I watched Frankenstein’s Army for two reasons. First, I love found footage movies. A found footage movie has to be really bad for me not to squeeze some enjoyment from it. Second, if a movie puts Frankenstein in the title, I’ll watch it. I think that the latter has led me to watch a lot of more bad movies than the first. (Side note: remember Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Such a dreadful movie with misogynistic notes that I actually judged the people that I went with who enjoyed it, which makes me a bad person.)
Frankenstein’s Army is set during World War II. Russian soldiers believe that filming their invasion into Germany is for Soviet propaganda, but it is really a secret mission to find Victor Frankenstein and get him to work for Stalin. Frankenstein’s Army seems more inspired by steampunk than the classic James Whale aesthetic.
I would not mind if Guillermo del Toro or Clive Barker remade Frankenstein’s Army. Frankenstein’s Army felt like it had a lot of potential, but became monotonous as events unfolded. There was not enough character development. There were maybe four to five distinguishable characters, but one of them, a completely sadistic nut job, looked like an anonymous one so I was thoroughly confused by the end. The viewer has no one to cheer on. Occasionally Frankenstein’s Army would use interesting historical points to add credibility to the story, such as Soviet anti-Semitism or implicit random, brutal raping of German women, but it was not enough to create a cohesive story. Basically Frankenstein’s Army consists of people walking around an unfamiliar area until they are attacked, killed and/or mutilated by a zombie/robot=zombot, which is a term not used by the characters, only in the credits. Frankenstein’s Army cleverly uses certain film hiccups to make the found footage conceit feel authentic, but it is shot in color so the filmmaker should not have bothered.
Nazis and zombies always sound theoretically like a good idea, but Frankenstein’s Army shows that it isn’t. Skip it unless you don’t mind the absence of a plot and just want to see innovative monsters wreak empty havoc.