Pretty Good

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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.

So when I saw this movie on Netflix then looked on IMDb overall rating for this movie looked bad, so I expected a bad movie, I was wrong. Each zombie was unique in its own way, one had a saw nose while another had a propeller for a nose, a pot for a head, knife hands? It's really crazy!. No matter how many zombies they used they where all different. The set up for the story is in world war 2 against the Germans, some soldiers come across a building that house what seemed like a robot/ cyborg but it was stitched human parts. Even though it was really bloody, it wasn't one of those movies that tried really hard to make everything bloody at any chance, the gore went well with the story. The effects were much better then I was expecting, and the story is in that context believable. The movies amazing, don't watch this if you have a weak stomach, have fun 😏

I must admit, the concept of World War II found footage film, although slightly absurd, makes for an interesting back story. The execution, however, is downright preposterous. Visual looks intentionally grainy, and while this may represent the antique vibe, it's not very pleasing to witness. Plot and characters are corny, quite predictably so since a mesh of mockumentary set in war time and the namesake Frankenstein doesn't ensure gritty realism. However, as it gains momentum, the movie manages to grab my attention with some truly bizarre gory scenes.Story follows a team of Russian recon as they ventures to a desolated village where, as the name suggests, an enigmatic army is being assembled. Unbeknownst to them, Nazi isn't the main threat to their earthly continuity as odd occurrences and clues are found along the village. The very movie itself oozes B-movie air, the old filter is a poor excuse for the muddy graphic. The main disbelief is the cast as these so-called soldiers, they lack fundamental discipline and seems to be in much disarray to be a reconnaissance team in the first place.Costumes of the titular army are completely strange. Perhaps it tries to display a creature so close to be human but still not nearly enough to be viewed as one, but they come off like the rejects from circus or modern art gallery. One even has fan for head, at least that's a point scored for authenticity. With everything is done by CG, these real life looking monster uses their odd nature as strength. Even though there isn't much characterization or convincing plot, the latter arc is still interesting. Tension rises significantly as they face their fate and some mysteries are deciphered.The use of gore is silly, excessively so. They applied generous amount of fake limbs and blood to various scenes. This approach is a bit shameless, but surprisingly competent later on. Its reliance of heavy gore and many plot holes throughout the movie makes it just barely a watchable horror flick. Addition of the found footage gimmick, while it has some perks, but ultimately it's not compelling enough to add anything new.Thanks to its more vivid third act, Frankenstein's Army is a barely decent horror film.

This is a found footage indie horror film about a group of Russian soldiers on a mission in Germany during the last days of World War II. Believing themselves to be on a mission to rescue a group of fellow soldiers, things start turning weird when they discover the skeleton of a "something. Soon they encounter a pile of burnt nuns and believe it to be the work of those evil Nazis. Nothing would prepare them for what they are about to encounter, though, as they find the lair of a mad scientist who's been creating an army of bio-mechanical monsters for the Nazi regime. All of this is filmed by one of the Russians, who is supposed to be capturing events for propaganda production.Many people complain about the found footage aspect, but I'm not going to waste my time on that. Look people, if you know a movie is found footage going into it and you know you hate that style, just don't watch it. Why go to an Italian restaurant, then complain that they served Italian food if you know what I mean? The style is not going to go away and it's an effective tool for low-budget horror directors, so get used to it.Clearly, the strength of this movie is the creature designs. The monsters created by Dr. Frankenstein are simply amazing. Each one is completely unique, with its' own look and weapons, coming across as the hellish hybrid of Clive Barker and Silent Hill. The movie never really establishes any real atmosphere or scares, but does carry with it a very nightmarish quality due to these monsters. Where some movies would be content to make them all similar this movie really unravels like a nightmare, as each monster is more horrifying than the last.The problem with this movie is a real lack of plot or momentum. The beginning of the movie is fairly forgettable, giving us random sequences of soldiers trooping through towns or woods. Occasionally, they encounter something bizarre, but these events never really build any mood. The director misses a real chance to create a feeling that something ominous is coming. Instead, it feels like a generic war movie that suddenly changes gears without warning.Once the soldiers enter the bunker of Dr. Frankenstein, the monsters revealing themselves. At this point, the movie really starts to feel like a walk through a haunted house attraction to me. There is little dialog beyond "look behind you, aaaiiieee". There is no real plot development going on. There is no gradual establishment of atmosphere. The found footage aspect does not help this, either, because the camera is very often one angle, one perspective. The end result is that it truly feels like you are the viewer walking through a scary theme park attraction. Each corner and turn reveals a new scene, or a new monster, all of which are impressive, but you never feel that there's a connection from scene to scene, it's just moving on from one to the other. Many have compared this to a first-person shooter game, which would, also, be an apt comparison. Even when we finally meet the doctor, this trend continues. There is a little exposition into why or how he is doing these things, but it generally only serves to continue this trend of cutting from one monster scene to another, with little to connect them.There is a review on RogerEbert.com which states that this movie feels more like a promo reel than a finished product and it's true. It's almost like the creature designers sent a production company this reel with the intention of "look at these creatures we've designed for a potential movie", then someone just tacked on a beginning and said "that's a wrap, release it". As an advertisement for what this creature efx company is capable of doing, it's impressive. As a movie, it leaves a lot to be desired.