Werewolves of the Third Reich (2017)

We’ve recently watched Malnazidos / Valley of the Dead (2020), a Spanish horror comedy that sees fascist soldiers and Left-wing rebels team up against Nazi-created zombies during the civil war. Even though there are enough reviews of Andrew Jones’s movies on this blog that we should’ve known better, we decided to follow it with Werewolves of the Third Reich (2017). Needless to say, we deeply regret it. Also, SPOILERS.

Desperate for an advantage over the Allied forces, Hitler turns to Josef Mengele’s mad science to create hybrid soldiers. Meanwhile, 4 US soldiers who were arrested by their own army due to varying degrees of insubordination escape and find Mengele’s secret lab.

The movie is a little over 90 minutes and for some reason, Jones decided to spend more than 1 hour on the introduction of the most stereotypical group of US soldiers ever and Nazi marital woes. So, meet the Fearless Four: Mad Dog Murphy, who loves killing Nazis, has a crap German accent, and thinks it’s a good idea to hang out at a German bar in 1944 Nazi Germany; his friend Billy has a knife, and that’s pretty much it; Kane wants to desert because he doesn’t care about the war; and Reckless Reggie Jones, who’s one of the very few black soldiers on the front, didn’t like being treated as a second class citizen after scoring a major victory for the Allied forces. The 4 spout some of the most embarrassing attempts at cool dialogue ever committed to film. As usual the dialogue is pretty bad, but the ‘cool’ lines managed to be even worse than the normal ones. The lengthy exchange between Kane and the sergeant he ends up beating was downright excruciating. The intentional humour isn’t funny, either. Honestly, the funniest moment of their introduction was the ambush. The truck transporting the Fearless Four is on an empty road surrounded by an open field when it comes across some strategically placed, super clean tree branches blocking the way. The driver makes Murphy and Reggie clean the road, but they immediately tell him they’re being ambushed. Except, there’s nowhere anyone could be hiding. Nevertheless, right on cue, a couple of Nazis (instaNazis!) show up and point guns at them. Of course, it doesn’t end up well for the instaNazis (or the truck drivers), but where the hell were they? Anyway, over on the Nazi side, things are better, though that’s not exactly a compliment.

Those hybrid soldiers Mengele promised Hitler will be possible thanks to Dr Hammerstein, who, like Murphy thought it was a good idea for an American soldier to traipse around Germany during the war, decided that the best way to improve his and his family’s lives was to sell his super special serum to the enemy. Hammerstein is very surprised that the representatives of the totalitarian government he’s living under aren’t happy with just getting the serum and his files, and also want him to die. He’s convinced that his family will be okay because apparently he missed all the crazy evil shit the Nazis have been doing, but of course SS Officers Hess and Beck kill his wife and daughter after Hess convinces him to commit suicide. This flashback was too long, badly acted, and unnecessary. Why not just say Mengele created the serum? But the go-to real-life Nazi doctor won’t be alone at Camp 7. With him is Ilse Koch, the Bitch of Buchenwald, who likes copying tattoos of prisoners and use her sketches to cover lampshades… or maybe she’s cutting them off from their owners like her real-life counterpart and the budget wasn’t enough for realistic flayed human skin. Despite her fearsome reputation, poor Ilse is also a neglected wife who just wants her husband to return to their quarters before dinner gets cold. Unfortunately, Mengele is too busy explaining how brains work, so she’s been having an affair with Beck. Yes, really. Jones put these 2 infamous Nazis together and all we got was a lame lampshade and the Bitch of Buchenwald moping about. The affair gives Beck the privilege of being the first werewolf of the Third Reich, but only after Mengele babbles about Samson and Delilah, which makes no sense as Ilse didn’t betray him. The transformation isn’t too bad because the movie acknowledges its budgetary limitations, so there’s just weird eyes and small glimpses of growing teeth + snout. It all looks very dated and not something you’d expect from a 2017 movie, though. Ilse is horrified by what happened to Beck, but after seeing that he’s not fully a beast, she injects herself with the serum, too, so they can be together as werewolves of the Third Reich. Aw, that's romantic. And ridiculous. The Nazi side of of the story is just hilarious and it's a shame Jones didn't stick with it instead of wasting time on his Inglorious Basterds homage.

The Fearless Four arrive at Camp 7 and Murphy decides he wants to go in and kill some Nazis. Surely that won’t be easy, as the experiments taking place in there are crucial for German victory. In addition to the barbed wire fence there will probably be lots of heavily armed guards and… Nope. In addition to Mengele, Ilse, Beck, Hess, and 3 prisoners/guinea pigs, there are only 2 guards, and the Four just turn up inside the camp, so the barbed wire wasn’t a problem either. After a lot of sneaking around, shooting, and punching, Hess and the 2 guards end up dead. Murphy is facing Mengele when the titular werewolves show up. You’d think a movie with ‘Werewolves’ in the title would have plenty of werewolf rampages - you’d be wrong. The werewolf attack sequence lasts less than a minute and a half and it’s interrupted by a scene of Billy and Kane finding the unused test subjects. Wolf Ilse takes a bite of something out of her evil husband, but when he pushes her away there’s no injury. While Murphy is dealing with Beck, Mengele sets up a bomb that he apparently keeps ready just in case and doesn't seem big enough to blow up the whole building. Moving on, Murphy gets bitten but Reggie shows up and they kill the 2 werewolves. Everyone gets out just in time, and Murphy snarls as the building burns, which convinced us that he was going to turn.

The titular werewolves may be dead, but the movie isn’t over yet because as you may remember, the real-life Mengele didn’t get captured and ended up in South America. He also looked nothing like the actor playing him, nor was he ever married to Ilse Koch, but for some reason the movie decided to care about historical accuracy now. So, we see Mengele dressed like a cartoon farmer complete with overalls and a straw hat somewhere in the Argentinian wilderness. Not only has he not aged in the past 3 decades, but he also decided to grow a Hitler moustache. The wolf howling made us think that we were going to see some more werewolves, but instead Mengele gets taken out by a barely aged Murphy who did not turn into a werewolf like we thought he would. The other 3 soldiers are waiting outside, none of them looking 30 years older. The 4 leave and finally the movie ends, though there’s a final threat of a yet un-materialized sequel with ‘The Fearless Four will return’.

VERDICT

Werewolves of the Third Reich is an Andrew Jones movie and therefore suffers from cheap production values, terrible dialogue that got worse due to the attempts at coolness, bad acting, and the waste of a good premise. Here, we get the added embarrassment of historical fanfiction that doesn’t do anything other than give viewers some familiar names and generate confusion and disappointment for anyone familiar with the real Mengele and Koch and/or how they were immortalized in Pop Culture. Also, if the budget isn’t big enough to produce some decent werewolf bits, either don’t show the full beast, or opt for a more affordable supernatural creature. But seriously, this movie is just really, really bad.