Posts by Bruce Jordan

The mere prospect of a Nazi zombie evokes dread filled imagery and an almost overwhelming sense of terror. With that being said, it's rather amazing that although this mini sub-genre has been around in one form or another since the 1940's, there are very few films within this particular niche that have the ability to frighten an audience. In fact, many consider most of these films (i.e. Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies) to be of such poor quality that they are difficult to sit through, let alone admire. One exception to this generalization is director Ken Wiederhorn's Shock Waves, a film which manages to impress on various levels despite being straddled with a meager budget.

The premise of Shock Waves is quite basic -- a group of tourists find themselves shipwrecked on a remote island with a former SS officer (Peter Cushing) who hides a terrifying secret.(read more...)

Although the influence of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is undeniable, the film didn't produce anywhere near the number of followers as its sequel, Dawn of the Dead. One of the few films that followed in Night of the Living Dead's zombified footsteps is Spanish filmmaker Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. Inspired by Romero's unrelenting piece of work, Grau headed to the U.K. in order to make a film that his producers hoped would be little more than a colorized version of Night of the Living Dead. What the producers got instead was a film that stands on its own merits and now ranks among the subgenre's finest due to an intelligent screenplay, sharp cinematography, and shocking gore effects. (read more...)

In 1968, the British production company Tigon had found a measurable degree of success with the release of Michael Reeves' classic tale of greed and corruption, Witchfinder General. In a concerted effort to provide audiences with a film along the same lines a screenplay by Robert Wynne-Simmons was commissioned, Piers Haggard was brought on board to direct, and The Blood on Satan's Claw took root. In most cases, when a film is made by a studio hoping to cash in on a previous effort, the resulting film comes across as mere imitation. In this instance, however, a perfect combination of accurate period details, overwhelming atmosphere, and convincing central performances help provide the basis for one of the finest British horror films of the 1970s.(read more...)