The film opens with a narration that goes something like this, "shortly before the start of world war 2 the German high command began the secret investigation into the powers of the supernatural. Ancient legend told of a race of warriors who used neither weapons or shields and whose superhuman power came from within the Earth itself. As Germany prepared for war the SS secretly enlisted a group of scientists to create an invincible soldier. It is known that the bodies of soldiers killed in battle were returned to a secret laboratory near Koblatz where they were used in a variety of scientific experiments. It was rumoured that toward the end of the war Allied forces met German squads that fought without weapons, killing only with their bare hands. No one knows who they were or what became of them. But one thing is for certain, of all the SS units there was only one the Allies never captured a single unit of." Then the opening credits play, after which we see a small boat drifting aimlessly in the ocean. A fisherman (Clarence Thomas) sees the boat drifting and rescues a young lady named Rose (Brooke Adams) aboard. After more narration, this time by Brooke's character, the next 75 odd minutes is a flashback. Unfortunately at this point the film has made it's first big mistake as we can already guess that only Rose will survive whatever is about to unfold. An old boat called the Bonaventure lazily sails through the Caribbean ocean, hopping from island to island. On board there are four tourists, Norman (Jack Davidson) and his wife Beverly (D.J. Sidney), Chuck (Fred Buch), Rose plus the boats Captain (John Carradine) his deckhand Keith (Luke Halpin) plus galley hand Dobbs (Don Stout). That night the boat is nearly hit by a large liner that was running without lights. The Bonaventure is damaged. The passengers and crew are forced to abandon ship and sail toward a nearby island. There they find an abandoned hotel inhabited by an old SS commander (Peter Cushing) who warns them to leave the island as soon as possible. Meanwhile something under the ocean is stirring and has been awoken. Soon they are all faced with genetically engineered Nazi zombies who were designed to operate underwater. It quickly becomes a fight for survival and the odds aren't in their favour. Co-written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn I thought this was an average horror film. It has a nice atmosphere, especially when the SS zombies rise from the ocean and is generally well made but it has a couple of major flaws that I just cannot forgive, nothing happens for long stretches and becomes incredibly dull to watch. And there is no blood, gore, violence or nudity at all during the entire running time. The zombie make up is cool but the human characters don't really fight back and the Zombies themselves just drown people, no intestine eating here, absolutely criminal. All the death scenes are tame and unimaginative. Carradine and Cushing are a little underused, Carradine is killed off early on and doesn't share any scenes with Cushing which is a bit of a waste of two horror icons. Acting is OK with Cushing adding some class the film doesn't really deserve, as usual. The music by Richard Einhorn consists of eerie electronic tunes and works very well with what appears on screen. Photography is fine, nothing special but it does the job. I liked the island location with it's lush green jungles and swamps, it helps create a cool atmosphere of isolation. Overall, a bit disappointing really, dull at times, no excitement, it stupidly reveals who's going to die and who's going to survive within the first 5 minutes, no blood, gore, violence or nudity and lets not forget this is meant to be a zombie horror film. However, having said that I still found it sort of watchable for what it was. Average at best.
