I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

WELL, AT LEAST THIS MOVIE DOESN'T HAVE HITLER'S HEAD IN A JAR... OH DAMMIT!!!

Nazis At The Center Of The Earth aka SS Troopers (2012) Straight To DVD

The Asylum Presents. Never in movie history can just three words cause such dread and disgust. What's almost worse (almost) is that the director of this film knew it, spoke freely about how awful it was, and basically shrugged, collected his paycheck, and went home. Nice. For this movie they admit they had a script on the run, so to speak, two weeks to shoot, and less than $200,000 to do it with. We are not going to be looking at a cinematic marvel here.

So, having had TWO movies with heads in jars just this year, ONE of them Hitler I thought (because sometimes the brain synapses DO connect) "Meh, there's no way they could stoop so low as to have THAT happen again." But, apparently, my brain did all that work for nothing, and stoop they did.

Shoots the same guy twice, nobody cares...

A group of researchers are studying the decline of the glaciers and it's ALL YOUR FAU... umm wait, that was another movie, sorry. We begin in 1945 Germany because apparently that's the only year in history that anyone has any interest in Germany (sorry). A handful of overweight actors in ill fitting uniforms stumble out of the back of a truck. Nobody worries about trivial details like accents or proper German or anything like that. I mean, one of them says a sentence to the guy who's supposed to be playing Joseph Mengele and he replies with gibberish that a two-year-old German baby would laugh at.

When a pressure cooker is carried out of the back of the truck, I had a strange tingle go down the back of my neck but I ignored it and carried on as the movie shows (very briefly, time is money and money they ain't got) that they're transporting their canned goods... somewhere. Sigh.

Mengele, being the super shit-kicking doctor he is, grabs a freaking rocket launcher and blows a tank to kingdom come - but isn't through with that, as we see him shooting generic soldiers who are running in the dark THROUGH THE EXPLODED TANK. He's a crack shot and gets all he aims at (One of them twice!) as we hear the famous Foley screams... but fun is fun and done is done and he finally gets on the motherführer plane... wait, he's STILL shooting the same soldiers from the moving plane! 

Those little plastic models are
fireproof, waterproof, bullshit proof...

This guy is a real badass! He even dispatches a very VERY fast foot soldier who's grabbed onto the moving plane. Wow. For a heart-stopping final kickass moment the plane is shot by another of those sneaky silent-in-the-dark tanks... and flies right through the explosion! Oh the humanity!

We fast forward to a supposed outpost called Niflheim Station at Antarctica (otherwise known as Asylum studios in California). They're taking core samples - it's all very technical so the movie doesn't have to explain it to you. And they don't have to explain why they're freezing but can't see their breath when they talk. Just shut up about it, will you? Huh? Oh sorry, must be the massive DUH reverberating in my ears. I think I've suffered permanent damage from this movie.

She didn't feel that when she stepped on it???

Taking core samples is really metal. Wait, I said that wrong. While taking a core sample, TWO INCHES DOWN they hit metal. In very VERY fake snow that is so loose, the 'scientist' just brushes it away with her hand to expose a green metal plate with a swastika on it. Funny, I'm starting to feel very, very drunk, yet I haven't had even a sip. This is NOT a movie to do a drinking game with either. You'd die in the first 15 minutes. Must be that massive DUH in my ears, it's making me dizzy.

They only have two seconds to look at this hiding green plate, however, before three Nazis in ghost whisperer gear... no, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of the chick in the Insidious movies. Three Nazis in gas masks show up and take the two idiots for whatever reason. I dunno.

But the biggest pfffft of the whole movie is expecting us to believe that Jake Busey is a scientist. Nah, just kidding - a little. THE BIGGEST is that there is a whole Naziland under the ground at Antartica, with it's own air, heating, theme park... wait, scratch that last one. The city gleams as apparently pollution has been eliminated in the Nazi world. And Jake Busey is not only a scientist, HE'S A NAZI SCIENTIST. Somehow that makes more sense.

