31 Days of Horror Day 06 Operation Nazi Zombies

Title-Operation Nazi Zombies AKA Maplewoods
Source-Brain Damage Films DVD

I have loved Zombie films since I first saw Night of the Living Dead,the original of course,back when I was 8 or so. So even if I got a feeling the movie is gonna be crap I will give most zombie films a chance.

One day earlier this year I was killing time waiting on a friend to get off from work. Stopped at Family Dollar and saw they had restocked their "Top Hits DVD" bins. I am sure some of yall have seen these. Mostly they seem to be stocked at places like Dollar Tree,Dollar General,Family Dollar and other budget stores. They are usually former Blockbuster or Netflix rental dvds. That get packaged in cardboard sleeves. Then sold for  a buck or two. You never know what you will find. It could be a well known released from Criterion or it might be some low budget mockbuster from the Asylum. In the many copies of Love Guru I found 3 DVDs I wanted. 2 were collections of Public Domain cartoons,one with Casper the ghost and the other with Bugs Bunny. The other DVD I got that day was Operation Nazi Zombies.They were priced at 2 bucks each. But when they got rung up they were only a buck each. SCORE!

Made in 1999 under the title Maplewoods,Operation Nazi Zombies wasn't released until in 2003. Then in early May 2012 Brain Damage Films,who it seems have went out of business,got the DVD rights and retitled the film Operation Nazi Zombies. Which  makes sense,the new title will get more attention. Cause I know if I saw a film named Maplewoods and a film titled Operation Nazi Zombies I am gonna be more inclined to watch/buy the latter one.

I hope that works. It is the trailer for the movie. As you will see it is after Brain Damage Films got the rights and retitled it.

So how is the movie?Back in the 70s a man was using some research the Nazi's had done during World War II. The plan was to use zombies as your basic ground troops in the big war.Which when you think about it is a good idea. In war there is always plenty of dead.So if there was a way to turn these dead into soldiers why not?

The entire film is told in flashback style. With the narrator being held prisoner in a military jail.By the end of the film we are given a total non-ending.Our narrator is told he will never be able to escape. And it ends.

The acting ranges from decent to kindergarten play levels. The script seems to be decent. But some of the dialogue is very clunky. Not sure how much of that is a fault of whoever wrote the dialogue and how much is the fault of the actor/actress saying the dialogue. The special effects work is the same mixed bag. Some of it is fairly impressive when you take into mind how low budget the movie is. I keep seeing that this film cost around 250,000 to make. Which isn't much at all. Then some of the FX work looks really bad. There doesn't seem to be much CGI in the film. Most of the FX work seems to be practical.

The movie isn't a total piece of shit. And yea I only paid a buck for it. It is a film that I wouldn't recommend to people unless they are hardcore horror and/or zombie fans. Really it makes for a good "Hey I want to see a horror film and I want it to be one I haven't seen before" movie. I wouldn't be surprised if this was up on Hulu,Netflix,Tubi,Pluto TV or one of the many streaming services. And for free or extremely cheap it is worth watching once. Just don't go in expecting a great film.

Operation Nazi Zombies gets a C.

EDIT-Not long after I finished writing this I discovered that the entire film is on Youtube. In previous years during 31 Days of Horror I have mentioned the Youtube channel Kings of Horror. A channel that gets permission to upload lots of independent horror films. IIRC last year or the year before I watched and reviewed Pop Punk Zombies off the Kings of Horror channel.So ,and I hope this work I really wish blogger made it easier to embed youtube videos,here is the full movie.