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Released by: Dark Sky Films
Released on: September 10, 2013.
Director: Richard Raaphorst
Cast: Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Robert Gwilym
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
Set during the end of the Second World War, 2013's Frankenstein's Army follows Dimitri (Alexander Mercury), a soldier in the employ of the Russian Army's propaganda unit tasked with making a film documenting the struggles of a small squadron of soldiers along the Russian border. When their radio man gets a distress call from a Russian team behind enemy lines, they cross over into German territory in hopes of finding and saving their comrades in arms.
As they head deeper into Germany, they notice some odd skeletons here and there, but this doesn't stop them from trying to find the missing crew. When they come across a village, seemingly completely abandoned and very likely the scene of some sort of battle, they decide to head into the local church to look for anyone who might be able to help them. It's here that they find a body laying contorted on the floor, electrical wires attached to it. Inside the church alongside the strange body is an older man named Viktor (Karel Roden) who tells them that if they want to find the soldiers, they first need to find the doctor. Under the threat of violence the group are able to coerce Viktor into taking them to the doctor himself, but once they head underground it turns out that he's not what he seems and is in fact a mad scientist working for the Nazi's. His job? To take the corpses so readily available and piece them back together into monsters dedicated to furthering the efforts of the Nazi war machine!
Richard Raaphorst feature length directorial debut was made on a modest budget but effects junkies will appreciate the fact that all of this was done practically, in camera, and without the aid of any obvious CGI. Shot digitally but degraded in post-production to look like 16mm film stock, this 'found footage' moves at a pretty swift pace. This works for and against the movie. It's a positive in that it puts us in the place of the soldiers, they don't have too much time to think about what's happening around them and so neither do we, which means we don't worry about realism or logic, we just go with it. The negative side is that there's no character development here at all. Outside of a rant or two courtesy of our mad doctor about the work started by the generations of his family which came before him, everyone is just more or less monster fodder.
There's that word though… monster. Or more accurately, monsters. Plural. There are a lot of really creative creature designs on display here and the costume and prosthetic effects work conjured up to bring them to life in the movie is consistently impressive. Not only do they look great, but the actors under all the makeup do an excellent job through movement and physical acting of convincing you that they really are stitched together from different parts and then modified mechanically. Spasmic walking and stuttering movements are what we see and while sometimes they may move quickly, they never seem out of place. Though at times it might feel like you're watching a friend play Wolfenstein, what with the first person perspective and the various Nazi monsters coming at you from all angles in an underground setting, there's no shortage of entertainment value to be had here so long as you're not looking for 'deep.' The gore is plentiful and sometimes surprisingly nasty (brains and entrails galore!) while the tension is pretty solid even if ultimately we know pretty much everyone around is there simply to be slaughtered. Everyone involved plays it all completely straight, with Roden going just close enough to over the top to play as insane without resorting to intentional camp. This allows some of his rants to have some effective bits of twisted humor worked into them but at the same time doesn't take away from the horrors of his creations.
Shooting all of this in and around an abandoned industrial facility in Prague gives the film an authentically European look even when all of the actors are speaking in English and ultimately we wind up with a pretty effective movie that does a great job of mixing tense action and horror with pitch black comedy.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Frankenstein's Army debuts on Blu-ray from Dark Sky Films in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.78.1 widescreen. Though the movie was shot digitally, it's been tweaked and played with in an attempt to create the illusion that you're watching found footage shot on 16mm towards the end of the Second World War. As such, there's a lot of fake grain and print damage slapped onto the picture and there are spots where the colors are intentionally boosted or degraded for artistic effect. This results in some obvious video noise that's present in the background of the image pretty much for the duration of the movie. It's easy enough to ignore once you get into the movie, but it's there. As to the detail in the picture, it's good and it's obviously quite a bit above what standard definition would be able to provide, but the way in which the movie was shot means that we don't always get a flawless picture. In the context of the intent of the movie, however, what's here actually works rather well, warts and all.
Audio options are offered up in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and LPCM 2.0 Stereo, both tracks in English with optional subtitles provided in English and Spanish. Forget, for a moment, that the supposed 16mm found footage is not only in color but also capable of capturing true surround activity and just enjoy the rowdy and aggressive lossless sound mix that is included on the disc. If the movie isn't concerned with realism, why should the technology used to create it be? Rear channels are used very well here, especially during the more action intensive scenes where gun shots come at you and monsters make scary monster noises. At the same time, post-production tinkering has resulted in some 'age related effects' being applied, so expect some hiss and some pop here and there, all of which is in keeping with the found footage motif. This is a fun mix, it works very well in the context of the story.
The main extra on the disc is a thirty-two minute long featurette that is made up of some interesting footage shot on the set of the movie during its production and some cast and crew interviews recorded seemingly around the same time (as they too are shot on set). There's discussion here of the effects, the sets and the production design as well as the story ideas and concepts. It's quite well done and worth seeing. There's also some cool test footage included here that was originally shot by Raaphorst independently in black and white that makes for an interesting comparison to the footage used in the feature itself (which is obviously in color).
Aside from that we get five promo spots for each of the monsters featured in the movie, a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter stops. Promos for a few other Dark Sky Films properties play before the main menu loads.
The Final Word:
Frankenstein's Army was a fun surprise, a very creative movie with some fine performances and consistently impressive effects work. It's not a deep film, there are no great allegories here to analyze nor is there any sort of hidden meaning nor is the picture all too concerned with realism. The movie is meant to entertain and it does that through and through, while Dark Sky's Blu-ray release offers it up in fine form with a cool behind the scenes documentary to show you how it was all done. A great release overall.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
