January 2020 Krypt Army Mission: Send in the Troops!

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Ever since I dismissed the Kryptic Army back in 2015, I had more than a few people tell me, on multiple occasions, that I need to start it back up. After a while, it made me realized that while we all watch a ton of movies on our own, the soldiers of my little army still enjoyed a little challenge each month, to purposely seek out two films they hadn’t seen. And as the saying goes that no soldier will be left behind… well, I feel that no movie should be left behind! With more and more new movies coming out, as well as so many titles that are in fear of being trampled over and lost in the dirt, I think it is even more of a perfect time to raise the call and to help put the spotlight on some titles that we have missed so far.

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So welcome back to the front lines!

To start off the new deployment of the Kryptic Army, I think it is a perfect time to honor those already fighting the good fight. This month’s mission is to find two horror films that you have not seen before that have a military angle to them. It could be from any era or time frame, and could take place in any country, but it has to have some sort of military theme to it. Could be Nazi Zombies, could be ghosts from the battlefields coming back to haunt the living, or any aspect that involves soldiers, dead or alive.

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You have until 11:59pm on January 31st to find these titles, watch them, and then give your report. Just come back to this post and in the comments section state the two titles you watched and what you thought. Even if it is simply “Great movie” or “Waste of time”, just some sort of opinion. Granted, we’d love a little more info on your thoughts, but it is up to you on how much you want to say. Also, please keep any spoilers out of your reports.

Once a report is posted, please feel free to post your own comment to the report. Obviously this is not a requirement for the mission, but the goal is to get a discussion going, whether you might have liked it or not, some other movie suggestion, and again, no spoilers.

So step up, Soldier! Get your gear and hit the dirt! Or just play on the Blu-ray player…

 

39 thoughts on “January 2020 Krypt Army Mission: Send in the Troops!

  1. Okay, I’ll go first! I’m Peggy and this is also my first time joining this army (no pun intended) but I think it’s going to be fun!

    First movie is 23:59, 2011, Philippines
    After the death of a fellow recruit at an military training base, weird shit starts happening. It doesn’t seem to help things that one of the recruits keeps sharing ghost stories of bad things that went down in previous years at the base. The 23:59 number reflect an Asian myth that anyone who dies at midnight can never rest in peace (funny side note – that exact time stamp came up in a Korean drama I’m watching about a serial killer…) Nice slow burn, good tension build. The pacing is a little too slow at times. But it was cool to see the clash between modern military and cultural traditions regarding the supernatural. Actually, a lot of the story elements were kinda sad and touching.

    Second flick is Dog Soldiers, 2002, UK
    Apparently my husband said we watched this before, but I don’t remember one single thing about it, so I’m calling it new to me. What was supposed to be a routine training exercise turns into a bloodbath in the Scottish highlands when a pack of werewolves attack. Good pacing, great action. So many times I was clenching…everything during the attack and fight scenes. I really liked the injured werewolf noise – cross between dog howl and human groan – as well as the look of the werewolves. Hard to understand the thick accents of the human soldiers, though, so I probably missed a few key plot points. But it wasn’t hard to figure it all out eventually.

    I’d recommend either film as a fun watch, unless you hate to read subtitles. Then maybe skip 23:59.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Welcome to the front line, Peggy! Glad to have you here.

      I have never seen 23:59 but now have added it to my Netflix queue. Might have to use this one myself for my own mission! Always love a good ghost story!

      As for Dog Soldiers, I absolutely love that movie. Great werewolves, really good characters, and just an overall entertaining movie.

      Thanks again for joining and participating, Peggy. We’ll see you next month!

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  2. As an old soldier, I have a huge failing in that I know a lot about classic horror and virtually nothing about films after 1980. That’s why I love the Krypt Army, you coax me out of my comfort zone. Glad you’re back. My January Mission report:

    Dog Soldiers (2002) – Not a classic but it made my popcorn disappear. The standard werewolf tropes raised their furry heads but they were, for the most part, well executed. The plot ‘twists’ were predictable but, carried out in entertaining fashion, were welcome all the same. Having seen more than a handful of lycanthrope pics, I wasn’t frightened nor did I learn anything new about werewolves, but I enjoyed a good cast (and good FX) in bloody action. A well-made and engaging thriller I’m glad I finally saw it.

