The 25th Reich

I went to a preview screening of The 25th Reich at ACMI in Melbourne with a friend. Afterwards, he described it as the 'singularly most outrageous film he'd ever seen'. I wouldn't quite go that far, but there's no denying 25th Reich is out there in a space all of its own. Based on a pulp novel called 50,000 Years Until Tomorrow, Reich finds a squad of American GI's based in Australia during the Second World War on a mission to catch or kill some escaped pumas who have fled into the bush (this bit, I believe, is based on something of a true story). The five man squad trek into the stunning wilderness, carrying a strange radio device designed to send out signals to attract the pumas... and then things start to go a bit weird...

I won't detail any of the plot turns from here, but suffice it to say we are served up time travel, rampaging giant mosquitoes, infighting amongst the men, aliens, a crashed UFO and giant Nazi robot spiders! This film is a genuine oddity and a rarity for Australian cinema, which is only cautiously embracing genre after decades of playing things fairly safe. It's obviously been done on a low budget, but what it lacks in Transformers style high-tech mayhem it more than makes up for with verve and wacky ideas. The cast do a fine job of playing characters that initially seem to be stereotyped WW2 GI's, but gradually take on individual shadings, and the retro visual style is highly reminiscent of 50's Technicolor sci-fi movies. The dialogue (presumably lifted from the novel) is laced with period lingo and the actors pull it off without a hitch. The film has a slow build (which might bother ADD types who itch to check their iphone every ten seconds) and the real lunacy happens in the last third, but its an engaging and fun ride all the way through. There is one standout scene that had my jaw dropping open with stunned disbelief, but I won't say anymore (although I think it's still burned into my eyeballs - people will know the scene I'm referring to when they watch the movie). It also ends on something of a 'Republican Serial' style cliffhanger, and I can't even begin to imagine how insane the sequel could be. This film has been likened to the much hyped (and much more expensive) Iron Sky, but there's no real comparison here - 25th Reich is very much its own beast. I really enjoyed this offbeat offering from director Stephen Amis and his team, and hope that it will inspire more indie filmmakers in Australia to think outside the box of kitchen sink dramas and rom-com's.

The story is about a group of American soldiers who are sent into the Australian wilderness to track down and capture (or kill, if necessary) two escaped pumas that serve as troop mascots. Carrying with them, they have a strange apparatus that is to lure in these giant felines. Once the apparatus is turned on, the soldiers find themselves transported 50.000 years back into the future, where they learn about the true plan of the mission; to find and secure a crashed UFO to use against Hitler's forces back in 1943.

Right, well this was weird enough, wasn't it? But it gets better. But before you read on, I should point out that story spoilers are about to follow.

With the apparatus shot to pieces by an undercover Nazi soldier, the Americans are stuck in the past. But through the use of alien telepathy, they manage to fix the apparatus and get it working, sending them back into the future. However, they are 300 years off target and end up in 2243, where they find out that the Nazis have won World War II (most likely with the use of the recovered UFO) and have conquered the world, building a massive army of UFOs. Apparently humans are obsolete, and the Nazis are now huge spider-like machines.

Storywise, then "The 25th Reich" is definitely one of the most campy and cheesy stories I have witnessed. It just screamed B-movie all over. But it was done so well and so goofy that the movie was actually fun and worth watching. I will say that the robotic spider-like Nazis were actually quite cool and were made very well, where as the rest of the CGI in the movie could have been better.

One of the things that really had me cracked up was when they returned back to the future, but missing by 300 years, and returned to the exact location where they had first gone back 50.000 years. The army jeep that they had left there was still in pristine condition, without any rust, decay or damage after having sat 300 years out in the Australian wilderness. It was just hilarious.

The characters in the movie were quite out there as well, as they were rather caricatured in extreme ways. But these overly done quirks were actually helping along the movie, because it added flavor to the characters. And the people hired to play these characters were doing good jobs, even though they had one outrageous storyline and script to work with.

And as if giant robotic spider-like Nazis weren't enough, then there is also a massive swarm of huge mosquitoes, because we all know that the world was infested by mosquitoes the size of small dogs 50.000 years ago - evolution just made them smaller and more annoying.

Topping it off, that would have to be the anal probing scene. Yeah, there were such a scene in the movie too. A soldier getting probed by a giant robotic spider-like Nazi, whilst it is actually doing humping motions. That just had be laughing so hard that I almost spilled my drink.

"The 25th Reich" is good entertainment if you enjoy campy, goofy and cheesy movies where nothing is barred. This movie is outrageous in concept, idea and execution.