Shock Waves

Somebody call David Hasselhoff!
First, let me say that I like the 1975 horror flick "Shock Waves." Secondly, it must be the only film in history that has Peter Cushing, John Carradine, Brooke Adams AND scuba Nazis. After years of struggling to find this little known creepfest on video, I am pleased to see it has finally been released on DVD.

What I noticed after watching this film again recently (...), was how reliant "Shock Waves" was on mood and atmosphere to create its horror. Director Ken Wiederhorn has draped his film with creepy images of gothic mansions and decaying laboratories and, of course, hungover android Nazis standing on the ocean horizon, ready to destroy every living thing within sight.

Unlucky travelers, among them Brooke Adams and Fred Buch (?!), are in the wrong place at the wrong time when they are stranded on an island whose only inhabitant seems to be Peter Cushing in an old dark house. Van Helsing he's not. In fact, Ol' Pete's a former SS scientist who created a race of...

Nazis!!! Zombies!!! Nazi Zombies!!! UNDERWATER NAZI ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saw the trailer for this as a sophomore in high school, circa 1977. The second I saw the begoggled undead shock troops emerge from the ocean I was hooked - SHOCK WAVES has gone on to be my favorite low-budget film of all time, and I've seen a-plenty. No cannibalism here, no gore, no entrails - just bizarre, creepy atmosphere to burn and the claustrophic paranoia that is at the very heart of this classic Florida-shot mood piece. And if that ain't enough, you also have John Carradine, Peter Cushing, Luke Halpin (all grown up from his "Flipper" days) and the excellent Brooke Adams, who wears a bathing suit better than anyone since Julie Adams (no relation as far as I know) in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Blue Underground has done an excellent job with this package. In addition to enlightening, entertaining commentary from director/co-writer Ken Wiederhorn, filmmaker/photographer Fred Olen Ray and make-up designer Alan Ormsby, there is a wealth of advert media: original trailer, a Luke...

From the Depths of Hell's Ocean Comes...Nazi Zombies!
On a desolate, nondescript Caribbean island, shipwreck survivors are surprised to discover that an eccentric old German doctor resides there in an abandoned and dilapidated hotel. They soon learn, however, that the old Teutonic medical man is more that just eccentric; he's a former S.S. officer who has continued with the experiments assigned to him by Der Führer. And it isn't long before the castaways find themselves battling for survival against a corps of amphibious Nazi zombies!

This off-the-wall, low-budget horror film is just as goofy as it sounds, but it's still pretty good fun. And believe it or not, it actually spawned a bizarre sub-genre of Nazi zombie films that includes 1981's THE LAKE OF THE LIVING DEAD (a.k.a. ZOMBIE LAKE), 1981's NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES, and 1983's THE OASIS OF THE LIVING DEAD (a.k.a. BLOODSUCKING NAZI ZOMBIES), to name just a few. None of its cinematic offspring quite reach the guilty-pleasure or cult status of SHOCK WAVES, though.

British...

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