Monday, October 4, 2010

Blitzkrieg : Escape From Stalag 69 (2008)

Not to many people have the balls to make a movie like this today. Kieth Crocker and Kieth Matturro fashioned their 2008 movie Blitzkrieg from the long forgotten infamous Nazisploitation genre. You can tell these guys knew their background and you have to apretiate any independent film maker who makes the movie they want with little or no support from studio's and rich producers. This thing is one hundred percent out of pocket and it really does show. All of Crockers previous films were shot on film but unfortunately he couldn't afford to do the same with Blitzkrieg. He chose to shoot on digital and this also shows. If you take a look at the early test footage and the original trailer, this thing was going to be shot on 16mm reversal and then dubbed over. The final product of those trailers look so authentic, you almost believe this is a real Italian made Nazisploitation flick from the 70's. Unfortunately due to the use of digital the final movie does not come out very impressive at all. Instead it comes off as a amature independent flick paying homage to the golden age of trash cinema. The torture scenes are pretty brutal with all kinds of perverse violence spread throughout but you have to wait for what seems like ages between all the cool stuff. Blitzkrieg was over two hours long and the dialogue seems to go on and on. It can get very tired and boring at times. Still one can only wish that we would go back to shooting with film. This movie could have been one of the all time great cult exploitation flicks and the best part would have been that it was done indepently in 2008. Digital video does not have any place in horror, unless of course you like shitty movies like Blair Witch Project. I still respect everyone who worked on this film, both Kieth's all the cast and my good friend Steve Montague. For a better time you might want to check out some of Kieths early short films or even his full length superior exploitation killer gorilla flick The Bloody Ape.

No comments:

Post a Comment