Zombie Lake, 1981

 Low budget and I mean low budget horror film from France, which follows a similar story of Nazi zombies!

German soldiers killed by partisans in an ambush during the second world war are dumped in the local lake, which we find out later has a dark secret regarding witchcraft ad has the name, "lake of the dammed".

Ten years later a woman goes missing after swimming in the lake, to which we find the lake has somehow turned the dead German soldiers into zombies and thus the village locals are scared the dead Germans are out for revenge.

There is also a subplot where one of the German undead finds his daughter he had with a local who nursed him during the war when he was wounded. Instead of being a blood thirty monster like the rest if his unit, he can realise this is his daughter. Though this leads to the mayor using the daughter's relationship with her dead father to get rid of the dead which leads them to burning the crap out of all of them with flamethrowers in a mill!

Zombie Lake will not please a lot of hardcore horror fans and may find it slightly slow and boring. Jess Franco was originally lined up to direct and had apparently worked on some of the plot but fell out with the film's distributor over the budget of the film.

Jean Rollin was then asked to direct not long before they went to film Zombie Lake.

Rollin would later go on to say if he knew how bad the script was, he would not have done it. He also stated he did it as a favour to a friend.

Where Rollin, I would say was fairly decent at making a film with now much money, this does not really suit his style of filming making and I suppose he did not have time or was given any chance to have some input on the script. If you want a good Rollin zombie-esque film, Grapes of Death is some fine Rollin goodness!

I thought the film was ok, mean it probably needed some more padding out with the script and think if Rolling had the chance to change parts and a bit more money to the budget it may have been better, though what we do have is decent enough to watch and have a laugh at.

Oasis of the Zombies, 1982

 As much as I appreciate the films of Jess Franco, he sure does knock out some terrible films at times.

Oasis of the Zombies is terrible, but it is watchable and a bit cheesy in places, but this isn't a serious film so can't hold that against it!

During the Second World War, the Nazis are transporting gold and tracking down some Allied troops that are in the desert. However, the allies have the upper hand and ambush them, and a fire fight happens where, the allied Captain is wounded but manages to be saved by a local Sheik. The Captain recovers and has a child (which he does not find out to later) with the Sheik's daughter, however she dies during childbirth.

Forward twenty years later, the Captain is working with some treasure hunters to locate the Oasis where he was wounded in hunt of the German gold, however he is betrayed and killed by his friend who runs off with the information the Captain had to the whereabouts of the Oasis and the gold. When the Captains friend and his group come to the Oasis, they are greeted by the corpses of the Afrika Corps who are now the undead and protecting the gold....

In the meantime, the Captain’s son learns of his death and decides with his friends to go seek the Oasis after reading his dad's letters and journals. He also encounters his grandad, the Sheik for the first time. They also meet another group that are filming around the area and both groups join to find the gold.

And as in most cases with films like that, they are hunted down by the undead, until only the Captain's son and his girlfriend are left and they figure how to destroy the undead. They are rescued by the Sheik and despite not finding any gold they do leave with their lives...

Oasis, as I say is bad but watchable. I did think there could have been some explanation to why only the Nazis that died at the Oasis became the undead and not any of the dead Allied soldiers!

Some of the zombies make up are laughable, one kind of looks like they cut a ping pong ball in half and used them for his eyes and they look like they are popping out his head! 

I have read that when Franco filmed this, he also filmed bits at the same time for a Spanish language version. In which he replaced two of the characters with other actors, one being Franco's later wife  Lina Romay. Though this version of the film is lost, though would not be surprised if in years to come it is found. Though the Spanish version is supposed to be slightly longer and has a bit more gore to it, but until it is found we will probably never know!