    War of the Dead (2011) A low budget zombie pic shot in Lithuania in 2007 and finished, with new financing, in 2011. – In early World War II, an American Army captain (played by British actor Andrew Tiernan) leads a dwindling group of Finish soldiers in a battle against Russian zombies created – in failed ‘Anti-Death’ experiments – by Nazi German scientists. I think I got that right. (And, no, that isn’t a spoiler, it’s written in the opening title card.) I don’t want to be too critical as I saw an original language version, without subtitles; no doubt something was lost in (the lack of) translation. But gunfire and attempted jump scares are the same in any language, aren’t they? While in color, the film is muted and virtually colorless. The uniforms, regardless of army, all look alike. And, as the picture is also almost entirely bloodless, in no time flat I lost track not only of which soldiers were which but also of which soldiers were zombies. The one clue; the zombies growl! But what animal provided the growl? Only the sound editors know for sure. The music and slow motion photography tried hard to convince me I was watching something epic, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. Still, I’m glad I saw it all the same.

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    • Welcome back, Doug! Glad to have you returning for service!

      As I mentioned above, I love Dog Soldiers, so I’m thrilled that you got to see it.

      As for War of the Dead, doesn’t sound like I need to worry about it. But by your description, it does have me a little infringed. Always interested in foreign film, so we’ll see.

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    • Love love love Dog Soldiers. The only thing better than the Shout! Factory Blu-ray coming out in 2015 with lots of extras and commentary was seeing it on the big screen this past October at the Music Box of Horrors. So loud, so awesome. And Sean Pertwee is friggin’ terrific start to finish.

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  3. Glad to be back on the front lines. Thanks for making me dig deeper into my movie list then just going for what is on top. My two movies this month are (since I wasn’t allowed to watch any nazisploitation for this mission)

    1) The Deadly Mantis
    I absolutely love the way these giant bug movies always start in an aura of mystery that slowly unfolds and usually ends in the military battling the creature and two people falling love. Deadly Mantis is no different. Giant Preying Mantis frozen in ice in the Arctic thaws out because man tests a bomb in the south. The Army, air force and navy are all over this one, tracking the deadly Mantis and putting it out of its misery. This might of well have been a documentary if we don’t start acting now and destroy these pests. Two deadly mantis up for this one.

    2) Overlord
    Missed this one in the theatre. WWII army group trying to take out a communications tower so the troops can storm the beaches at Normandy. But they get more then they bargained for when it is discovered the nazis are experimenting on local French villagers to make super soldiers and turning people into re-animated monsters. Enjoyable, kind of surprised it made it to the theatre, but ultimately would have liked to have seen things more on the experimental level of what was going on and more creature craziness.

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    • Welcome back, Damien! I like the fact that you chose a giant monster movie for this mission, since it technically does have the military in there. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Deadly Mantis is one of my favorites from that era. So much credit to those guys that built the damn thing!

      I didn’t see Overlord in the theater either but did enjoy it at home. Definitely worth seeing.

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      • going through my collection I wasn’t turning up much in the way of the military in movies that I haven’t seen, but I knew I could always count on them in the 50s era monster movies. They were always battling something or other.

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  4. First time joining the Army, in any capacity.

    OVERLORD
    2018, Amazon Prime

    Nazis were bad. Like really bad. There is nothing in the whole of human history that you could have been that was worse than a Nazi. If you had to choose between a Nazi and a serial killer to be on your bowling team, you’d pick the serial killer. Understand that I’m talking about people who were part of the National Socialist party in Germany in the early to mid-20th century. I am not talking about their dipshit progeny, the far-right swastika-waving skinhead types. Those people are really bad too, but you might have a cousin that got dropped on their head a bunch who eventually signed up for some of that stupidity, so you might let him come bowling with a stern warning about conversation topics. But the really real Nazis were history’s most evil, most reviled people. And their cinematic counterparts are always unbelievably evil. Enormously, cartoonishly evil. Perfect Aryan faces never wear mustaches in film, but if they did, they would twirl the shit out of those things. Overlord continues this tradition nicely with a bunch of Nazis that rape, kill for jollies, spit on kid’s toys, and are generally not at all fun to be around.

