The Frozen Dead

One of the triumvirate of iconic '60s disembodied head movies and thematic intermediate between the heady love story of "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" (1962) and the neo-Nazi delirium of "They Saved Hitler's Brain" (1968), "The Frozen Dead" finds former Third Reich scientist Doktor Norberg (Dana Andrews) attempting to revive frozen members of the master race two decades after the end of the war. Unfortunately, the thawed übermensch are mentally defective and without a living human brain to study, Norberg suspects that resuscitating the rest of the Nazicles is doomed. Hoping to head off failure, his whinging assistant Essen (Alan Tilvern) kills Norberg's visiting niece's friend (Kathleen Breck), whose head the pernicious but resourceful doktor manages to keep alive in a box in the lab (complete with an cranial observation dome). The niece gets suspicious, a romance blossoms, more Nazis show up, Norberg wires up the head to a wall of arms...it just gets better and better! The movie effectively evokes a sense of trapped helplessness - you can almost feel the disembodied head's powerless anguish or the panic of the poor henchman left to freeze to death amongst the icy Nazis. While not great art, "The Frozen Dead" is a well done, low-budget shocker that deserves an extra rating point for being surprisingly creepy despite the inherent silliness of the premise.

The Frozen Dead is not the zombie movie you'd probably assume, in fact it's not even what it makes itself out to be based on the cover.

A British horror film it tells the story about a Nazi doctor hidden away in England who is working on re-animating cryogenically frozen soldiers. Alas his attempts thus far have failed, though he can bring the body back the mind appears to be broken. All he needs now is a live brain to experiment on!

Shot in colour but broadcast black and white in the cinema this is an incredibly underwhelming title.

The plot appears so neutered, even though the idea behind the concept is shocking the execution is lacking to the degree that almost all impact is lost.

Poorly paced, no likeable characters and just an all round borefest The Frozen Dead demonstrates why 1966 was a dreadful year for film.

The Good:

Some interesting ideas

The Bad:

Painfully slow

Really doesn't go anywhere

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The creators did little to no research on cryogenics

The Nazis' finest (who, in my opinion, couldn't possibly be all that fine) are corpsicled in preparation for the future, apparently a couple of decades downstream. Dana Andrews, a top German scientist, is now trying to thaw them out, but he just gets one basket case after another; brain damage seems to be a major problem. His henchman, knowing that Andrews wants a fresh head with which to work, kills the visiting friend of his daughter, who becomes the head-in-the-box. Naturally, she's a bit angry about this state of affairs. Naturally, all the Nazis end up dead. At the end of the movie, there's the problem of what do do with the head-in-a-box. No one suggests grad school. Instead, sans lungs, she says "Bury me!" Well, that probably is better than grad school. Actually, though it's easy to make fun of this movie, it's not a bad flick.

20 years after WW2 has ended, a German scientist living in London, attempts to revive the frozen bodies of several Nazi leaders. Of course, there are some problems along the way (especially "woman problems")... The main problem however with this film is that it has absolutely nothing to say. Besides a ludicrous story, this film also contains some very "unintended-funny" scenes. Especially the dead girl's head is great! "It seems as though the head forced this glass of water out of my hand!" Needless to say that the dialogue, especially near the end of the film, is superb. This alone makes the film worthwhile. There are films that are far worse than this one (and with worse actors), but this comes pretty close too. Oh, and watch out for Edward Fox as one of the crazed Germans in the basement(!). 3/10

A delightfully schlocky premise is given straight faced treatment here, as a Nazi scientist named Norberg (a slumming Dana Andrews) goes about the business of keeping various Nazi characters on ice and experimenting on them so that they can, one day, be resurrected successfully. A problem arises when his visiting niece Jean (the gorgeous Anna Palk) becomes VERY concerned about the sudden disappearance of her friend / traveling companion Elsa (Kathleen Breck).

While somewhat disappointing - this doesn't play out the way that some people might want it to - it's an okay forerunner to the "Nazi zombie" genre that eventually flourished. There might be too much talk and too little action for some audience members, but everything is played with admirable sincerity, and the movie isn't completely lacking in memorable imagery. Writer / producer / director Herbert J. Leder ("Pretty Boy Floyd", "It!") gives us a pitiable decapitated head on a table, and the sight of severed arms attached to a wall. Filmed in Britain, this is limited in its color palette, and in fact was apparently originally shown in theatres in black & white. It features a wonderful schlock movie score composed by Don Banks.

The cast is fun to watch, especially Andrews, as he makes an attempt at a German accent. Palk is an appealing leading lady, but Philip Gilbert is rather bland as the nice guy American scientist who becomes party to the machinations of our bad guys. Karel Stepanek and Basil Henson are entertainingly malevolent as Nazi goons. Alan Tilvern delivers a standout performance as Norbergs' crazed assistant. A young Edward Fox pops in and out of the story as one of the unfrozen dead. Breck is ultimately quite the sight, and she does earn ones' sympathies.

An amusing, diverting bit of rubbish that may be worth a look for schlock enthusiasts looking for golden oldies of decades past.

Seven out of 10.