John Carradine | Monster Zone

Directed by Ken (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD II) Wiederhorn, written by John Kent Harrison and Ken Wiederhorn, starring Brooke (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) Adams, Luke (ISLAND OF THE LOST) Halpin, Peter (THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) Cushing, John (THE HOWLING) Carradine, Fred Buch and Don Stout.

Just lurkin' around — Just lurkin’ around

A bunch of people find themselves stranded on an island, where they are stalked and killed by undead nazi super-soldiers who wear goggles, can breath underwater and prefer to march about the isle in an unhurried fashion.

Now, if only the zombie-troopers were giant-sized! How cool would that be?!

SHOCK WAVES, also known as ALMOST HUMAN, starts in a less than pacy manner, taking its time before the aqua-nazis finally make a proper appearance. John Carradine, as the grizzled boat captain, has a decent amount of screen time earlier in the film, before being bumped off, then horror icon Peter Cushing makes his appearance once the small group of crew members and tourists reach the big, empty house on the island. As the scar-faced ex-SS Commander, Cushing is the character who reveals the origin of the Death Corps troopers, but he’s not really given much else to do. He basically wanders around for a while, until he’s pulled beneath the water by a nazi zombie.

The mysterious owner of the island (Peter Cushing)

There’s a scene where the ship’s cook is attacked by an undead trooper and falls face-first into a bunch of spiky sea urchins, but the film is not gory or bloody, with most victims simply getting dragged underwater to drown.

Rose (Brooke Adams) encounters the cook's corpse, which is covered in sea urchin spines — Rose (Brooke Adams) encounters the cook’s corpse, which is covered in sea urchin spines

Now then, with all this criticism you might think that I didn’t enjoy SHOCK WAVES… but I did! And why do I like this flick, do you think? Yes! It’s because of the nazi water-zombies!

They're coming to get you! — They’re coming to get you!

'The deep end of horror!' — ‘The deep end of horror!’

These Third Reich undead dudes just look damn cool! They all sport short, white-blond haircuts, SS trooper uniforms, goggles and decent-looking corpse-esque makeup courtesy of Alan Ormsby. There’s not a whole army of them, unfortunately, just a half dozen or so of the aqua-ghouls, but they simply look really good as they slowly rise from the sea or a lake or a swimming pool. They also prefer to lurk in the distance, posing, letting the victims see them, taking their time to stalk their prey before killing them.

There’s not much plot, but Brooke Adams is a fetching final girl, Luke Halpin (who was one of the stars of the FLIPPER television show and resembles a 70s version of a young Boyd Holbrook here) is an acceptable male lead and, well, who cares too much if there’s not a lot of story so long as we get to see those amphibious zomboid troopers?!