Shock Waves

Dir. Ken Wiederhorn, 1977


1) Y/(Peter Cushing + nazi zombies) = X. If Y = Shock Waves, solve for X.

A: X = BORING.

Unfortunately, math has never been my strong suit, so it took me the entire movie to work this one out.

Apparently Herr Cushing was not only a commander in the Galactic Empire, but in the S.S. as well. During his years of service to the Reich, he commanded an elite group of aquatic zombie soldiers. He sunk their ship at the end of the war and exiled himself to the mansion on a nearby uninhabited tropical island (um). Naturally a handful of shipwrecked tourists lands on the island when the zombies decide to awaken.

Luckily for the humans, these goggle-wearing undead soldiers also happen to be the most ineffectual zombies I've ever seen. They're almost adorable like that. You see, they don't actually bite or infect people...they drown them. That's it. They wait in the water for someone to step on them, like big Aryan jellyfish. If they stumble upon someone in a house, they are compelled to drown them in the fishtank. If they were in a desert, they would probably give up and play cards.

Unfortunately for the humans, they are the WORST. PROTAGONISTS. EVER. I won't bore you with the details of their bumbles, but suffice it to say that at one point the heroine finds the nazi zombies' achilles heel -- all you have to do is take off their goggles and they die. Of course, she never tries this again or mentions it to anyone else. Why would she, really.

Zombie explanation: Ze Germans created them with SCIENCE, presumably inbetween searching for the Ark of the Covenant and trying to call up the demons of hell.

Contribution to the zombie conon: Zombies with a water fetish, apparently.

Favorite moment: Peter Cushing is great as the Nazi recluse (and I choose to read his concentration camp victim gauntness as irony), but he dies quickly and without aplomb.

The very first shot of one of the zombies shooting up out of the ocean is also the hotness, but it was all downhill after that.