    Apparently someone in a meeting said the following words: “Hey! I know! Let’s do Saving Private Ryan… but with with zombies!” because that’s exactly what Overlord is. From its muscle clenching and harrowing opening scene to its extended plot about going behind enemy lines around D-Day, this horror war film is really mostly a war film. Which is handy, because after horror, westerns and war films are some of my other favorites. And this movie is a hell of a ride.

    Quick synopsis: a bunch of 101st Airborne guys are dropped behind enemy lines and with the mission of blowing up a church tower to destroy something or another that will make the eventual beach landings in Normandy possible. The first scenes of the film prove that war is every bit as gory, terrifying, and horrific as any horror plot, and eventually the handful of survivors gather on the ground to attempt to complete the mission. They hole up in a small French village, have a series of encounters with the aforementioned cartoonishly evil Nazi scumbags, and eventually discover some really terrifying undead tomfoolery being engineered by a knockoff Mengele with visions of Romero haunting his concept of the thousand year Reich. Many explosions follow and we are lead to a Captain America Goes to Hell conclusion that is entirely predictable and entirely enjoyable.

    The one thing that you can pretty much count on when you enter the zombie subgenre is thematic content that asks “who is the biggest monster: the zombies or the humans?” When you have Nazis whose behavior and motivations are drawn in crayon, you have that question stretched wide enough to fly a house through. Predictably, the Americans have to grapple with the idea that in order to beat the devil, you have to fight like the devil, which of course comes back to bite them. So much so, that I’ll bet you that nearly 100% of the people who watch this film are going to hear a line in the middle of the movie and then think, whisper to a friend, or shout at the screen “YOU’RE GONNA EAT THOSE WORDS FOR SURE!”

    Other tropes are examined: commitment to mission in the face of some serious moral questions, the nature of rank, how blinded people get by hierarchy and mission and sense of personal mythology and whether one life or many lives are more important. This is a film that touches some things that make you think, but if you’ve seen any Nazi zombie movies, you might have thought them before. That said, this is a fun ride with buckets of good gory effects, a compelling plot, just enough character to hook you and just enough plot to carry you along. And it plays with enough ideas that you can walk away feeling like you did a bit of brainwork.

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      • Sir, yes sir!!

        Did I get that right? Ah, well.

        War of the Dead
        2012, DVD

        Nazi zombies. Whew. Those things were popular for a while, huh? There are two kinds of Nazi zombie movies and (for the most part) you either like them or do not like them. There are the funny ones like Dead Snow and the serious ones like Overlord. This is one of the serious ones, and if you’ve seen one of the serious ones, this one is very much like those ones, except it’s a Finnish/American production giving the action a bit of on odd quality. And what can I say about it? If you like serious Nazi zombie movies, you will probably like this one, and if not, you probably won’t. This movie is just fine, not great, not terrible. It is the Nazi zombie equivalent to the baby bear’s cup of porridge.

        Some guys who are mostly Finnish but I think are supposed to be American are deep behind Nazi lines trying to something something when they find a place that’s filled with Nazi zombies like seed ticks riding on a short legged mammal. One guy gets turned into a zombie and the rest of the thing is a gleefully gore-ful action film that is plotted with about the same complexity as a professional wrestling match. It’s fun, and surprisingly packed with production value for its sort of CW-level acting and script. Watching the one actually American actor chew through scenery like Twizzlers would make a pretty good drinking game, come to think.

        If you aren’t tired of zombies, this one is pretty fun. If you are tired of zombies, this film would be a chore. But what’s a chore compared to fighting a bunch of Nazi zombies, right?

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    • About every 10 years or so, I get the feeling I need to revisit The Keep, which I didn’t care for when I first seen in in the theater. Then I read the book, and rewatched it and disliked it even more. Of course now, I’m getting that feeling again, that I need to sit down with it once more. Maybe one day, I’ll see it differently.

