Battlefield Death Tales

Well, well, what to say about "Battlefield Death Tales" (aka "Nazi Zombie Death Tales"), except that it was quite extraordinary - although, not in a particularly good way.

The movie is divided into three segments, much like movies such as "Creep Show" (for us somewhat older movie watchers). These three tales are individual stories told, and deal with very different topics, even having three different directors to them.

The first segment is titled "Medal of Horror" and is directed by James Eaves. This is actually the best of all three stories, zombie-wise that is. Although it wasn't particularly great to begin with. Without going too much into detail, then expect to meet a zombiefied Red Baron here, and a zombiefied Kamikaze pilot. Aside from the obvious mistakes as to why these zombies were there, look for the hilarious scale-model plane used as the Red Baron's crashed airplane - it was just outrageous.

"Harriet's War" is the name of the second installment to the trilogy, and this is directed by Alan Ronald. This segment is without a doubt the best directed and the one with the best (and professional) production to it. Although the segment suffers from a really bad plot, then it does manage to elevate itself from the other two simply because it is the one that managed to stand out as the most well-thought-through and carefully planned segment.

The third and final segment is titled "Devils of the Blitz", and is nothing short of a horrible swing and a miss. It is directed by Pat Higgins, and it contains demonic creatures during World War II; horribly fake plastic prosthetics of demonic creatures that is. Not only does the story deviate so much from the previous two stories that it is painful to watch, then the story is just downright ridiculous.

I will say that the people they had cast for all three segments were doing good enough jobs with their given roles. And I assume it is an uphill fight to work with inadequate scripts and dialogue.

"Nazi Zombie Death Tales", as the DVD is titled when purchased from Amazon, was a really disappointing experience. I had expected it to be somewhat more of a spoof or comedy given the DVD cover. But it was obviously meant to be horror - which it wasn't, trust me.

Hand on heart, then I can't come up with a single reason for recommending this movie (or any of the segments) to anyone, because there was just nothing outstanding here, and in overall it wasn't really particularly entertaining or enjoyable.

firstly, before i start, let me just state that I'm always willing to give anything a chance when it comes to horror movies, especially Nazi zombie horrors. the majority i would say are pretty bad, but every now & again you get a treat (dead snow for example). so when i sat down with this DVD, which was bought for me by a very close friend for my birthday, i was prepared and open minded for any outcome, good or bad. so i put my son to bed, grabbed a nice big cold Pepsi, some sweets, put my slippers on, & sat down to watch it. what i wasn't expecting was for my mind to literally wander & start glancing around the room subconsciously. so i started it again & tried really hard to concentrate. for 3 short stories, at least 1 of them should be interesting, yes? well, no, they weren't. & considering each story has about 30 minutes to get its point across, i wasn't expecting there to be a scene of someone just talking for roughly 15 minutes of it, without it adding much to the plot. id like to think I'm pretty fair, & i always give the benefit of the doubt, so kudos to the director(s) & writer(s) for putting it together, but honestly, this could've been a million times better. the storys were weak, acting terrible, effects were bad, filming was pretty shoddy etc. I'm not bashing the people who made it, i've never made a film so who would i be to judge or criticise? but it was pretty bad, not even the old 'so-bad-its-good' kind of bad (which is my usual preference), just literally bad. i watched creepshow 3 the following night, then when i was reading about creepshow 3, with a 2.7 rating, & seeing everyones hatred for it, i was thinking it wasn't actually that bad, considering the mental endurance i'd been through the night before with Nazi zombie death tales (which has got a 4 out of 10, somehow). i was coming to IMDb to rate this, thinking the most it deserved is a 1 out of 10, but i gave it a 2, just because of the people who made it actually making a film. i hope at least somebody who sees this likes it, just for the sake of the creators, but i certainly didn't, & i cant think of anybody who would. i hope if i ever make a film, at least 1 person would like it, otherwise i'd feel like i've failed, so if anybody who was involved in making this film ever reads this, id like to say well done for actually going about making a film, i'd buy you a pint for your efforts. but sorry, this is not good in anyway i could see, i hope now you've got a bit of experience now you could make something better next time, & il give it a shot for you if it helps, as id like to think I'm just an average bloke who loves all kinds of horrors. so well done, but its pretty sh*t.

This is a neat little package of three independent short films (about 30 min each) by different directors using WWII as the setting. The first, "Medal of Horror" is a nice, compact action-adventure film with zombies thrown in for good measure which thrust this entertaining, well produced war film into the 'horror film' genre. The second, "Harriets War" is a nifty ghost-hunter type story with clever gadgets and a horrific twist. The third, the suspenseful "Devils of the Blitz", serves up the demonic horrors of war, both in the field and on the home front. The production values of the three films are quite good for a low budget production package, and the cast of mostly 'unknowns' provide many entertaining moments. Paul Kelleher in "Medal of Horror" gives an impressive performance as a wheelchair bound Army Major who is disabled, disillusioned, defeated, desperate, demented and drunk,…all in one scene. The protagonist in that film, a bewildered but cautiously daring young lieutenant, is enjoyably played by David Wayman. The talented Laura Lemon is delightful as the title character in "Harriet's War" as she pursues the unknown with the assistance of the intrepid PC Jones, played by Cy Henty with wonderful aplomb. The "Devils of the Blitz" ensemble cast, headed by the engaging Jess-Luisa Flynn, are all affective in their roles as they cope with the unfolding horror. The three directors, James Eaves, Alan Roland and Pat Higgins, respectively, can be justifiably proud of their individual clever productions. Considering the production and entertainment values of this noteworthy 'low-budget horror film anthology', I give it a solid 7 out of 10 within that genre. It'll probably be a cult film one day.

So this movie is a compilation of three short movies by different directors. Without spoiling, I will just point out few things about them

• MEDAL OF HORROR First movie, has zombies which aren't really zombies. The "zombies" can not only emote, but they can do kung-fu and are more capable at hunting than the protagonist (a human) is at running away from them.

Yes, it's THAT stupid. The awful acting didn't help.

• HARRIET'S WAR The second movie is clearly the better one of the lot. Despite the cheesy acting, this actually felt like something whole movie could've been based on. A female paranormal investigator joins hands with a simple village cop to solve the mystery. It was actually fun to sit through and that's why I am giving this movie 2 points.

• DEVILS OF THE BLITZ Easily the worst of the lot, this last movie felt like "babby's first horror movie". Also, the movie was shot with a webcam or a mobile phone with less than 720p res apparently, since the whole movie (unlike the first two) keeps getting grainier with artifacts showing up blatantly everywhere.

Actually, forget the quality. I love Blair Witch, it's the only movie that has ever scared me and it isn't exactly BluRay quality (it has a BR BTW).

The biggest problem with the last one is awful AWFUL, REALLY AWFUL, acting, dialogue delivery, script and hilariously bad monster puppets which I kept laughing at. I swear this is why they kept lowering the quality as the ending neared since they were trying to mask these awful toys/puppets with grain, artifacts and darkness.

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In the end, should you watch Battlefield Death Tales?

Well lemme put it this way. I've had this movie since 2012 and I saw first short movie and stopped watching it. Only now, in 2015, since I have nothing else to watch, I sat through the whole mess of a movie.

It's bad. Watch it if you have seen every other movie in the world and have nothing else to watch.

2/10

You could argue once you have seen one 'Nazi Zombie' movie, you have seen them all but there are some truly mad movies, in this crazy sub-genre. This one is made up of a quirky trilogy, directed by three British horror directors. The last story (which you would expect to be the strongest), is a bit of a let down compared to the first two compelling installments. Still its jolly good fun for most of the duration.