Aquatic Nazi Zombies should be all it takes to sell this film honestly, but there's more:
A group of mismatched tourists, including a perpetually bikini-clad Brooke Adams and a bargain bucket James Caan, are enjoying a boat trip. The old sea dog captain of the vessel is played by none other than John Carradine, who gives a grand performance, shitting all over his crewmatesβ ramblings about ghost ships and what have you. But guess what? After an unexpected solar incident suddenly bathes the footage in a orange filter usually reserved for Hollywood films set in Mexico, their navigational system is corrupted and their small boat happens to collide with a goddamn ghost ship. What are the chances?
The gang are forced to seek shelter on a nearby island that at first appears to be deserted. But of course the island is not completely uninhabited, for in this case, battle-scarred exiled SS Commander Peter Cushing has made this haunting retreat his forever home. He delivers a revelatory monologue that would sound ridiculous coming from anyone else, but itβs our boy Peter, so I buy it wholesale. You see, he gravely informs the shipwrecked crew that he led a team of enhanced super-soldier Nazis during the Second World War. They proved too difficult to handle and so when the war was lost, he scuttled their vessel and became an island hermit, living his own little Third Reich Animal Crossing dreams. The zombie soldiers surface from the ocean hell-bent on drowning anything that lives and breathes, and the stranded party must find a way to fight back and escape.
I have to say I love the design of the zombies in Shock Waves. Not only do you get the scarred skin and SS uniforms that are par for the course with Nazi zombies, but the added additions of their perpetual drowned-rat appearing Aryan hairdos and their rather unique goggles really seal the deal. Every time they slowly emerge or submerge into the water is darkly delightful; a piece of imagery the writer-director Ken Wiederhorn knew was effective, as he repeated it over and over throughout. Even putting aside the villains rather unique design, the nature of these zombies and their violence is also separated from the norm of the time. Gore hounds will be disappointed to find a distinct lack of blood. There are no victims being torn in two here, and the zombies are not dispatched via explosive headshots. Once you accept this fact, you can see that this take on the subgenre is actually quite refreshing.
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This is driving me nuts. I watched it sometime in the last year and it's definitely from the 70s or maybe early 80s, very likely Italian horror? I distinctly remember either David or John Carradine as... I don't remember if he's also evil, but he's tracking down this evil or possessed little girl? The mom is rich, and she was in an accident or something and is in a wheelchair. At some point I think I remember the girl being given a gift of a mechanical bird, jeweled or something? Maybe porcelain? And I remember a scene at the end where Carradine or someone is chasing the little blonde girl (I think she had pigtails) through the city. It's not Bad Seed, and to be sure I checked that it's also not Beyond the Door, The Sentinel, or Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane. I could be mashing two movies together and it MIGHT not be a Carradine but I feel pretty confident that it is. I think it's like, satanic intrigue of some kind? It's driving me absolute nuts, I've been going through IMDb to see if I can figure it out. I may have also watched something ABOUT it recently which may make it something that was on Last Drive In or some other Joe Bob Briggs show (or something similar) but I could also be totally wrong about that. If anyone could help me out I will be eternally grateful, y'all has my back for the last movie that I couldn't remember and was driving me crazy.
I was going to give it a shot tonight. Sad for them. Appreciate them trying.
