Say what you will about National Socialism, but it must be some sort of tribute to Nazi science that during the Second World War no less than three German research teams independently succeeded in creating zombie supersoldiers. Luckily for the Allies these ones got loose and killed the scientists before they could be unleashed as a war winning wünder weapon, 'cause imagine trying to defeat an unarmed enemy who's running up to bite you and can only be killed by bullets. Anyway some Finnish and American soldiers (I'll explain on the way) are sent to investigate the compound, and the whole operation is marred by gun violence.

This seems to be a Finno-Lithuanian production, with Italians and Americans also somehow involved. The credits read like "production design by Paavo Lyytikkainen, Guido Spinelli and Bob Smith". The world's really turning into the bridge of the Enterprise ain't it? Man setting aside national boundaries and working together for the common good - gives me a goddam warm fuzzy. But in a production this...cosmopolitan I always await the first line of diologue with much trepidation. Will it be tragically dubbed by non-actors using google translate? Will it be in Lithuanian with English subtitles outsourced to Korea? Will it be Troll 2?

Here comes a guy, he's about to speak, and it's... not horrible! Hey! We can watch the movie. They seem to all be actually talking English with their own real voices and with reasonable fluency. My preference in foreign movies is native lingo with proper subtitles, but technically this movie is supposed to be in English because the Finnish soldiers are working with some Americans who of course don't speak Finnish, so the Finns are being accommodating. And I have to say every Finnish person I've encountered on the internet seems to speak perfect English so I can buy this. I do not buy that the Russian peasant soldier they capture is also bilingual. They explain it somehow, I forget, but no. Anyway my point is even though the script is pretty lackluster dialogue wise, it will not harm you.

The whole movie is like that - not horrible. I was expecting a train wreck of horrible, and you know how just the relief of avoiding trauma can give you a high? I found myself sort of enjoying the movie just out of letup even though strictly speaking it's not good at all.
I just like the war horror. Granted it's all movie play war, with lines like "my gun is out of bullets!" but hey, zombies, machineguns, barbed wire, explosions, army helmets, grenades, good stuff I like to see. And it never devolves into chest-pounding zombie extermination.

{Editor's note - I "sort of enjoyed" it so much I watched it again recently and ah, I guess 2016 me was more easily entertained than the sophisticate I've become. Don't trust movie reviews people.}

I should point out that despite what is strongly implied on the DVD cover these are mostly not Nazi zombies. I think there might be a few at the end, but the rank and file of these zombies are Russian soldiers. This is another thing I sort of like about the movie - it's set in a theatre of war we don't often see depicted in the West. This is the Russo-Finnish border. Why is an American there? Well I don't know, but when the Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939 hundreds of volunteers from many nations joined the Finns, including none other than the immortal Christopher Lee. The problem is this movie would have to be set in 1941 because that's when the Germans invaded Russia and before the Americans were at war with Germany, so technically that's the only time you could have an American in Finland shooting at Russians who are then turned into zombies by Germans, see?

So I don't know, but the movie says it happened and who am I to argue with Lithuanians about the presence of an American commando in the Russo-Finnish continuation war. The real reason he's there of course is the same reason they happen to bump into the Russian kid's girlfriend in the middle of a war zone - there must be an American and a boy and girl kissing in every movie or Americans apparently won't watch the product. Inexplicably the girl keeps her top on, but we do get plenty of that ever popular "we can't take a girl with us!" and the always heart-wrenching "she's been bitten and now I must kill the one I love". I'd say spoiler but were you really going to watch this?

Now would someone please make a brutal phantasmagorical ultra dark ultraviolent grownup war horror movie? It's already war for god's sake how hard can it be?