Line #94 Film/FrankensteinsArmy


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_8321.jpeg]]
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3	''Frankenstein's Army'' is a 2013 found-footage horror film, concerning a documentary made by a squadron of Soviet soldiers in the tail end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
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5	Dimitri is a Jewish-Russian soldier, sent into German territory to document the exploits of a reconnaissance battalion. After screwing around with the camera for a little bit, the squad gets a distress call from "Tiger-Bear 303", another recon unit investigating a mining village. The town is mysteriously empty; the only signs of inhabitation a big pile of dead nuns. As the group takes shelter in the church, they are attacked by a horde of... things, half man, half machine...
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7	Not to be confused with ''Film/ArmyOfFrankensteins''.
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9	!!This film contains examples of:
10	* AllThereInTheManual: The official names of Frankenstein's zombie cyborg minions are given in the credits.
11	* AmbiguousGender: The "Burnt-Match Man," the first zombot the squad encounters, has no breasts but otherwise has a rather feminine figure and makes feminine sounds when awakened. Also, despite its official name, it's played by a woman.
12	* AndIMustScream: There's a glass tank in the doctor's living room that contains [[spoiler: a woman's head attached to a ''teddy bear'' body. Which is ''twitching and whimpering''.]] No explanation is offered, but it's clear there's a ''very'' ugly story behind this particular product of Frankenstein's work.
13	** Worse, it's given in the credits as ''the Doctor's own mother.''
14	* AndShowItToYou: Frankenstein hauls the Nazi officer in front of a full-length mirror before sawing his skull open, for no evident reason except this trope. He claims to have done something similar to his own father, as payback for attempting to have him institutionalized.
15	* ArtificialZombie: The [[FrankensteinsMonster Frankenstein's Monsters]] in the village are actually horrific cyborgs. In the words of Sergei: "Only the Nazis would think of this. Sewing dead people together and giving them knives for hands."
16	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Handheld 16mm cameras able to film with sync sound did not exist until the 1960s, long after this film is meant to take place, and the Bolex, which is the model actually seen in the film, certainly wasn't one of them. To say nothing of the fact that the film is in color (very unlikely for the time period) and in widescreen (virtually impossible). All of that being said, the camera being so advanced is actually a plot point; Frankenstein is astonished by how good it is and agrees to let Dimitri lives [[spoiler:(until he figures out how to use it himself)]] so he can document his work. It's possible that the Soviets are a lot more advanced in this timeline and [[SovietSuperscience manage to produce a prototype color and sound camera in the 40s]].
17	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Every single character but one dies in the movie,]] and all but three of them deserve it. The Soviets are war criminals who raze a farmstead and later execute non-combatants. The Nazis are the Nazis. [[spoiler:Frankenstein is an insane sociopathic maniac who not only mutilates and lobotomizes people, but also reserves a particular [[FateWorseThanDeath fate]] for those who really piss him off, as seen with his [[AndIMustScream beheaded but still alive mother]]. Dimitri, our protagonist, is a manipulative and ruthless jerkass who forces his comrades to go through with the mission with their families as collateral, and once he comes face-to-face with the doctor, expresses nothing but admiration at his work and offers to let him get away scotfree as a USSR scientist]]. The only people who don't deserve their fates are the [[spoiler: nurse, the Hitlerjugend boy, and the elderly Nazi who's shown to be quite grandfatherly to the boy.]]
18	* BackwardsR: The opening credits are done in this way.
19	* BaitAndSwitch: Marching is heard and the Nazi flag is seen. The flag is soon trampled into a mudhole.
20	* BerserkButton: Dr. Frankenstein becomes very upset when Dimitri asks him how his "automatons" receive orders. They're neither robots or "puppets", but people in their own fashion. "They even need to eat!" The ending calls this into question, since they go berserk (not that it's a long trip) once [[spoiler: the doctor dies, as he said they would because they only obey him]].
21	* BicepPolishingGesture / FlippingTheBird: Vassili gives a ''bras d'honneur'' to Dimitri early on in the film.
22	* BigBad: Dr. Viktor Frankenstein, grandson of the more famous doctor, who has been experimenting to make automatons for the Nazis [[spoiler:but secretly has his own agenda]].
