning goes unheeded | |
|
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | |
|
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | |
|
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |