Sometimes, after a tough night at work, you just want to go home and watch a movie about an unfrozen Nazi army. This was my thinking when I decided to watch "The Frozen Dead". Unfortunately, the picture is a bit of a bait and switch.
Dr. Norberg (Dana Andrews) is a Nazi scientist living on a British estate with his assistant Karl Essen (Alan Tilvern), and his bald, staring manservant Joseph (Oliver MacGreevy). The doctor has been conducting experiments trying to reanimate frozen Nazi soldiers. He has not been fully successful in this and is a man surrounded by his failures. There is a dungeon filled with his half-brained test subjects and we learn that even the nimrod Joseph was a failed experiment, as well. Hey, at least he got a butler out of the deal.
Soon, the Third Reich come knocking and inform Norberg that they want him to reanimate the 1500 frozen Nazi "elite" that lie in wait around the world. Now don't get yourself too excited thinking how great that movie would be-the one about unfrozen fascist hordes descending on mankind-because you don't get that one. We have Dr. Norberg (and writer/producer/director Herbert J. Leder) to blame. Because, as he we learn, he kind of sucks as a scientist. Besides never successfully bringing back a frozen kraut with a working brain intact, he also at one point screws up another brain when Karl bursts through a door and startles him. If this dude wasn't such a sub par Nazi mad doctor, we wouldn't have had to wait 43 years for "Dead Snow". Thanks alot, Dana Andrews.
The movie we get is about the severed head of a young woman. Norberg's niece, Jean (Anna Palk), arrives home at the estate with her friend Elsa (Kathleen Breck). In order to procure Herr Doktor a head to experiment on, Karl drugs Elsa and then has her killed by the most violent of the reanimated subjects (played by Edward Fox...yes, "Day of the Jackal" Edward Fox. According to his IMDB page he "claims to have never worn jeans"). Norberg is eventually joined by an eager American scientist Dr. Ted Roberts (Philip Gilbert), who gets too much screen time. Also, there's a Nazi woman hiding in town, Mrs. Schmidt (Anne Tirard), who has a swastika carved into her face. She wears a life mask of her own unscarred visage in order to hide her shame and gets too little screen time. This flick excels at doing nothing with the supremely cool and creepy elements it introduces. The bulk of the movie concerns the plight of poor Elsa's head. Bathed in blue light, the severed head effect looks like an EC comic. The cinematography is lurid and colorful, and is served well by the HD presentation
Elsa sits tragically in the basement, whispering and trying to mentally contact Jean. It would seem that through the doctor's tinkering she has gained psychic abilities. This leads to without a doubt the best scene ever to feature a bitchy argument between a Nazi mad scientist and his assistant about whether or not the psychic, animated head they are keeping is negatively affecting the mindset of the half-witted unfrozen soldier's they have captive.
"The Frozen Dead" starts off promising us "Shock Waves", but ends up delivering "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". Once I got over the fact this wasn't the flick I was anticipating, I enjoyed it. It feels like a horror comic book come to life and Elsa is a truly weird, unsettling presence. Also, who can hate a movie with a climax involving a decapitated head mentally controlling a wall of severed arms?
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