Zombies’ Lake (1981)
Nazi Zombies
One of the original Nazi zombie films. From cult director Jean Rollin, known for his arty vampire erotica
Nazis
Nazis refer to members of the German National Socialist Party between the 1920s and 1945, which became the government of Germany in 1933 under Adolf Hitler who led the country into the events of World War II. The notoriety surrounding the Nazi party concerns its wholesale slaughter of six million Jewish people and other groups in concentration camps.
Nazis have become synonymous with ultimate evil. There have been a great many genre films featuring Nazi villains, super-villains and mad scientists and others that place Nazis alongside supernatural menaces like vampires and zombies. There is a sub-genre of these involving the resurrection of Hitler.
Also popular are a series of Alternate History Films based around what might have happened if the Nazis had won World War II. The 2000s have seen the rise of what might be called the Gonzo Nazi film in which Nazis are combined with madcap elements such as UFOs and moonbases.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Nazis in Fantastic Cinema.
Under the Rainbow (1981)
Comedy During the Making of The Wizard of Oz
Widely considered a bad film, this is a slapstick comedy starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher set around the dwarves during the making of The Wizard of Oz
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Tomb Raiding Adventures
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s homage to the adventure films of the 1940s was a huge hit in its day, spawning several sequels and many imitators. The film is pure action and adventure, delivered with enormous charm and wit
Oasis of the Zombies (1981)
Nazi Zombies
One of the original Nazi zombies films with zombies protecting an oasis that hides a gold treasure. This was made by prolific exploitation director Jess Franco meaning that much of the film’s potential is drowned in cheap production values and bad dubbing
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Modern Werewolf
John Landis brings the werewolf film into the modern era with this revisionist work where a modern character is forced to confront it as real, while depicting the transformation with an arsenal of top-drawer effects.
Night of the Zombies (1981)
Nazi Zombies
Extremely cheap and impoverished variation on the Nazi zombie film, this is dull and has nothing to recommend it
The Formula (1980)
International Thriller/Hunt for a Nazi Fuel Substitute
Dull big-budget thriller about Nazi fuel formulas and Big Oil conspiracies. This seems intended as a copy of The Boys from Brazil centred around George C. Scott and Marlon Brando trying to out over-act one another
Death Ship (1980)
Ghost Ship
Film about a ghost ship haunted by Nazi atrocities. This gives the impression it was made to highlight a series of novelty deaths styled after the then-recent hit of The Omen
The Tin Drum (1979)
Boy Who Refuses to Grow Up/Nazi Allegory
Volker Schlondorff’s adaptation of Gunther Grass’s darkly funny book about a young boy in Nazi Germany who refuses to grow up
The Boys From Brazil (1978)
Nazi Cloning Experiments
Big-budget thrillers with Nazi villains were popular in the 70s. This pits acting legends Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck on opposite sides in a conceptually ingenious plot about the attempts to clone Hitler
Nightmare in Blood (1977)
Horror Actor is a Vampire
Horror host John Stanley directs a film with an amusing premise where a famous horror actor known for playing a vampire turns out to be a vampire for real, causing problems when he turns up for a convention
Shock Waves (1977)
Nazi Zombies
The very first Nazi zombie film, a genre that proven surprisingly prolific since. A modestly effective film filled with great images of dead stormtroopers rising from the surf
The Gestapo’s Last Orgy (1977)
Nazisploitation Film
One of the notorious 1970s Nazisploitation films, this Italian-made entry is one work that crosses way over taboo lines and makes for extreme watching
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974)
Sadistic Nazi Woman Commandant
One of the most tasteless films ever made, a sado-sexual work set in a Nazi concentration camp with Dyanne Thorne as a sadistic commandant torturing and having sex with prisoners.
Bluebeard (1972)
Multiple Wife Murderer
The fairytale about a multiple wife murderer is given the lavish costume drama treatment. Featuring Richard Burton at the height of his Bad Actor period in a series of increasingly absurd softcore romps
Slaughterhouse Five (1972)
Man Unstuck in Time/Kurt Vonnegut Adaptation
Not entirely uninteresting but also not entirely satisfactory adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel about a man who becomes unstuck in time, flipping back and forward between the events of his own life
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Adventures with a Good Witch/Disney Film
Obvious but likeable attempt by Disney to replicate the success of Mary Poppins with Angela Lansbury as a good witch taking a group of children on a series of nonsense adventures
Flesh Feast (1970)
Nazi Mad Scientist
It’s anybody’s guess what possessed Veronica Lake, a great screen beauty of the 1940s, to return to screens playing a Nazi mad scientist having created flesh-eating maggots. A true Z film if there ever was
The Magus (1968)
Reality Games
Complex and often baffling film in which Michael Caine is on a Greek island where he placed at the centre of a series of enigmatic reality charades by Anthony Quinn
The Spy in the Green Hat (1967)
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Film/Spy Film
The fifth of the theatrically released films based on tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This is one of the more overtly comic films with an entertainingly madcap plot that has Napoleon Solo forced into a shotgun wedding and Jack Palance as a mad winemaker attempting to divert the Gulf Stream
It Happened Here (1965)
Alternate History/England Under Nazi Rule
This was the first film to depict an alternate history scenario. With stark and powerful effect, this shows in documentary-like fashion a 1960s England after it had been conquered by Nazis
They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1964)
Fuhrer's Disembodied Brain/Classic Bad Movie
One of the all-time classic bad movie titles, this is cheap and dreary on almost every level, although does offer mild amusement when it comes to the provision of the title concept near the end
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
Nazi Mad Scientist
A true-bred exploitation film with castaways arriving on an island where they encounter a Nazi mad scientist breeding flesh eating slugs. This has been cited as the first gore film
The Yesterday Machine (1963)
Nazi Scientist Builds Time Machine
A complete obscurity that has only been brought to public attention during the YouTube era – not that it has been obscure without justifiable reason. Don’t be hooked by the intriguing premise of Nazis building time machines, this is painfully dull in every regard
Red Planet Mars (1952)
Radio Messages from God on Mars
One of the most bizarre of 1950s Communist Fear films in which humanity begins to receive radio message from God on Mars. The film’s politics are hysterical today.
The Whip Hand (1951)
Communist Inflitration
One of the first Reds Under the Bed hysteria films of the 1950s where a man stumbles on a small town where a Communist fifth column are conducting biowarfare experiments as part of a planned invasion
Strange Holiday (1945)
Nazi Takeover of the US
Arch Oboler makes a film in which Claude Rains returns from a holiday to find a Nazi government has overtaken the USA
Tarzan Triumphs (1943)
Jungle Hero
The seventh of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films made as a work of Wartime propaganda where Tarzan faces Nazis
Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Idiots in a Sinister House
Comedy where the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys encounter Bela Lugosi running a Nazi fifth column operation from a haunted house, although the ghosts part eventually proves misleading
The Mysterious Doctor (1943)
Haunted Mine
Film made during World War II about the locals of small English town dealing with a haunted mine and uncovering a Nazi infiltration plot
Invisible Agent (1942)
Invisible Spy
In the fourth entry in Universal’s series of Invisible Man films, particularly in the effects department. here, made just after Pearl Harbor, The Invisible Man now becomes a spy fighting Nazi and Japanese villains