SOLDIERS OF THE DAMNED (2015)

[indianasmith]

I debated  which column to include this in - Good Movies or Bad Movies?  In the end, I guess I will call it an ambitious film that tried very hard to be good and fell flat at the end, but I have to give it points for effort.

  It is 1944.  Major  Kurt Fleischer is leading a hard-fighting squad of Wehrmacht soldiers as they slowly fall back before the inexorable weight of the Russian war machine.  He is recalled to headquarters and told that his team must escort two Waffen SS officers and a German scientist deep into a haunted forest behind enemy lines in Romania, to retrieve an artifact of great significance - an ancient relic that could potentially turn the tide of the war.  But as the soldiers go deeper and deeper into the accursed woods, they realize that something far deadlier than the Russians lurks in the trees . . .

Sounds intriguing, right?  And it is, to a point.  Hallucinations, madness, murder, resurrections, paranoia, and the deep-seated hatred that the regular soldiers have for the SS all emerge more clearly as the team is sucked deeper and deeper in, and gradually whittled down at the same time.
The weakness is at the film's end - the explanation, to the extent that there is one, simply doesn't justify the nearly two hours you spend watching the movie.  But, the acting is great, and at times the grinding weariness of fighting a losing war is portrayed with a poignancy that approaches that of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.  In short, this is a frustrating film, because it was very good at moments and could have been great, if only the narrative had come together more effectively at the end.

 3.5/5