British actor Peter Cushing had a pretty eventful year in 1977. He was one of the only two big names in some little movie called Star Wars and he had top billing in this grindhouse/drive-in appropriate piece. Maybe it provided some inspiration to the Castle Wolfenstein publishers.
Shock is sadly by the numbers. The only thing leaving me guessing was the order of each stereotypical victim’s demise from these invincible undead SS troopers. Except for John Carradine. You know he had to die first because he was the other major expense next to Cushing. I can’t believe the trailer for it scared the hell out of me when I was eight going on nine too. There’s no gore, no blood, no splatter, no rendering, etc.; the stuff we’ve come to expect in Saw or Hostel. I think it succeeded on preying on my imagination as a kid. Plus some older kid in our neighborhood saw it at the local drive-in and re-told it to a bunch of us. His embellishments probably cemented our fear much like others made Porky’s funnier than it actually was.
However, this is a Joe Bob Briggs’ worthy piece of cinema history and since I can’t make my old Weird Science Theater section/page act like this main page, I’ll just give the drive-in totals here.
Drive-in Totals: Strangle Fu, Drowning Fu, death by sea urchin, one extreme sunburn and zombies that can only be defeated if you remove their goggles.