The Frozen Dead

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 creator of IT! (1966) also made this preposterous but slightly more enjoyable precursor to the "Nazi Zombie" sub-genre earlier that same year and, funnily enough, I came across both these hitherto rare movies almost simultaneously from different sources…which is why I ended up watching them back-to-back. Actually, THE FROZEN DEAD had previously been available on a low budget DVD double-feature with the similar (but clearly crazier) THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN (1963) that soon went out-of-print – so I am certainly glad to have stumbled upon the former via alternative channels that, curiously (since I have no recollection of it ever being shown on Italian TV in the past 25 years), sports a second audio track in Italian (which, ironically, is much cleaner than the garbled original)!! Anyway, THE FROZEN DEAD stars waning Hollywood star Dana Andrews (sporting an inadvertently amusing German accent that, together with his silent 'r' pronounciation, makes him sound as if he is slurring his lines…and, being aware of his past battles with alcohol, I wonder!) as a former Nazi scientist who has, since the end of WWII, relocated to a large estate in the English countryside to conduct revivification experiments on 12 cryogenically frozen top Nazi officials (including his own brother Edward Fox)! In fact, the latter's anguished cries open the film as 8 of these subjects are shown to have failed in regaining their normal mental capacities and, consequently, are treated much like unwanted pets, taken out for their daily stroll by Andrews' whip-wielding assistant Karl (Alan Tilvern). Karl's own zeal and blind faith in the Party has made him (unwisely, as it turns out) invite his impatient superiors to witness Andrews' non-existent breakthrough with his first 'success': a hulking, bald manservant named Joseph. To complicate matters further, 3 innocent bystanders (Andrews' niece, her ill-fated best friend, and Andrews' younger colleague) soon take up residence in Andrews' mansion, obviously unaware of the sinister goings-on beneath in his secret laboratory or his past political affiliations. Ever eager-to-please, Karl impulsively injects the visiting friend with a mortal substance – and has Fox strangle her for good measure! – so as to provide the disillusioned Andrews with a live brain specimen for him to study (in an attempt not to muck up any more of the remaining frozen dead)! A complex charade – that also involves Karl's facially-scarred secret female relative who lives nearby – is set in motion to appease Andrews' niece from worrying for (or delving deeper into) her friend's sudden disappearance…but this does not stop the niece from finding out about the former within hours! The young scientist – who, naturally, has fallen for the niece on first sight – is in on the friend's murder (since he was brought here specifically to help Andrews successfully complete his experiments) but only decides to do something about it following a couple of failed murder attempts (courtesy of the increasingly demented Karl) on the niece's person! Ever the dedicated sadists, the 2 Nazi superiors (who seemingly appear and disappear at the mansion at random) torture Karl for his clumsiness and force Andrews to throw him in with the frozen dead for the ultimate punishment! The last (and most outlandish) pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to be found in this lurid shocker are 'the living head' – belonging to the niece's friend, of course, within which resides the all-important live brain…although Andrews is never shown doing much with it – apparently dreading her scowling countenance! – and the remarkably Cocteauesque wall of severed arms – whose real use is never fully explained (unless some of the frozen dead had been maimed or something) but their potential is certainly not wasted when, in the film's climax, the head telepathically (don't ask) fatally wraps them around the necks of Andrews and the older of the Nazi superiors (Karel Stepanek)! The very last shot of the film, then, has the head pleading with the surviving niece and her doctor companion to give it that much-denied burial! 2 final things: director Leder must have seen the works of horror maestro Tod Browning one time too many because, both here and and IT!, he displays the latter's frustrating knack of cutting away at the most inopportune moments and having much of the key action take place offscreen!; besides, while the version I acquired came from an open-matte color print (making the boom mike clearly visible a couple of times!), the film was apparently originally released to theaters in black-and-white…which, I suppose, must have robbed the living head of her creepy bluish pallor!

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.

I just read the other user comment saying this film was not easily forgotten and I felt compelled to comment. I too saw this movie when I was young.. about ten years old... and here I am thirty years later and I suddenly felt compelled to Google it out of the blue. It really did haunt me and obviously still crosses my mind from time to time. I would not watch it again, either - there was something very sickening about it. I guess if I watched it now, used to the modern age of special effects and film techniques I would not be terribly impressed... but at the time it left it's mark. For that I give it positive rating even though I wish I'd never seen it in the first place.

I saw this movie when I was perhaps 6 or 7 and have only seen bits of it on TV since, but I remember it all too well. A Nazi physician is trying to revive frozen high-ranking Germans, but they all come out brain-damaged. He needs a healthy brain to experiment on. A depraved assistant takes it upon himself to sic one of the brain-damaged revivees upon a houseguest, a college chum of the physician's unknowing daughter. This young lady is made out to be attractive, bright with a full head of hair.

When she wakes up her head has been chopped off and hooked up to life-support tubing. Her hair (and scalp and skull) have been replaced by a transparent dome so that her brain is visible. She can only speak in a whisper (a bit of artistic license there). The make-up on her face suggests a concentration-camp victim and her agony and helplessness are palpable. She is hectored by the physician trying to get her to send nerve impulses to some severed arms mounted on a wall.

Enough. I understand that horror movies require innocent people to suffer, but at least up until Night of the Living Dead, the suffering was largely off-screen or was kept brief. This film tortures its victim unspeakably. There is no hope for her.

The only things I can say to the movie's credit are that the atmosphere is well evoked and that it plays almost exactly like one of those old "Tales from the Crypt" EC comics from the 1950s. Of course, they were sadistic, too. Don't let a child (i.e. anyone under the age of 70) see this movie; it could damage them for life.