23	* BilingualBonus: The German officer in the handcart. While you hardly need to know German to catch on that "Nein!" is BigNo, those who ''do'' speak it can tell that he's begging not to be taken, asking for a MercyKill, and calling the zomborg that's pushing the cart an ass.
24	* BlackAndGrayMorality: Nobody is particularly sympathetic. Dr. Frankenstein was being forced to experiment on humans by the Nazis, but once he had made enough monsters, he overpowered them and used their families in his experiments. The Soviets are ostensibly the most "heroic" of the bunch, but they do some pretty reprehensible things themselves, like pushing little Hans down a shaft to find out what's at the bottom. And the Nazis, what's left of them, are...well, Nazis.
25	* BladeBelowTheShoulder: Most of the monsters have meathooks, saws, or Jaws-of-Life for hands.
26	* BodyHorror: Oh yes. Agonizing cybernetics on several of the monsters, and Novikov is eviscerated by the saw-hand man. Not to mention Eva's [[GoneHorriblyWrong disastrous attempt to help]] remove Ivan's helmet after it was crushed into his skull by Razor Teeth...
27	* CameraAbuse: Splattered with mud, gore, and breaks a lens.
28	** At one point, Dimitri falls into an open grave and knocks a bearing out of alignment. The audio is distorted and a rapid squeaking dominates the soundtrack.
29	* CannibalLarder: The basement of the church and a chilled room in the school.
30	* ChekhovsGun: The camera. Not the object itself, but Frankenstein's fascination with it while being interrogated by the Soviets. Due to how good it is, Frankenstein would later spare one of the Soviets to film him conducting his work, thus allowing the climax to happen.
31	* ChickenWalker: Dmitri films one of these in a corner of the doctor's main lab, although it doesn't move and may not have been complete.
32	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Frankenstein runs around with manic energy, is very easily distracted by new ideas and experiments, and most of his scientific ideas are completely outlandish and unworkable given a moment's consideration, such as his plan to reconcile the differences between the Soviets and Nazis by transplanting half a Nazi brain into a Soviet soldier.
33	* ColdSniper: Alexei, despite catching snowflakes with his tongue during the establishing shots.
34	* ContinuitySnarl: The title character is explicitly stated to be the grandson of ''the'' [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} Dr. Viktor Frankenstein]], but the novel in question took place in the 1700s, making him far too young to not have at least several "Greats" before "Grandson." Possibly he's the grandson of the Frankenstein from the 1931 ''film'', in which the era is more ambiguous.
35	* DeadlyRotaryFan: The "propellerhead" zombie's schtick.
36	* DeadManWalking: Ivan, a soldier who has his helmet crushed into his skull. He's alive and capable of resisting an attempt at mercy-killing him, but his helmet is the only thing keeping his brain inside his skull, as Eva finds out the hard way.
37	* DieselPunk: Given the World War II setting, it's appropriate that the cyborg zombies look like misfit [[VideoGame/BioShock Big Daddies]].
38	* DistressCall: The Soviets respond to a radio transmission from "Tiger-Bear 303", determined to extricate their hard-pressed comrades. [[spoiler: Subverted when the signal is revealed to be coming from ''Dmitri's backpack'', as he's been ordered to lead the squad to Frankenstein's lab so he can retrieve the mad doctor's secrets.]]
39	* TheDogBitesBack: Doctor Frankenstein was sent to a concentration camp near the village. However, when the Nazis learned of his experiments, they forced him to work with human subjects instead of the animals he had been using previously. Once he's made enough "zombots" to overpower his captors, he uses the Nazi soldiers and their families in his experiments.
40	* EnemyMine: Subverted. The squad's first instinct upon meeting a group of German survivors is to try killing all the men and raping the woman, even though they know at this point that there are cyborgs killing people indiscriminately all over the area. Even when they do team up, the Germans are treated less as allies and more as meatshields to be sacrificed at the earliest convenience.
41	* FanDisservice: There are two instances of nudity in the whole film. A bare breast on a dead, vivisected nun, piled in a heap with the rest of the convent, and the Burnt Match Man, a [[FullFrontalAssault naked cyborg with a saw for an arm.]]
42	* FateOfTheFrankensteins: Frankenstein's grandson is coerced into creating cyborgs for the nazis in [=WW2=].
43	* {{Fingore}}: Vassily cuts off one of Frankenstein's fingers during his interrogation. He later has it reattached to no ill effect.
