Frankenstein's Army (2013): Found footage Horror Film but it's WW2 footage. Dmitri an army propagandist is provided with a state of the art camera and is attached to a Red Army reconnaissance squad at the front. It opens with the usual shots of soldiers hamming it for the cameras, but also shows the outcuts where the troops don't behave so well. The squad come across some strangely mutilated bodies and really bizarre skeletons. Further on they discover a dead German soldier whose body seems to be fused to an odd fighting machine. The real horror begins when they reach an apparently abandoned building but are attacked by man-machine hybrids. The battle ensues and sonn Dmitri comes in contact with the mad scientist in charge of the operation - Dr Frankenstein.Some good cinema verité shots both in ordinary battle and fighting the monsters. Clashes in tunnels gives this the feel of Aliens without being too derivative. Some real thought went into the creation of the hybrids, slashers, guns, hooks attached to arms, these are literally steampunk cyborgs. One even has an aircraft engine complete with propellor affixed to his upper torso. Sounds crazy but perhaps it is a reflection on the bizarre medical experiments the nazi doctors performed in Concentration Camps. Frankenstein wishes to bring about a literal meeting of minds by melding two lobes from different people together.Directed by Richard Raaphorst, written by Chris M. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores, Frankenstein's Army is an effective Horror/War drama, veined with dark humour but starts to drag a bit towards the end. 7/10. On Horror Channel.

World War II: a squad of Russian soldiers stumble upon a Nazi laboratory run by Viktor Frankenstein (Karel Roden), who has been continuing his family's legacy, creating freakish super soldiers by combining cadavers and machinery.There really isn't much of a plot to Frankenstein's Army—the soldiers encounter the monsters and die—leaving the film's success resting almost entirely on the effectiveness of its bizarre steam-punk creations. Sadly, the shaky, hand-held, first-person documentary style in which the movie is shot doesn't allow for a very good look at these monstrosities, and leaves the viewer wishing that the film-makers had taken a more traditional approach. Glimpses of the film's creatures look impressive, but I wanted to see them in much more detail to fully appreciate their design.Some decent effects during the scenes in which Frankenstein performs messy brain surgery will appeal to the gore-hounds, but on the whole this feels like a missed opportunity to make something really special.4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

This is another 'recovered footage film'. It is filmed in the first perspective via a camera and the horrors witnessed by the men in action is as the audience sees it. So rather than just watching another movie, it is almost as if you are there. The only thing missing is 3D, although in this case, that might have been going over the top and been a bad thing indeed. This movie is made in the homage of 'Dr. Frankenstein' and takes place during the final events of World War II; Russia is converging on Germany and a troop is performing a reconnaissance run. What they find in the countryside is one of many horrifying secrets the Nazis had been working on in hopes of taking over the world. The secret is a type of man-made machine that combines humans and weapons to create a living weapon. Sadly, the troop must contend with what they've found, but they, like most horror movies will attest, get picked off one by one.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/?p=3480).

I would highly recommend never watching this film as a film, but rather simply leaving it on in the background as you're doing something else. The sets, costumes, and monsters are fantastic. Save for a few odd ones, the quality is consistently high and set dressing and effects are executed by someone with an eye for detail.On the other hand, the acting is atrocious- accents are inconsistent, the comedy isn't quite funny enough and the horror is ruined by the use of unbelievable leaps of emotion that scream artificial.The way the film was produced isn't that great either. The use of found footage hurts the film more than helps it in terms of story telling, the mixing of psychopathic characters and basic "scared kids" and heroic tropes leads to inconsistent mood, and most of the shots are distracting rather than focusing. A lot of scenes don't focus enough on the horror aspect but stick too long on the action and dwell too long on basic things like tripping in the mud or stomping through the forest in a way that doesn't advance the story at all.Reasons to still have the film playing at all? Monsters are great, design is creative, atmosphere and level of grit are appropriate, basic premise is entertaining.