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  5. Death Ship (1980) d. Rakoff, Alvin (Canada/UK) (1st viewing)
    I had been meaning to catch up with this for years, based upon the awesome poster art (which was blatantly ripped off by the Dark Castle folks when promoting Ghost Ship in 2002). However, I had never heard anyone talk favorably about it favorably enough such as to make it a priority. Well, thanks to the Kryptic Army and YouTube, I finally can scratch it off the list, even if the voyage was hardly five-star material. There are some memorable moments in this yarn about a derelict Nazi “torture ship” (was that a thing?) cruising around the ocean, fueled by bad vibes and the occasional dollop of human blood, mowing down unsuspecting cruise ships and then luring the survivors on board its own decks to make mincemeat of them one by one. However, said memorable moments are interspersed with endless passages of director Rakoff moving the camera around the empty decks showing us that (*gasp*) there’s no one on board! We see phonograph record needles and cargo netting winches and all manner of seafaring equipment operate on its own because, you know, that’s just terrifying stuff. You’ve got George Kennedy as a cranky, crusty old captain who spends more than half the movie in a coma, only to get revved back up in the final reel once he’s possessed by the Nazi spirits milling around the joint. Richard Crenna wears a beard and tries to keep his annoying kids from becoming fish food, while Nick Mancuso trades time rolling around with naked Victoria Burgoyne and rolling around with rotting human corpses. (Burgoyne’s blood shower is one of the aforementioned highlights, as is Kate Reid’s encounter with some 40-year-old poisoned peppermints.) Bottom line, it’s not terrible, but it’s also not great. According to various sources, Jack Hill’s original script was messed with quite a bit, so one can only wonder how he might have brought it to the screen had he been able to direct.

    Zone Troopers (1985) d. Bilson, Danny (USA) (1st viewing)
    By contrast, I had been actively avoiding this for years, despite having the indelible box art staring back at me for decades from the VHS shelves, but I was never the biggest Empire/Full Moon fan growing up, so I never bothered. Well, my tastes have mellowed a bit since then and I have enjoyed quite a bit of Charles Band’s output in my later years, so I approached this with a mild degree of optimism and was not disappointed. Yes, it’s absolutely in their patented wheelhouse of lighthearted creature feature fare, following a dwindling squadron of American soldiers behind enemy lines “somewhere in Italy” (funny, since this was the first Band production shot in his new Italian studios) led by the unkillable Iron Sarge, played by incomparable genre staple Tim Thomerson. Sarge and his followers Timothy Van Patten (Class of 1984), Art LeFleur (The Blob), and Biff Manard (Trancers) stumble across a band of Nazis who have big plans for the huge spaceship that has crash-landed in the Italian countryside, as well as its recently hatched bug-eyed occupant. Light-hearted, wholesome, chest-thumping patriotic fun for the whole family, with our American boys befriending the ET and teaming up to defeat the bad guys, complete with Hitler getting punched in the face before the final reel. There are numerous Empire regulars on hand in addition to executive producer Band, including Mac Ahlberg handling the cinematography, John Carl Buechler on makeup and creature effects, editor Ted Nicolaou, and composer Richard Band (Charlie’s brother). Bilson’s only other directorial effort of note was the “1980s stand-up comedy stars movie” The Wrong Guys with Richard Lewis, Louie Anderson, Franklyn Ajaye, and Richard Belzer (which also starred Thomerson, LaFleur, Manard, and Patten).

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    • When I had finally got around to watching Death Ship, I was disappointed because I actually expected a fun little movie. Yes, as you said, it does have a few high points, but not as many as it should.

      As for Zone Troopers…it has been so long on this one that now I feel I need to refresh the memory banks. Son of a…

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  6. Death Ship is in the same category for me as Godzilla vs The Smog Monster. I’ve seen both numerous times. I know there isn’t much there. But every time I see that fantastic poster, I want to see the film again.

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    • I don’t know what you’re talking about with Godzilla vs. Smog Monster. There’s SO MUCH there. I mean, you’ve got a cat covered in sludge, rave parties, and Godzilla flying! What more do you need?

