"THE FROZEN DEAD"......FREEZE-DRIED NAZIS! BABE IN A BOX! A FAREWELL TO SEVERED ARMS!

The Frozen Dead (1966)    We're not kidding you about this post's sub-heading......

              Yes it's all there.....and more! We forgot to throw in.....Mad Science!  Defrosted Nazi Zombies!  Disfigured Women Wearing Rubber Masks!

               Tragically, Herbert J. Leder, the writer-director of this disaster-piece, lacked the balls-out courage to fully embrace the lunacy of his ideas.......

                As a screenwriter, he was almost the equal in batshit crazy conceptions to the immortal Ed Wood Jr.......but as a director, forget it. No talent, no style, no sense of pacing, no imagination......and strangest of all......oddly unenthusiastic about his own over-the-top idiotic script.

                He directs this insanity as if recently awakened from a nap.

                We have none other than veteran Hollywood star Dana Andrews, following the sad path of washed-up American stars who find themselves washed up literally and figuratively in Europe, glumly plying their trade in horror/sci-fi.

                Affecting a lame Germanic accent, Andrews plays a post-World War II scientist still working for whatever's left of the Reich....(in this movie, it's down to three guys, including Andrews dopey would-be Igor assistant). His brilliant brainstorm - freezing Nazi soldiers for later defrosting.

               Big problem -  his warmed up TV-dinner Nazis come out of the deep freeze as gibbering, shuffling zombie morons, including his own brother (a young Edward Fox) who now only knows how to strangle people.

              Problem solved -  Doc Andrews needs a spankin' fresh brain to work out the kinks in his cookin'......and just in time, along comes his young niece and her cute college roommate for a visit.....

               Now here's where this sluggish little movie takes on some spunk, in spite of the director's total lack of interest in his own material.

               Andrews and his Nazi cohorts grab the roommate (Kathleen Breck) and reduce her to a disembodied head stuck in a wooden box. In these weird, horrific scenes, director Leder finally develops a pulse, bathing her in an eerie blue light and giving the poor pathetic creature telepathic powers.

               We never heard of her before or after this movie, but let's give it up for actress Kathleen Breck, whose silent, haunting performance totally dominates the last third of the movie.  With expressions that range from deep hatred to agonized woe, she scares the shit out of you and breaks your heart.  Breck's work here is like a diamond stuck in a pile of manure......

              Overcoming the handicap of lacking a body, Breck triumphs by activating a bunch of  electronically wired severed arms that Andrews keeps around for God-only-know-what.  Under her telepathic command, she instructs the arms to choke the life out of Andrews and one of his Nazi bosses........thus making her the only head-in-a-box who's truly armed and dangerous.

              We can only imagine what this movie could have been if Leder had only turned the direction over to a live-wire shlockmeister with a sick mind and a sense of humor........

              But he does indeed redeem himself with the film's final image......(one that's remained in many a horror fan's nightmares)......a close up of the tormented Breck repeatedly muttering "Bury me....bury me''.   Try sleepin' tight after that image.....

               2 disembodied heads for this one.....(**).....and both stars are only for the unsung, unheralded work of Kathleen Breck. (We'll resist any temptation to make terrible tasteless remarks like...'this girl gives excellent head'.......)...ooops, sorry.....that's what happens when you watch way too many Trump news conferences.......