‘SS Doomtrooper’

It was 2006 and I had just finished watching a pulpy made-for-TV movie, SS Doomtrooper. What a hoot! Not in the “so bad it’s good” category, but rather more in the “so bad it’s bad” category. I sat down that night and wrote my thoughts on the movie.

Below you will read that review, written back then when the show was still fresh (or perhaps over-ripe) in my mind. Oh, and for historical context, the Sci-Fi Channel is now called SyFy. And please keep in mind the then-current state of computer generated graphics, when this was written.

Watching the Sci-Fi Channel the other day, I saw some previews for an upcoming movie titled SS Doomtrooper. I thought it looked rather pulpish, so I figured I’d watch it, and give it a quick review. And, yes, it is pure pulp. Meant to be enjoyed, then forgotten. Just like the pulps originally were. It aired last night, but if you missed it, I’m sure it will be repeated again… and again and again.

The plot? A Nazi lieutenant shows up at mountain fortress in occupied France. There, in a hidden laboratory, a mad scientist has been working on a secret project. About this fortress, though. When viewed at night, it’s bathed in bright spotlights. No war-time blackouts for these boys, no siree! Light it up so it can be easily seen. In fact, I think saw a bright red sign painted on it, too, saying “Here I Am! Bomb Me!” Yeah, and a giant bullseye, too.

Anyway, the scientist demonstrates what he has been working on. He takes one of the lieutenant’s soldiers and places him inside a weird metal apparatus. There’s a lot of crackling electricity, and out comes a muscle-bound “Hulk-like” creature… a Doomtrooper!

Meanwhile, back over in England, American and British forces are aware that something sinister is up at the heavily reinforced German lab. They decide to send in a crack team of six men to blow it up. This is your typical “Dirty Half-Dozen,” who have been sprung from the stockade and promised pardons if they’ll take the mission. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but it works. The men parachute in, and immediately come across the recently-created Doomtrooper.

We aren’t shown when the Doomtrooper receives his instructions, so we are left somewhat in the dark as to how the bad guys communicate with him. From other scenes in the movie, he certainly doesn’t appear to understand verbal commands. And there seems no mechanism in place to recall him after he has finished his tasks.

The problem is that the Doomtrooper kills indiscriminately, and can’t be controlled. So when the Nazi lieutenant later sends out men to bring him back, the Doomtrooper decimates the Nazis as well. I don’t think our mad scientist thought this through, fully. Ah, the shortcomings of a single-minded brain.

Our Allied heroes work in cooperation with the French resistance. The French recount their futile battles with the Doomtrooper over the past few weeks. Since we saw this one created only a day or two before the Allied team landed, there must have been another, earlier model. So what happened to the other one? We aren’t told. But my guess is that the creatures don’t have very long lives. They probably burn themselves out early. The brightest candle burns the briefest, you know. Just my guess, though.

Anyway, the Nazis decide to shut down the project, since the Doomtrooper isn’t controllable. The mad scientist, in true mad-scientist form, shoots the lieutenant and happily goes along his way to make an army of the genetically manipulated monsters. He claims to be interested in winning the war for Germany, but doesn’t consider that his creatures will decimate Germany first, since it’s a lot closer than England. But, hey, that’s why they call him a “mad” scientist.

There’s a lot of fighting among the Doomtrooper and the Allied team. There’s a lot of fighting among the Doomtrooper and the Nazi forces, too. Pistols, rifles, machine guns, bazookas, tanks, flame throwers… nothing they throw at this bad boy will stop him! Finally our heroes lure him into a munitions arsenal and blow it up. Will that do the trick? Nope. So, on to the castle! Plenty more action in the bowels of the fortress, and in the end, everything gets blowed up!

It’s kinda pulpy and kinda video-gamish. Think of G-8 and His Battle Aces or Operator #5 married with Doom or Castle Wolfenstein. But although it is definitely pulpy fun, don’t expect too much. The budget is definitely low, as witnessed by the limited CGI they could afford. And by the actors they could afford. I could swear a couple of the actors were so bad that they must have paid the producers for the “privilege” of acting in this film.

The guy who plays “Johnson” is the worst, which may explain why he’s the first to be killed off. His dialogue sounds like a third-grader reading aloud from his primer. Johnson gets gunned down by the Doomtrooper in the first act. Maybe to show how nasty the monster is. But I suspect it was his punishment for reaaaallly bad acting.

It’s so easy to pick at this low-budget fare. It’s almost made for that purpose — something to gleefully find fault with. So I won’t even try to resist the urge. Here goes.

In the whole movie, there’s only one Doomtrooper. Why only create one? The mad scientist has built this amazing machine, and then only uses it once. What’s with that? Maybe they were running short of the atomic power needed? They never seemed to have a shortage, though. And there was certainly no shortage of obedient Nazi soldiers waiting to be willingly transformed. I think the true reason lies in the budget for the CG effects. I’m betting that the film producers didn’t have the funds to render a second creature.

The look of the Doomtrooper is designed to make up for many of the CGI shortcomings. He wears pants (ala The Hulk) and a helmet (ala Darth Vader). And when you add in the leather wrist bands and arsenal strapped to his right arm and shoulder, it leaves little skin showing. Hey, it’s expensive to get realistic looking skin texture or facial features in CGI. And money, they obviously didn’t have in abundance. So they cover him up with a lot of cloth or metal, which is much easier to render.

The outdoor snow scenes looked a bit fake. Seems that no matter how hard the characters breathed, there was no vapor trail. If they can’t see their breath, then it can’t be all that cold! I think we’re talking shredded plastic for snow, here.

And here’s another thing. The Doomtrooper has this awesome machine gun strapped to his monstrous right arm, and it shoots a stream of deadly bullets. But for some reason, I often didn’t see any of the bullets impacting the ground or buildings. Aw, come on! How expensive are squibs? Talk about cheap!

And there are unanswered questions. Will the soldier who was transformed into the Doomtrooper ever change back? The Nazi lieutenant in charge asks that very question of the mad scientist, but is interrupted before it can be answered. Hey, inquiring minds want to know! I’m guessing, no.

But it’s not all bad. There are a few good things about this telefilm. There’s an aerial battle about 15 minutes into the film that’s really cool. The way the camera moves in and around the fighters shows it must be CGI, but it looks very good. Imagine what they could do for any hypothetical G-8 and His Battle Aces pulp movie. Something to hope for in the future, maybe.

There’s the requisite hot-scientist-babe in the white lab coat. She’s definitely one of the good features. Too bad she doesn’t get more to do. She bites the dust in the end, along with nearly everyone else.

One guilty pleasure was seeing the Doomtrooper tearing a man in half at the waist. Or maybe he cut him in half. All we see is the creature grab up the man, and then the two body halves are tossed down. Either way, it just goes to once again demonstrate how nasty this monster really is.

And, oooh, one of the Germans said a dirty word when our heroes blow up the ammo depot! The four-letter excrement word. But I guess, since it was spoken in German, the censor let it pass. But it’s not something I expected to hear on non-premium cable.

And then there’s the character who everyone believes is dead, who reappears, alive, at the climax of the tale to save the day. Seems like Doc Savage did this in nearly every one of his pulp adventures. So it’s certainly appropriate to use that old chestnut in this new pulp movie. I could see it coming!

All in all, this movie is a fun way to waste a couple of hours. It’s not even close to the best “pulp” movie ever made. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a hundred times better, for example. But if you’re looking for something new that you haven’t seen before, then this will fill the bill. Watch it, enjoy it and then forget it. That’s pulp!