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      • I don’t remember any of that haha! I just got the Criterion Godzilla set so very much looking forward to this specifically now haha

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      • Sorry Doug…AC is right on this one. That was one of my Big G faves as a kid. I also remember being pretty terrified as a kid too, with all that toxic waste crap gooping over the cars and people.

        But… to each their own.

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      • You gents have taken my ‘isn’t much there’ as a criticism! Perish the thought. Some of my favorite films (yes, Giant Spider Invasion, yes Giant Gila Monster, yes Bride of the Monster, I’m talking about you) proudly feature ‘not much there’. I simply meant, like the circus posters of old, the great theater one-sheets sometimes entice beyond reasonable expectation. Perhaps I should have used ‘End of the World’ instead. My bad! “SAVE THE EARTH! SAVE THE EARTH! SAVE THE EARTH!”

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      • You gents have taken my ‘isn’t much there’ as a criticism! Perish the thought. Some of my favorite films (yes, Giant Spider Invasion, yes, Giant Gila Monster, yes, Bride of the Monster, I’m talking about you) proudly feature ‘not much there’. While I expressed it poorly, I merely meant that, like the circus posters of old, some theater one-sheets brazenly promised more than the film could reasonably be expected to deliver. That’s what made the posters nearly as great as the films. Perhaps I should have used End of the World instead? My bad. “SAVE THE EARTH! SAVE THE EARTH! SAVE THE EARTH!”

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      • I didn’t think you were meaning it as a criticism – I was just puzzled by your comment. I know you love the cheezy sci-fi flicks as much as anyone. I guess it was just if I was going to pick a movie that didn’t have “much there,” I’d have gone with something like Monster from Green Hell or Lost Continent (1950). Those have more padding than a Mattress Outlet.

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      • Gotcha. I was really talking about the poster more than the film. Monster from Green Hell is an empty film can – but it also has a bad poster. If it weren’t for Barbara Turner it’d be unwatchable (I’m an old perv, sue me). Godzilla vs the Smog Monster on the other hand has the greatest poster of all time. I had a G vs the SM one-sheet hanging on my wall for years! Death Ship, too, has a killer poster!

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  7. I guess since I’m leading this fight, I better make sure I get my own missions reported, before I have some sort of mutiny on my hands. Wait… that would be the Navy then…
    So here you go.

    23:59 (2011) – I got this one from the very first posting from this month’s mission, from PeggyC, and I’m glad they were on point! I don’t think I had even heard of this one before reading about it and thought it sounded cool enough. I really enjoyed this one, mainly because instead of a story about some army platoon fighting some ghost, it is a ghost story that just takes place on an army base. Pretty creepy in some parts and a pretty good ghost story as well. I love me a good old fashion ghost story and this had that.

    Frankenstein’s Army (2013) – I will say, not to pat myself on the back too much, but one of the great things about the army is getting some titles that you have avoided for whatever reason, but when they fall into the current topic, it gives you a reason to bust it out. This title is one of those. And the only thing I can think of why I never bothered with it is that maybe I had heard that it was shot in POV format, which I really tend to hate. Well, I wish I would have watched it when it first came out so I could help praise this movie. I loved it.

    The creatures were freaking fantastic and the story moved really well. The way it was filmed was really well done, giving plenty of scares with these monsters popping out from around corners and different places. You got just enough of a look at some of them to make you have some idea of what you saw, but not enough to where it looked fake or stopped being scary. Really well done!

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    • Sir, Yes, Sir! (Feels like someone should return your salute, so I’ll take one for the team.) I’m glad you finally caught up with Frankenstein’s Army – as far as “found footage” concepts go, I thought this one was pretty solid, i.e. there’s a reason for the cameraman to keep filming. Plus, the creature design, as you pointed out, is amazing! I saw this while it was living large on the festival circuit, but then it seemed to get crapped on once it hit home video, which I never understood. Hype is a dangerous thing, it seems.

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  8. Private Polnow, returning to duty, SIR!

