Shock Waves (1977)

Genre: Horror, Nazi Zombies

Source: Netflix (Instant View)

Grade: A-

A Nazi Zombie movie starring both Peter Cushing and John Carradine!! "Have all my dreams come true"! I thought to myself and the answer is..... not quite. Despite being a pretty good horror movie it just wasn't  as good as it could have been.
Now i`ve always been interested in the whole Nazi Zombie subgenre and for one to have two of my favorite actors star in it just made it even more appealing, so I was really excited to see this movie to say the least. But alas I just didn't get the feel that it was as good as it could have been. Cushing and Carradine both died off way too soon, the film didn't move as fast as I would have liked, and there just weren't any of those awesome kills you come to expect from a zombie film. Not all`s lost though this movie did boast some cool looking zombies with those really freaky goggles, a pretty interesting story to how some Nazi zombies super soldiers came to be off the coast of Florida, and Cushing proved to be quite sinister in his performance, though how little his screen time was. 
               So basically the story follows the getting shipwrecked off a strange island formula. Oh, yeah and the way the started the movie really killed a ton of the suspense, I won`t tell you how but you`ll probably see what I mean when you watch it. Anyways its the whole boat gets wrecked off the coast of some weird ole Island, and then the captain played by the legendary John Carradine disappears leaving the remaining two crew members and all the passengers to fend for themselves. When they reach the Island,the people start getting picked off and nobody has any clue why or how until the sinister Peter Cushing (who they find in a old creepy seemingly abandoned hotel building) who tells them how and why these Nazi Zombie Super Soldiers are killing everyone. Peter Cushing knows all this because he`s the Nazi SS Commander who brought them to the island. So by just watching Peter Cushing fake a German accent made this movie all the more watchable.

               Now about the films cast, it wasn`t a really big one,thankfully. It included John Carradine playing the rusty old ship captain but unfortunately he`s only really at the beginning of the movie since they kill him off so soon,so he never shares any scenes with Peter Cushing which as you can imagine was of great disappointment to me. But Cushing does have slightly more screen time then Carradine, and his portrayal of the old SS Commander was pretty cool, one his evil and sinister type of performances he does and then like I said before watching the British Cushing fake a German accent was very amusing. The main female character played by the young Brooke Adams was a pretty good unannoying female character. Plus the fact she was really hot and spent most the movie half naked really put a plus on watching her. The rest of the cast was pretty basic characters you had the honcho guy, the clueless obnoxious yet pitifully comical tourist couple, and the smart crew member who always seems to have a solution to ever dilemma. So really overall none of the performances were bad.     

        Now the zombies were pretty sweet looking they were kind of big and broad while wearing these really freaky yet awesome looking goggles. But there were not any real epic kills and to me that is a big disappointment because zombie films really have a name for awesome unique kills and there were absolutely zero in this, come on there should have at least been one or two. Instead they have most the killings occur off screen or its just like a zombie drowning somebody all casual. The one way you could kill them was well....different... you basically tore off their goggles and then they just like died. Wasn`t what I was really expecting but its not bad either.
.              Well that just about sums up that movie and my feelings toward it. Which are its cool its just not awesome, and didn't turn out as awesome as it was capable of. The cast was pretty cool, despite the best actors(Cushing and Carradine) not having nearly enough screen time in my opinion. But its a worthy incorporation to the whole Nazi Zombie subgenre which i`m a fan of. So anyone who has a interest in this type of movie or is just a fan of Peter Cushing should really consider checking this movie out sometime.