44	* FrankensteinsMonster: A bunch of them, actually; see "artificial zombie" above.
45	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
46	** The squad finds a strange skeleton tangled in an electric fence. The skeleton has several metal gubbins on it, and an animal skull for a head.
47	** On the road to the village, a dead German soldier is found. He's got a mechanical hand and a bolt stuck in his chin. Despite being dead for long enough for leaf mold to accumulate on his uniform, he still twitches violently and screams when manhandled too much.
48	*** When Dimitri is asked what he saw, instead of telling the rest of his squad that he encountered a zombie soldier he brushes it off as nothing. [[spoiler: This is because he already knows about the Doctor's experiments, and he doesn't want everyone else to know they are walking into a nightmare.]]
49	** [[GraveRobbing The village graveyard is dug up, with the bodies missing from the coffins.]]
50	* GenerationXerox: This Dr. Victor Frankenstein is the grandson of [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} the famous one from Switzerland.]]
51	* GunsInChurch: The first fight with the monsters is in the convent.
52	* HumanResources: The body parts that aren't made into cyborgs are made into ''eintopf'' to feed them with.
53	* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler: Dimitri is forced to try to capture the Doctor, because his parents are captives of his state superiors. Likewise, he has the names of all the squad members' families in case they don't cooperate]].
54	* InsistentTerminology: Frankenstein's creations are not "automatons", they are "living beings".
55	* IronicEcho: Dimitri promises a "Hero of the Soviet Union" medal to Seryosha. At the very end, Sascha promises Dimitri the same for distracting the monsters while he escapes with [[spoiler: the Doctor's severed head]].
56	* KarmicDeath: Vassili, the sociopathic HateSink, ends up as spare parts for the Doctor's experiments.
57	* TheMole: [[spoiler: Our main character and cameraman Dimitri is actually a(n unwilling) spy for the Politiburo]].
58	* NailEm: Ivan gets his helmet bolted to his skull.
59	* NakedOnArrival: The first cyborg the Squad discovers is a naked man with a saw arm.
60	* NightmareFace: None of the cyborgs have pretty faces. Some might mitigate this by having a helmet or otherwise artificial head.
61	* NoMacGuffinNoWinner: Dimitri's orders are to either bring Frankenstein back alive or kill him so he doesn't work for anyone else. [[spoiler:Frankenstein could have chosen the former, but he chose to betray Dimitri instead, allowing the still-alive Sasha to kill him from behind and fulfilling the later criteria.]]
62	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome:
63	** There's talk of taking a sniper blind early in the film. We don't get to see them destroy it.
64	** [[spoiler:While the rest of the squad gets captured by Frankenstein in the ending, Sasha somehow manages to escape him offscreen and emerges at the last minute to kill the doctor.]]
65	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: These are crudely-made automatons with various mechanical parts attached to their bodies, that exist entirely to serve their master. [[spoiler:When said master dies, they go utterly berserk until they're put down.]]
66	* RaceLift: There is no indication that Victor Frankenstein is Jewish in the original novel. However, since we're dealing with his grandson, it's possible that his wife in this timeline is a Jew, then his son marries another Jew, making his grandson Jewish by Nazi laws[[note]]anyone with 3 or more Jewish grandparents was considered a full Jew, while anyone with two or fewer was considered only a Mischling and often faced hard labor instead of being sent to the camps like the doctor in the movie does[[/note]].
67	* PetTheDog: During the "Messing around with the camera" scene, Vassili and Ivan give an elderly German evacuee an entire bar of chocolate. She's absolutely ecstatic.
68	* PoweredByAForsakenChild: Some of the monsters made look like they may have been children. Hans, the poor German kid who gets mulched by the propeller-headed zombot, briefly reappears as a "zompod", with his intact legs attached to some sort of metal barrel.
69	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Implied, as Sergei doesn't bat an eye at his comrades looting a German farm at the start, but he does everything in his power to stop Vassily from raping Eva the German nurse.
70	* SerratedBladeOfPain: Several zombies have saws for hands.
71	* TheSmurfettePrinciple: The only obviously female zombie is the Nurse.