    Movie 1: The Keep (1983)

    Overall, I loved this movie. The concept was vague but still engaging. The performances were solid and memorable. The only issue I have is that it seemed to be missing rather important parts of the plot or at least of the story itself. I wanted to know more about the creature and it’s creation as well as how the Keep itself came to be or whomever created it (the Keep) in the beginning to house this entity that was seemingly created by the mere presence of evil. I also would’ve liked to know a little more about the creature’s counterpart—the mysterious traveler; how he came to be in the midst of all of it, and his knowledge or origin. I might find myself reading the novel it was based on in the future, but also (upon discovering there are various cuts of the feature) I get the feeling that nothing can really encompass, fully the entire ire of the story in full. I would have to say that in the end, it was still a very engrossing supernatural feature with Nazis that felt done in the same vein as a Lovecraft tale, and the loose ends and remaining intrigue almost seal the deal of it being a definitive film in that light.

    Movie 2: Downrange (2018)

    Where do I begin? The concept starts off similar to every other horror film I’ve come across ever; yet when it unloads into the entire plot, I feel as though the entire running time is based off of the last 20 minutes of “Full Metal Jacket.” As excitingly anxiety driven that portion of the previously mentioned film is; can it hold up the entire the length of a full run-time feature? The answer is yes! Sure, I don’t see myself popping it in, in the future either any time soon or ever, but I enjoyed the concept play out. It was original to see that idea played out on the scale of a horror concept and, unfortunately realistic as a horror when you think about the reality of surviving troops returning home with PTSD to a country that will not help them. This type of lashing out is easily in the realm of reality making this movie all the more scarier.

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    • Welcome back to the front lines, Erich! Glad to have you amongst us!

      Honestly, if you are that interested in knowing more about The Keep, I would highly recommend reading the book it was based on by F. Paul Wilson.

      And all this talk of this movie and now I’m going to have to bust it out again!!!!

      Not sure about Downrange though…you didn’t sell me on it. Maybe some day.

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  9. Here to sink the buzzer beater!

    Overlord (2018) – This was on my radar when it first came out, but I really knew nothing of the plot. I tend to prefer that if I know I will eventually see something. So in that regard, there was a lot more of the actual war aspect in this film than I was expecting. I enjoyed this film overall, and even got some 80s Kurt Russell vibes from his son at times which was great.

    Under the Shadow (2016) – I found this one on Netflix and would definitely recommend it. It is set in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s. Seeing the day to day lives of the tenants in an apt building while the city is constantly bombed is scary enough, but there also appears to be something of the supernatural variety happening in this building. I will say no more.

    Glad I was able to fit these in before the end of the month!

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  10. January Mission

    Movie 1: Trench 11 (2017)

    I am not a huge fan of newer horror movies, but I thought I would give this movie a try. I went into it not knowing anything. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve seen, but it definitely wasn’t the worst. It basically takes place during the end of WWI. An allied army unit is sent into Germany to investigate an abandoned underground bunker that is a maze of tunnels and secret rooms. I liked the costumes and special effects, however, it seemed to have been missing something. The actors didn’t convince me of the time period, and I wish the tunnels wouldn’t have been so wide and roomy. It needed more of a claustrophobia feel to it. The story was interesting, they did what they could with a lower budget, and I didn’t feel compelled to shut it off, so kudos! (Maybe my expectations for new horror is a lot lower now.)

    Movie 2: Outpost (2008)

    I definitely did not like this movie. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in the first 45 minutes. A group of ex-military mercernaries are hired to escort a scientist to an abandoned nazi outpost from WWII. It was another go underground and encounter an evil supernatural antagonist type of movie. I loved the acting in it. I’ll give it that, but the plot was too simple. I didn’t care for the special effects either. I would rather watch As Above, So Below, The Descent, or Midnight Meat Train over this movie.

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    • Welcome Back Ashley!

      Don’t think I had heard of Trench 11 before, so good find! As for Outpost, I saw it years ago and I think I remember really liking it. Or was that the sequel that I liked more? Actually, I think there are a couple of sequels, aren’t there??? Anyway, I do know there were more than a few movies with very similar plots like this one.

      Glad to have you back on the front lines!

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    • I remember watching Outpost back in 2011 for the October Challenge, so my mind is a bit blurry on details, but according to my review at the time, I thought it was well executed and acted but wanting for a stronger script and something more to distinguish it from any other downbeat zombie flick. Have not seen any of the sequels… yet.

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