Shock Waves

This woman looks more like she's having fun playfully tugging at her overshirt than she's genuinely annoyed that some creature from the depths of a watery grave is trying to drag her down to him. Oh sure lady, laugh it up, laugh it up until you're down there too, never to be seen or heard from again all because you didn't take river ghouls seriously enough to not act like you were involved in some weird playboy photo shoot when one came at you, intending to make you his prisoner wife. Lady, tut the Coppertone Girl shit and take this seriously.

Along with the bizarre tone of the photo itself is the font, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool in and of itself, but really makes this feel more like some sort of weird pseudo horror themed workout video than an actual horror movie proper. Also very cute putting the actress's name, Brooke Adams, right on the water itself. Nothing like good ol' H20 related jokes to liven up a box art. And then, to top it all off, we've got Peter Cushing's disembodied floating ethereal head staring dead at us, as if his eyes are saying, "You see this? You see what's happening? This is your fault." He looks just as disappointed in this as I am.

I feel personally responsible for this piece of box art. Thanks, Peter.

Oddly enough, despite the almost rivermonster meets woman of his dreams sort of vibe this cover gives off, you may be as surprised as I was to learn that that is not what this movie is about, and, in all honesty, this cover is surprisingly deceptive and really not remotely representative of its real plot. I'm sorry, "plot". That's better.

Shock Waves is from 1977, and is about a group of tourists who encounter aquatic Nazi zombies when they become shipwrecked.

Yeah. You read that right. That's a thing someone made. That happened.

Apparently, the film was originally titled Death Corps (that's a pretty cute pun, honestly, intentional or not. I'll give 'em points for that one) in Miami and West Palm Beach Florida in 1975 with a budget of $150,000 smackers. Eventually, the filmmakers managed to raise $200,000 to complete the film. Getting funding for a project back then, without the aide of such normalized concepts as crowdfunding these days, was a lot harder, so kudos to them for actually achieving that goal. The question then becomes, should they have? And, another question emerges. Having read through the synopsis now, and finding it standard fair for b-horror movies that feature zombies, Nazi or not, I myself have to ask...

...just what the fuck is this thing on the cover? Nowhere in the synopsis does it ever come remotely close to stating, "and then the ship is attacked by a towering Lovecraftian creature that Hitler somehow inadvertently had a hand in creating". I mean, don't get me wrong, by all means let's appreciate this artwork, cause it's fantastic! The detail on everything, the scope, the colors, just the overall artistry that went into this is awesome...but this is just blatant false advertising! There's no giant Cthuluesque creature in this movie, from what I can find! In fact, spoiler alert, you wanna know what actually sinks their ship? Another ship.

And while that's two boxes that have now outright lied to us, I have to say I'm a bit sad because honestly had there been a giant fish monster in this flick, it probably would have been a lot better. They should've looked at this box art and gone, "Oh, fuck, we should have done that." But, alas, twas not to be. At least the 2nd one is a lot more accurate in terms of overall tone, considering it shows a ship sinking, it's got that swatstika right on the cover, and they've got the Nazi zombie guy on the back just to give you a bit more of a taste of what's really in store here. So yeah, the movie is sadly lacking any giant Nazi fish monsters, and that sucks, but you know what sucks even worse? This edgelord art.

In what looks like a comic someone in the 50s would've made, this is the worst of them all. Very much like the horrible art for one of the boxes for Galaxy Invader, it resembles something that was almost done at the last minute by someone of either virtually no talent, or, in Galaxy Invaders example, a 10 year old. While the artwork on this isn't atrocious, it's also nothing special. It just looks like a bad 70s saturday morning cartoon, and overall it's by far the worst of the bunch simply because it's not as funny as the first one, and it's not as cool as the second. It's just bland as fuck. 

Humorously enough, while they boast about having raised $200,000 to complete the movie, near as I can tell any official statements on any kind of financial success afterwards are nowhere to be found. Also, both the producer and director were students at Columbia University in New York City, where they won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Dramatic Student Film. Shock Waves was their first commercial feature film, and was originally shot in 16mm, but later blown up to 35mm. In reality, the film itself should've just been blown up, and yes, I gave you all that info for that one stupid joke. That's how dedicated I am to bringing you the worst humor possible. You're. Welcome.

As I've said numerous times on this blog, even if a movie is bad, I have profound respect for anyone who manages to complete something on such a large scale, especially when you're needing to raise more money than you initially had to begin with. Film is not an easy medium to create in, I know this first hand, and so even if the movie is awful, or the box art is downright goddamned loony, I still say a lot of this with a rather tongue in cheek sort of attitude.

Shock Waves, even at its worst art wise, is nowhere near the worst art I've featured on this blog. Even its lamest most lazy incarnation at the end isn't the worst of its kind we've seen (hence linking the Galaxy Invader example for reference/comparison), and if I had the money, and could find a nice quality version of that 2nd box art, I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I'd blow that sucker up and hang it on my wall, because that thing, even if not representative in the slightest, was goddamned awesome. I wish they'd just made THAT movie. You guys could've made the giant fish monster a Nazi, it could've been a secret bio-weapon or something that the Nazis created. You could've done that. But you didn't. 

You robbed us of the majesty that could've been Giant Nazi Fish Monsters, and for that, I'll never forgive you.