So they work at, uh, what was that station's name - oh, the Niflheim (Mist World being one of the English translations). I guess they were attempting to be cute by naming it after the Norse Mythology of the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow, the hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore... Umm, wait. Woof, I am going nuts from this movie... <Sorry Led Zeppelin>

Anywho, they leave there to find their mates and slide down this previously not-seen-for-plot-reasons hole at the instruction of their soon-to-be-saluting-everyone idiot scientist (Jake Busey). They find a brilliant... computer image. Nice work for the time spent I guess. The ones already captured have discovered that while Mengele somehow has not aged a single day and looks exactly the same, his men need fresh skin over their junk (no, not THAT junk - I hope) to keep sort of human looking. This is the absolute WORST makeup ever devised. These guys look like they've been interrupted from a day at the spa in the middle of a cucumber facial.

Jake Busey, not to be out-DUH'D by this movie, pretends he's seeing the city for the first time and proclaims that this must be Agharta, the subterranean world. Huh? Agharta is a place that all Buddhists believe in. They also believe that this Subterranean World has millions of inhabitants and many cities, all under the supreme domination of the subterranean world capital, Shamballah. And Busey would know that there's no way this was even close. Sigh.

They (the idiots in this movie) wander around the city apparently undetected. They approach an airplane hanger (recycled from the beginning of the movie) and one of the victims-to-be mutters, "Why does this look familiar?" Since they never explain that, just chalk it up to the movie messing with you 'cause they know it's the same building used over and over.

Steampunk Mengele

So. They're captured and Busey explains that for ten years he's been working for the Nazis in Les Schwab land. Oh, I'm sorry, that's Neuschwabenland, or New Swabia, an area of Antarctica. Mengele says (to cover the fact that in 'real life' his bones were discovered in the '70's) that most of his bones were replaced (pffft) and so since he had arthritis he don't got it no more, he can peel the skin off his skull when he wants to (which is a great trick for the ladies), and he don't age no more. That's... the stupidest thing I've heard all year.

We're very limber...

Favorite line in the movie? Oh, there's so many... but I liked when Mengele talks to one of the victims, proclaiming him a Jew to which the guy answers, "No, I'm not religious." Pfffft... like that erases your heritage or something. That would be like pointing at me and saying "You're Cherokee." and me responding, "No, I don't dance around the fire in full ceremonial dress." 

Mengele says that the best of 20th century engineering came from Germany. Hmm, let's see... there's the Volkswagon, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porche, TV Remotes (better versions, not original ones), the first home video game console (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!), cruise ships (hopefully not the ones with the backed up toilets), the Enigma machine (you wanna know what it is, look it up yourself), atomic bomb, assault rifles (The Sturmgewehr 44), the clarinet (I had one once, loved that thing until someone stole it), 

DEEEEEP BREATH

I had a metal one - only the
mouthpiece could be removed...

the bicycle, the typewriter, the computer mouse, vinyl records, movable type (such as the one which made the Gutenberg Bible), Henry J. Heinz tomato ketchup and fifty six other things, the fax machine, aspirin, the submarine, morphine, the elevator, adhesive tape, blue jeans, Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, inventor of the airship named after him in the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow... whoops, sorry about that. I was drifting off...

Have the ability to create an underground city,
but not a doorway tall enough for men to walk
through without stooping over - and oh yeah, I do
believe your flag is.. just wrong Herr Mengele...

So what is all this torturous nonsense about? Oh yeah, I was trying to forget but...

Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's Hitler in the jar-o

Sigh again. Yup, we've got another abomination but this time they ripped off Robot Chicken:

Pretty close...

Am I stalling 'cause I don't want to do the rest of this movie? You bet your sweet ass!

Ahem. Let's take a quick look at what Mengele's reading material while he's been down the hole, shall we? Hmm... from left to right (according to Google translate) 1. Gross Ass, Young Lady; 2. I love to do drugs; 3. Thirteen; 4. Eat Babies. Oooh Mengele we know your dirty little secrets now. I think. Sort of. You can thank the movie's German translator Johannes Gotz for those funnies. Or not. So. Hitler in the jar-o now looks like the Humping Robot in Robot Chicken. Sorry, just would much rather be watching cartoons right now.

