Shock Waves (film)

Plot

A group of tourists aboard a small recreational boat experience engine trouble and encounter an unusual orange haze that disrupts their navigation. The abrasive tourist Norman senses something is wrong. That night, a hulking cargo ship sideswipes their boat, and the captain sends up a flare that illuminates a huge, rotting vessel wrecked nearby. The next morning, the captain is missing, and the boat is taking on water.

The group evacuates in a lifeboat to a nearby island, where they see the wreck stranded on the reef. They find the captain's corpse, apparently drowned while checking the boat's underside. Exploring the island, they discover a rundown hotel and a reclusive old man living there. The man is alarmed by their story and denies any shipwreck exists.

He goes to the beach and sees zombie-like men walking from the wreck along the ocean floor. The cook, Dobbs, is cornered by zombies in the water and killed after falling into sea urchins. Tourist Rose finds his body, and first mate Keith discovers a piece of torn uniform bearing Nazi SS insignia in Dobbs's hand. The old man reveals he was a Nazi commander in charge of the Death Corps, a group of aquatic zombie super-soldiers that proved too difficult to control.

The ship has raised itself to the reef, and the zombies have returned. The commander goes to the beach, tries to order the zombies to stop, but they drown him.

Production

Producer Reuben Trane and director Ken Wiederhorn were students at Columbia University in New York City where they won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Dramatic Student Film. Shock Waves was their first commercial feature film. Principal photography began in July 1975, shot in 16mm and later blown up to 35mm. The film was shot under the title Death Corps in Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida, with a budget of $150,000. Swamp scenes were filmed near Miami's Crandon Park. The filmmakers later raised $200,000 to complete the film. According to Wiederhorn, investors required a horror movie because they believed horror films had a better chance of recouping their money. Wiederhorn and Trane developed the idea by combining the scariness of water (since they were filming in Florida) with Nazi imagery, inspired by the book The Morning of the Magicians.

Home media

During the 1980s, Prism Entertainment put Shock Waves on VHS, with Starmaker later doing the same, and Burbank Video, through Video Treasures, followed in 1991. A special edition DVD from Blue Underground arrived in 2003, taken from a print in Wiederhorn’s own stash since the original negative was thought to be gone. Blue Underground also gave the film a Blu-ray release and some theatrical screenings in November 2014. Additionally, the movie appeared in the 2005 three-DVD set Superstars of Horror: Volume 1: Peter Cushing from Umbrella Entertainment.

Reception

Contemporary reviews were mixed. Tom Milne of the Monthly Film Bulletin found the zombie Nazis visually sinister but noted the inadequate budget and repetitive scenes of characters stumbling through swamps. Retrospective reviews vary widely. Mike Long of DVD Talk rated it 3 out of 5 stars, calling it a subtle and unique experience for those not expecting a gorefest.

Oktay Ege Kozak of DVD Talk rated it 1 out of 5 stars, calling it cheap and forgettable. Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict said it focuses on atmosphere over shocks and avoids genre cliches but delivers little of what zombie fans expect. Patrick Naugle of DVD Verdict found it repetitious and boring. John Kenneth Muir, writing in Horror Movies of the 1970s, said that despite its low budget and ludicrous premise, Wiederhorn makes it work.

Peter Dendle, author of The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, praised the film for its creative and innovative approach to zombie presentation.