The Lost Platoon

In 1991 in Nicaragua, an American reporter recognizes four soldiers he met in the World War II who have not aged. He realizes that the group is a vampire platoon. The premise of "The Lost Platoon" is very interesting, and there is a good camera work that recalls "Evil Dead". However, the screenplay is silly and direction and the performance of the cast is very weak. The ideology hidden in the plot, defending the intervention of the American government in the Civil War of Nicaragua is also a crap. The cover of the DVD is very attractive and probably is the best of this forgettable flick. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Pelotão Vampiro" ("Vampire Platoon")

"Lost Platoon" is not a great movie. "Lost Platoon" is not even an average movie. What it is, is an intriguing idea in a bad movie. Survivors of wars from the last hundred years are tracked down in Niaragua by an intrepid war correspondent, who pieces together a photographic puzzle. Surviving as vampires, these soldiers never lose a battle, and never die. This fascinating premise is unfortunately wasted in "Lost Platoon". The low budget gets in the way of every scene, and other than the initial intriguing idea, everything else is redundant, amateurish, or downright silly. Bad acting only makes things worse, and it's really a shame, because this had tremendous, but unfortunately unrealized, potential. My girlfriend did sit through it though, and that's a miracle in itself. - MERK

Low-budget production values and some ludicrously over-the-top acting, but there's still a good little vampire flick in here, The idea of an immortal platoon that has been following the course of human war for a century definitely gives it points, as does the showboat performance of Stephen Quadros as hotshot soldier Walker and the understated, authoritative calm of David Parry as the troop's Civil-War-veteran leader, But I especially like the casting of vampire soldiers as a tireless force *against* oppressive evil, the low-key humor, and the mythic air that the film gives "los mejores" as the spooked peasants call the lethal, fast-travelling revenants. A nice little surprise; I'm glad we saw it.

"The Lost Platoon" is a peculiar but fairly ambitious and admirable blend between war-drama and horror from David A. Prior; a writer/director of whom I actually thought he only makes vile and nonsensical stuff, like "Deadly Prey" and "Killer Workout". This is a substantially lacking but nevertheless atmospheric film. There's not a lot of blood and gore, but the narration is spirited and the plot is compelling enough to keep you interested. The acting performances are weak, but at least the wholesome is well-paced and there are a few interesting plot twists near the end. Actually, the best plot description I can give is by comparing the film to the (famous) Stan Ridgway song "Camouflage". The lost platoon consists of soldiers, one from each great war, who were strangely resurrected at a point of certain dead on the battlefield. Now they're doomed – although most of them really enjoy it – to fight wars for all eternity. In Vietnam, a photographer and WWII veteran thinks he recognizes one of the soldier as the one who saved his life in the frontline and then miraculously disappeared. He begins to dig a little deeper and discovers stories and photographs of this exact same platoon in several great wars, yet they never aged. This definitely isn't a bad concept for a supernatural war movie. Immortal vampire soldiers are at least something different than haunted bunkers and obscure Nazi-experiments. It's really too bad "The Lost Platoon" didn't benefice from professional cast and crew members, because there's a lot of potential in the basic premise. Fans of the horror genre will appreciate the opening sequences, which are a straightforward homage toward "The Evil Dead", as well as the tense WWII flashback.

More AIP madness from b director David Pryor. It's got and interesting story behind it, but, its super low budget weighs it down. The extremely corny final battle were they try to pass a civil war fort in Alabama off as some palace in Nicaragua doesn't help either. The two best things here are the final end credits song and the quote "Thought I had the world by the balls, 'til I looked down and I saw that the balls in my hand were my own".