Film Review: Nazi Hell (2015)

SYNOPSIS:

The Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was Adolf Hitler’s most loyal henchman and one of the most feared men of WWII. Surprisingly, he had only one problem… He had no stomach for murder! When the Reichsfuhrer-SS becomes physically ill during the execution of Russian POW’s on the Eastern front in 1941. Ruthless, careerist SS General Hans Shellenberg rats Himmler out to the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler tests his loyal Heinrich forcing him to commit the murder of a Polish prisoner named Danuta with his own hands. Thus awakening the Monster within him that will horrify the world for generations to come! Himmler may please his Fuhrer in 1941, but what awaits him after he commits suicide in 1945 is nothing less than Hell itself. See what happens when Himmler meets Erebus, the gatekeeper of Hell! See the nightmarish suffering that awaits the infamous Nazi leader who murdered millions!

REVIEW:

The Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was Adolf Hitler’s most loyal henchman and one of the most feared men of WWII. Surprisingly, he had only one problem… He had no stomach for murder! When the Reichsfuhrer-SS becomes physically ill during the execution of Russian POW’s on the Eastern front in 1941. Ruthless, careerist SS General Hans Shellenberg rats Himmler out to the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler tests his loyal Heinrich forcing him to commit the murder of a Polish prisoner named Danuta with his own hands. Thus awakening the Monster within him that will horrify the world for generations to come! Himmler may please his Fuhrer in 1941, but what awaits him after he commits suicide in 1945 is nothing less than Hell itself. See what happens when Himmler meets Erebus, the gatekeeper of Hell! See the nightmarish suffering that awaits the infamous Nazi leader who murdered millions! – Dapper Cat Pictures, LLC

Nazi Hell (2015), also known as Reichsfuhrer-SS, is from writer/director David B. Stewart III, who also stars in the film. He is also known for Operation: Nazi Zombies (2003), which leads me to assume that he enjoys making Nazisploitation films with a dash of horror thrown in. To be honest, I never even knew that Nazisploitation existed before viewing Nazi Hell and I was perfectly fine being oblivious to it.

In case anyone reading this is also unaware of the term, Nazisploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves Nazis committing sex crimes, often as camp or prison overseers during World War II. I’m not entirely certain that Operation: Nazi Zombies even falls into the same subgenre as Nazi Hell, but I have no plans to find out. Primarily self-taught in different aspects of filmmaking and spending most of his time working behind the scenes, Stewart formed his own production company, Dapper Cat Pictures, which was named after his asthmatic cat “Michael” who is also the company’s mascot on the logo. He enjoys creating production design for his films and even designed everything you see right down to the special forces unit’s custom arm patch on the uniforms seen in Operation: Nazi Zombies.

In Nazi Hell, Stewart stars in the lead role of Heinrich Himmler, a top aide to Hitler and sadistic, cold blooded killer. According to the film, Himmler didn’t really have it in him to murder people as Hitler demanded, but his behavior says otherwise. It’s painfully obvious that Himmler enjoys torture and he spends a lot of his time doing unspeakable things to a particular young female prisoner named Danuta (Angelina Leigh), but the story leads you to question the exact nature of their relationship. One of the many issues this film suffers from is the fact that Leigh is visibly wearing quite a bit of makeup to be portraying a prisoner living in such disgusting conditions. Runny mascara aside, eventually Hitler tells Himmler to kill Danuta and that act is apparently too much for Himmler to live with and he commits suicide after carrying out Hitler’s orders. To no one’s surprise, after killing himself Himmler awakens in Hell and is forced to deal with the gatekeeper Erebus (John Martineau) while being tortured. Toss in some blood and gore and slightly Hellraiser-esque sequences and you’ve got Nazi Hell.

Now that you know the basic plot of Nazi Hell, we need to discuss the most agonizing aspects of the film, and I’m not referring to scenes of physical violence. Filmmaking requires a great deal of money and time, so I’m always perplexed when I come across a movie where no one involved with it seems to care about the final product. Nazi Hell is one of those movies.

The majority of the actors don’t even bother to attempt speaking with an accent, so this movie looks and sounds like a bunch of Americans running around in Nazi uniforms pretending to be Nazis. I can appreciate a good cheesy horror movie, but unfortunately this movie also lacks cheese.

The only comic relief is the fact that scenes of naked and scantily dressed women, usually in uniform, are woven throughout the movie without any rhyme or reason and I only found this to be amusing because I had no idea what it had to do with anything in the story. I get that this is an attempt at an exploitation film and I know there is an audience out there for this sort of movie, but Nazi Hell isn’t even very good at sexploitation. Despite the subject matter and my aversion to Nazis, I may have been able to take this movie more seriously if any of the actors or filmmakers showed some kind of enthusiasm about making a movie, but that just never happens.

Nazi Hell (2015) – 1 out of 5 Skulls