72	* TheSociopath: Dr. Viktor Frankenstein, who took his father's offhanded comments about human efficiency far too literally and decided to make all of humanity into crude automatons that serve only him. When his dad tried to have him committed as a child, he murdered him without question, and eventually started working for Nazi Germany despite being Jewish himself. That said, he has no true loyalty to the Nazi cause, and ends up using them in his experiments as well.
73	* SociopathicSoldier: Vassili. He cuts off an old man's fingers during an interrogation, beats people up for no good reason, and is more or less the movie's HateSink until the monsters show up.
74	* SparedByTheAdaptation: Implied for Vi''c''tor Frankenstein and possibly Elizabeth, as the main villain of the film is Victor's grandson.
75	* SpinToDeflectStuff: The airplane zombie deflects every bullet fired at it with its DeadlyRotaryFan. It's defeated by cutting its fuel line, in fact.
76	* SpoilerTitle: The title basically gives away that the Doctor [[spoiler: Dimitri is forced into capturing]] is Frankenstein.
77	* StealthHiBye: The Tramp [[spoiler: leads the squad into a trap and vanishes without a trace]]. It's hard to blame him though, [[{{Fingore}} considering Vassili cut his finger off.]]
78	* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: Happens to everyone near the end of the movie, except the doctor and [[spoiler: Sascha]].
79	* SubtitlesAreSuperfluous: The Google Play version has absolutely awful subtitles. An entire conversation is missed and saws are said to be "drilling".
80	* TechnologyMarchesOn: InUniverse, Frankenstein states that while his grandfather had to wait around for a thunderstorm, he can just use a generator instead.
81	* ThisIsADrill: One zombie is (or rather, was) an SS shocktrooper with a power drill stuck in his nose, which gives him a mosquito-like face.
82	* TooDumbToLive:
83	** Roughly the entire cast. They somehow manage to lose pretty much all of their numbers to slow and slumbering cyborgs that the totally unarmed Dimitri can sidestep most of the time with no problem. Also, when facing a particular cyborg whose facemask opens in intervals to expose its head, none of the squad members can rub two brain cells together to figure out that that's where they should shoot.
84	** Also applies to the Nazis. Sure, let's put a Jewish guy you just put through concentration camps to work on superweapons. Oh, and let him be the only guy who can control his creations too. [[SarcasmMode He totally won't turn on us the moment he has enough of these cyborgs, right]]?
85	* UnwillingRoboticization: The Nazi garrison, [[spoiler: Ivan and Sergei]].
86	* VillainProtagonist: [[spoiler:Dmitri, a Soviet spy who misled his fellow soldiers into capturing a Nazi MadScientist that his bosses want captured alive, and is willing to threaten their loved ones to keep them compliant. Even when he learns about the scientist's human experimentation, he's perfectly happy to let him do such unabated to get the data.]]
87	* VisualPun: a Russian cyborg has his hands replaced with a hammer and a sickle.
88	* WackySoundEffect: During one of the first gunfights with the monsters, it sounds like someone fires a single shot from a laser gun, specifically something out of Star Wars.
89	* WalkingTank: One cyborg is a big, turtleish machine with a ''Panzerschrek'' ArmCannon.
90	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent?: The entire cast have trouble maintaining their Russian Accents. 1/3rd of the time they sound vaguely Russian, 1/3rd it's a cross between Russian and British English and the remainder inexplicably they gain American accents. Most unusual as, in a rarity for movies involving Russians, this movie has actual Russians playing Russians and none of the cast nor the characters are American.
91	* WolfInSheepsClothing: The Tramp whom the Russians capture and interrogate [[spoiler: is actually Frankenstein himself, playing innocent until he can slip away.]]
92	* WolverinePublicity: The Mace Face, Nurse, and Drill Nose zombies feature prominently on one cover, despite only appearing once or twice (and Mace is a NonActionGuy).
93	** Drill Nose gets an entire alternate cover to itself.
94	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: InUniverse. At the Doctor's house, Dimitri sees a mockup of the MiniMecha the Nazis wanted pilots hardwired into. However, it wears American colors-white and olive, which, along with his refusal to join the Soviets, implies that the Doctor is planning to defect to the U.S.
95	* WouldHurtAChild: The "Zompod" cyborg used to be a boy named Hans, who got chopped in half by the Propellerhead Zombie because the "heroes" pushed him down a processing chute to see what's down it at the same time the monster was climbing up.

Context Film / FrankensteinsArmy