Review: WEREWOLVES OF THE THIRD REICH (2017)

Having already reviewed Scarecrows Of The Third Reich I pretty much had to do the same for Andrew Jones’ Werewolves Of The Third Reich. Jones is one of the most prolific filmmakers working in the UK these days with nearly 30 films to his credit. And surprisingly I haven’t reviewed anything by him yet. And besides, it had to be better of the two, right?

Somewhere behind enemy lines ‘Mad Dog’ Murphy (Lee Bane, Cabin 28) and his men are at a bar getting drunk. They’re tracked down by a fellow GI who tells them they didn’t have permission to leave the base and they need to get back. Of course, a Nazi officer walks in during this. It all ends with the Nazi dead and Murphy shooting the GI for pissing him off by calling him Mad Dog. This gets him sent to the stockade.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mengele (Neville Cann, In The Cloud) is meeting with Hitler (Oliver Fritz) to discuss his work creating a human/animal hybrid. Or, in more simple terms, a werewolf. While he’s doing this Mengele’s wife Ilsa (Suzie Frances Garton, Hex, Robert) is busy torturing prisoners and bedding SS officers.

The Germans ambush the truck carrying Murphy. The guards are killed but Murphy and the other prisoners Billy ‘The Butcher’ (Derek Nelson, Pandamonium), ‘Fighting Joe’ Kane (Darren Swain, Avengement) and ‘Reckless’ Reggie Brown (Kwame Augustine). If you guess their escape brings them to the doctor’s camp right about he finds out about his wife. And that he injects her current fuck buddy with werewolf serum, you’ve seen as many bad movies as I have.

The main problem with Werewolves Of The Third Reich is that it takes an hour to get to this point. The film is actually half over before the ambush sets “The Fearless Four” loose. Most of the film is an incredibly poor rip off of Inglourious Basterds. Which was itself an incredibly poor rip off of Inglorious Bastards.

Now, this could be forgiven if the last half hour paid off. But it doesn’t. The creatures don’t look anything like wolves and there’s only two of them. And the big showdown is a couple of half-assed fistfights and a shootout. It seems ordinary bullets stop the Werewolves Of The Third Reich, no silver needed.

Perhaps most disappointing though Jones re-wrote history to have The Angel Of Death married to Ilsa Koch, The Beast Of Buchenwald, (and the inspiration for Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS) then he does nothing with it. Such an unholy pairing should have been exploited to the max. There’s also an epilogue that re-writes history even more because apparently Jones really thinks we’re all fucking idiots who don’t know history.

Surprisingly enough, Scarecrows Of The Third Reich turns out to be the better film. Its wrestlers turned actors and ludicrous fights were at least unintentionally funny. Werewolves Of The Third Reich is just boring.

Werewolves Of The Third Reich is available from 4Digital Media.