Dammit, wrong head!

The Hitler robot jumps into his new ship, which is (they want you to believe) about half the size of the Death Star. On the computer screen anyway. Dr. Mengele for some reason starts to rot like a banana in record time and wants a new skin. Wait, if his skin changes why does he still look like himself? Wait, why am I looking for logic?

So we have two main characters that I haven't bothered to name who love each other so they manage to kill Mengele (again) and get away where they attempt to rescue another character I never named from being cut up by Busey while a healing zombie picks at and eats his scabs. You heard me. The two lovers rescue a third friend (Busey took off with his girlfriend) and rips the scab-eaters face off. It wasn't much grosser than watching zombie pimples and scab snacks.

Okay, that's... better?

And since the Nazis are Stormtroopers <rim shot>, they shoot and shoot and shoot and not a single shot comes anywhere near our heroes... whoever they are. Meanwhile Hitler tells his, uh, navigator? to set a course for North America. Hey, why does the navigator look like Data from Star Trek? Never mind. The good guys shoot, the bad guys shoot and miss, and I'm yawning so hard I think I dislocated my jaw. 

The good guys are on the stairs and shove a cart with oxygen tanks on them and since Stormtroopers apparently don't know what 'inflammable' means, they shoot them and blow up. Wow. That's what Luke Skywalker needed - would have saved a lot of time.

Why is this guy pulling the Nazi's borrowed skin off?
He wanted to SAVE FACE! BWAHAHAHAHAAAA...

But Hitler doesn't just want to bomb the world - he wants to bomb it with Ebola (that's... almost eerie). After an interminable amount of time of these guys going around the same corridor over and over again, two are left and find a glider of some sort to get out of the ship with - just as Busey and his girlfriend set off a bomb in one of those last minute gee-I-guess-I'm-human-after-all turnarounds that never happen.

Oh rats, he worked on that computer
image for two whole hours!

The two in the glider land on the ice as the ship crashes because of an itty bitty hole in it (not that sturdy I guess). But Hitler in a jar-o is still coming after them. The girl shouts (like he could hear her inside that robot), "C'mon you bobble-headed zombie Nazi son of a bitch!" Now how many times in your life do you get to say something like that?

Now all we need is a washing
machine... <sorry Robot Chicken>

With a 'we really need to find a way to end this horrid movie' move, they manage to infect Hitler with Ebola. 'Kay. Is our movie over now? Hitler's laser (don't ask) shoots around him, cutting a hole in the ice and plunging him into the depths of the computer... uh, I mean ocean. The two survivors kiss, he gives her a ring (because nothing says 'let's get married' like the slaughter of all your friends), and we have our ending. Not.

We get our credits (Even for the honey wagons! Wow, show-business really IS glamorous!) - oh wait one freaking moment 'cause I just discovered where they spent all their money! They didn't just get honey wagons y'all, they got the Mercedes Benz of honey wagons! Check this ad out: Hollywood Honeywagons - This 10 room honeywagon is not only the biggest in Los Angeles, it's the most well designed in the whole film industry! Each crew restroom has 2 stalls and sink AND each and every room becomes a double. Every other bed turns into a work desk! (5 double rooms!) This trailer houses it's own generator and can work independently! The truck is a four room honeywagon all by itself! You really do have to see it to believe it!

Yeeeaaaaahhhh, I think I'm going to pass on that one.

Anyway, at the end we see Hitler's robot hand deep in the ocean... and it wiggles. Tell you what - if there is a sequel to this movie I will PERSONALLY go to Antarctica (known as Asylum Studios) and burn down the studio for you because I care about my readers THAT MUCH.

Oh, and I think Asylum owes Seth Green and Matthew Senreich an apology. NOW.