Review: Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
Directed by: Richard Raaphorst
Starring: Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Robert Gwilym
Written by: Chris W. Mitchell, Miguel Tejada-Flores
Music by: Reyn Ouwehand
Country: Denmark, Czech Republic, United States
Available on: Blu-ray/DVD (Dark Sky Films)
IMDb
Richard Raaphorst’s steampunk splatter film, Frankenstein’s Army — which started life as a flick called Worst Case Scenario that was eventually scrapped — is one of the most visually interesting horror movies of the 2000s. (Obviously, I’m not the only one that thinks so, since the folks over at Capcom lifted one of its monster designs for the recently released game Resident Evil Village. Also, 2018’s Overlord borrows more than a few elements.) Frankenstein’s Army’s story, what little there of one, focuses on a squad of Soviet soldiers sent to eliminate a Nazi sniper nest who stumble across the horrible experiments of Victor Frankenstein’s distant relative. The good doctor has been fusing dead or dying Nazis with artifacts of a Wehrmacht rummage sale in an attempt to weaponize them.
This film is primarily an exercise in concept, production design, and cinematography, and succeeds gloriously on those fronts. This isn’t the first or last horror movie to leverage the horrors of World War II, but its location in combat-ravaged Germany (shot in the Czech Republic for some very genuine, gray, mist-enswirled European flair) is nonetheless foreboding. The grotesque goings-on of Dr. Josef Mengele are readily conjured by Frankenstein’s bio-mechanical “zombots,” as they’re credited. Hulking men in gray SS regalia — arms replaced with humongous lobster claws or ridiculously oversized power drills, heads now steel propellers or bear traps — roam bombed-out catacombs and rusting, forgotten manufacturing facilities. The sudden appearance of these monstrosities is jarring, pretty frightening at times, and exhilarating. The sheer zany creativity, animated by mostly practical techniques, is refreshingly outrageous and sort of ludicrous, in the best way possible. The plentiful creature effects are accompanied by ample disembowelments, beheadings, amputations, impalements, and cranial destruction.
This movie has a limited budget, despite its fantastic effects work. This impairment is belied primarily by its meager, malnourished screenplay. The characters are hollow archetypes of shitty, macho soldiers — none of whom are deserving of or even positioned for audience sympathy — and the story is mostly a prolonged action set piece. Some of the battle scenes are oxymoronically manic-chaotic yet low-energy, and the soldiers resort to some really idiotic behavior, like firing in the direction of their comrades in close quarters and wasting ammo on walking chunks of sheet metal. But overall, Raaphorst and company know how to shoot compelling, thrilling sequences that make you think you’re seeing way more than you are. The found footage framing — the events are purportedly being filmed as Soviet propaganda — is super clunky and pointless, as it often is. But sometimes, the limited “eye” of the single camera effectively obscures and then suddenly reveals something horrible.
Though Frankenstein’s Army doesn’t have a ton to offer beyond its metal-infused monstrosities, abundant carnage, and bleak atmospherics, it’s an invigoratingly unique and satisfying foray into macabre visual extravagance.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10
