Angel of Death (1985)

Please don't spend money on this.

Perfect cast and a good story

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

ANGEL OF DEATH is one of those cheapo Eurocine productions made to cash in on the rage for Italian action/war films in the late 1980s. It was made by the unholy pairing of the infamous Jess Franco with Andrea Bianchi, the man who bought us BURIAL GROUND, and impressively enough it was filmed in Uruguay so it has visual authenticity. The plot is nothing special, involving a commando squad sent into the jungle to track down and kill the infamous Nazi doctor Mengele, and it's mostly an excuse for regular shoot-'em-up scenes of henchmen being shot with arrows or blown up. The film also has an impressive cast of low-rent appearances, chief of whom is Chris Mitchum in a sweaty turn. Howard Vernon is well cast as the sinister doctor, and Jack Taylor plays a good guy for a change. Fernando Rey has also been roped into taking part in the mayhem. With Franco's influence, expect plenty of scenes of young women in distress and wearing very little, and not much in the way of quality.

Devoted cult film fanatics already know better than to pay any attention to the low ratings of obscure and infamous titles around this website, but I would still like to emphasize the fact that the miserable 2.1 out of 10 rating for "Commando Mengele" should be disregarded blindly! Despite being a total rip-off of "The Boys from Brazil", despite the involvement of reputedly awful European film-makers (like Jess Franco and Andrea Bianchi) and despite the at times intolerably high level of tackiness, this is one outrageously entertaining and delightfully provocative gem! It's a bad film but in the best possible way: dumb but never boring, full of plot holes and incoherent as can be, gory and vile but never shocking and boosting acting performances that are even worse than those in a kindergarten play. A young couple discovers the hideout place of the fugitive Nazi monster Dr. Mengele in a remote little Uruguayan mountain and promptly he doesn't like unwelcome visitors. The girl dies but this guy Marc teams up with a former nightclub dancer who Mengele selected as his mistress. Whilst awaiting green light from the Jewish Nazi-hunters commando to attack, Marc gathers together a specialist fighting unit containing an acrobat, an artillery expert, a martial arts champion and a technician, all of which have a personal score to settle with the Nazi butcher. But they'll have to hurry up, as Mengele and his sidekick Wolfgang have readily developed plans to found The Fourth Reich. "Commando Mengele" is fast-paced and full of crazy action, but you'll have the most fun spotting all the things that are just plain wrong! Like all the contradictions in the script, for example, or the fact Howard Vernon (a Jess Franco regular) didn't even bother to do some research regarding Mengele's appearance! Vernon looks and acts like his own usual self, without a fake mustache or a trying to talk with a German accent. The finale is one fantastically spectacular smörgåsbord of action and crazy twists, and in the end we STILL don't know for sure whether the bastard is dead or not! Awesome stuff.

Name-brand actors co-star with clowns who often worked for Jess Franco in this Dr. Mengele story; the end result gives THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL no competition whatsoever. Fernando Rey and Jack Taylor are Nazi hunters while Christopher Mitchum is a crippled American mercenary employed by Mengele (Howard Vernon.) The pretty young agent who infiltrates Mengele's stronghold is played by an actress named Dora Doll–I kid you not! She gets to see the pathetic results of Mengele's genetic experiments before being beaten and thrown in a cage. The only mutant we get to see is a chimp-man who probably could have made a better movie. Taylor and friends attack the compound in an assault that tries, without success, to match the finale of THE WILD BUNCH. Director Andrea Bianchi apparently had a surplus of blood-squibs; the bullet holes are big and bloody and the red stuff sprays through the air by the gallon, literally painting the screen crimson. However, guns are aimed at soldiers' chests and they suffer head wounds, and Taylor walks out of an exploding building without a scratch. Too bad the real Josef Mengele didn't live long enough to sit through this howler—such torture would have been partial payback for his crimes against humanity.

Doctor Mengeles, the famous nazi butcher, is still living somewhere in South America, torturing innocent young virgins and being played by Howard Vernon. A jewish commando is set up to hunt him and punish his cruel war acts, but the avengers face the wrath of the nazi lunatics, and the battle rages on until Mengele's bodyguard, a kung fu adept, gets killed. Such plots are common to Jess Franco, but this sometimes talented director should have learned that those movies aren't funny or breathtaking... They're just BORING. After all, Jess's a veteran, but he's done WAY better. Fans be warned, this ain't a good one, and if you don't know Franco, don't try to get familiar with him with this one, try something else, like Faceless or Bloody Moon.