FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY (2013)

Studio:       Dark Sky Films
Director:    Richard Raaphorst
Writer:       Chris W. Mitchell, Miguel Tejada-Flores
Producer:  Nick Jongerius, Daniel Koefoed, Greg Newman, Todd Brown
Stars:     Karel Roden, Robert Gwilym, Hon Ping Tang, Alexander Mercury, Luke Newberry, Joshua Sasse, Mark Stevenson, Andrei Zayats

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Russian soldiers in WWII battle a Nazi squadron of undead creatures created by Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Using a 16mm film camera, Jewish cameraman Dimitri records the mission of a Russian squad led by a man named Novikov. Sasha is the team’s young sniper. Vassili is an arrogant hothead. Bearded Alexei is quiet. Ivan provides brawn. Sergei escaped from Poland and joined the Russian army. In a forest, the group finds a strange humanoid skeleton that sparks electricity.

While making camp, Sergei and Novikov receive a radio transmission from a trapped squadron of Russian soldiers. They take it upon themselves to plan a rescue operation. Dimitri finds a dead body whose eyeball explodes during a moment of reanimation. Dimitri does not report the encounter to Novikov.

The soldiers discover a pile of immolated bodies as well as dug up graves. While exploring a building, they awaken a blade-armed creature that kills Novikov. Sergei realizes that their radio is being jammed. Vassili argues to take over command even though Sergei is next in line.

The squad searches a nearby village for clues leading to the trapped soldiers. Vassili kills a rabbit before interrogating a farmer for information by cutting off his fingers. The farmer leads them to a series of underground hallways and then disappears. The soldiers are then chased by several more strange creatures. They find a safe room, but Ivan is injured and his helmet is stuck on his head. Sergei and Vassili find four refugees hiding in the building. A woman among them claims that the undead creatures are being created by someone. She also claims that she is a nurse that can help Ivan, but his skull comes apart when she removes his helmet. Vassili beats the woman. Another creature kills Alexei by surprise. Bullets bounce off the monster as everyone retreats. The monsters pursue the soldiers until they finally reach safety.

Sergei discovers a radio jammer and a recording that shows Dimitri faked the stranded squad of Russian troops. His real mission was to find the doctor creating the creatures and attempt to take him captive. Dimitri produces a document identifying him as a ranking captain. He claims that if anything happens to him, the families of the other soldiers will be harmed.

One of the captured Germans leads the group towards the doctor’s base. Creatures chase after them again. The group discovers a chamber where another monster is pushing body parts down a chute. After the creature is killed, Vassili forces a captured German child down the chute to investigate. The child is killed. A creature with a propeller head comes up the chute and the soldiers eventually incinerate him by overloading the propeller motor. The soldiers then toss Dimitri and his camera down the chute and abandon him.

Dimitri continues investigating the doctor’s lair. Dimitri discovers more creatures and then finds Ivan, who has also been reanimated into a monster. Ivan knocks out Dimitri.

Dimitri awakens as a prisoner in the kitchen of Viktor Frankenstein. Viktor and a monster force Dimitri to eat a stew made from body parts. Afterwards, Viktor has Dimitri continue filming the laboratory. Viktor reveals that he is the grandson of the notorious Doctor Frankenstein. Using his grandfather’s notes, Viktor was assigned by Hitler to create an army of undead creatures.

Dimitri sees Sasha inside a cart of body parts. Now missing an arm, Vassili is seen strapped to a gurney. Viktor shows more of his experiments. Dimitri claims that the Russian army is approaching and if Viktor wants to live, he must join the Russians. Sergei is also a prisoner in the laboratory. Viktor kills Vassili and then cuts out the brain of a Nazi soldier. He removes Sergei’s brain next. Believing he can bring the two warring sides together, Viktor uses one half of each brain and puts them back into Sergei.

With Dimitri strapped to a table, Viktor plans to escape on his own, claiming that the creatures will revolt without his presence. As Viktor prepares a final experiment on Dimitri, Sasha arrives and shoots Viktor. The monsters go berserk and attack Dimitri. Sasha escapes and is awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal by Joseph Stalin.

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Review:

As a story and as a “found footage” movie, “Frankenstein’s Army” leaves something to be desired.  But as a spectacle of inventive insanity, “Frankenstein’s Army” is gloriously entertaining.

Under normal circumstances, when a director’s name appears five additional times in the credits (Original Idea by, Story by, Creature Designs, Concept Art, and Storyboards), an accusation of self-indulgent vanity would be perfectly warranted.  In the case of Richard Raaphorst, however, it simply illustrates the passionate commitment that the mad scientist behind “Frankenstein’s Army” has for his own warped project.

A more accurate accusation that could be leveled against Raaphorst and his production crew is that “Frankenstein’s Army” is nothing more than a canvas for the design team to let their devious imaginations run wild.  There is no better evidence for this claim than the notion that the story could not be any less interested in historical accuracy or silly details like facts.

“Frankenstein’s Army” is a “found footage” tale about a ragtag group of Russian soldiers on a mission to rescue a squadron of comrades trapped behind enemy lines in World War II.  What they discover instead is that the grandson of legendary madman Doctor Frankenstein is on orders from Der Fuehrer to reanimate an army of Nazi soldiers from junkyard scrap and discarded body parts.  These abominable creations then terrorize Allied forces with their nightmarish fusion of “Bioshock” styled mechanics and twisted grotesqueries from a “Silent Hill” fever dream.

Providing the meat for the monsters’ grinder is a platoon of army men fresh from their tours as stereotypes in every war-themed movie that has ever come before.  The youngest recruit is conspicuous in his silence.  The hotheaded braggart is anxious to murder and pillage.  The sensible Polish refugee provides the level head.  And the Jewish cameraman is busy recording it all with his color 16mm synchronous sound film camera that shoots in a 16:9 format, despite it being 1945.

Since the movie itself is not overly concerned with glaring anachronisms and a boilerplate setup, the audience should let it slide too.  Because story finishes in a distant second place when the main attractions feature a blade-armed monstrosity wearing an iron maiden for a mask and a lumbering hulk of rusty flesh with an airplane propeller for a face.

The first act trudges up a hill like flanking riflemen meeting heavy resistance.  Yet once the movie tops its crest, “Frankenstein’s Army” makes a charge at the finish line with breakneck speed and relentless ferocity.

What the “found footage” format offers is a first-person perspective that makes the film feel like a night spent at Six Flags Fright Fest.  With monsters striding from every darkened corner while the camera runs down narrow hallways and into dustily dressed rooms, “Frankenstein’s Army” makes a perfect surrogate to tide one over until annual maze attractions return for Halloween season.

Without a doubt, the eighty minutes of madness comes with its fair share of shortcomings.  But the inspired delirium of Karel Roden as the demented doctor and the horrific hilarity of his insane creations more than makes up for the film’s weaker aspects.  Set aside any expectations of genre-defining filmmaking and settle in for Viktor Frankenstein’s version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Review Score:  75

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