Written, produced and directed on a low budget in England by an American filmmaker, Herbert J. Leder, The Frozen Dead (1966) is bizarre in countless ways, from Dana Andrews's poor attempt at a German accent to Kathleen Breck's performance primarily as a decapitated, but still alive, shaved head, adorned with coiled wires.
Reviews were generally awful, although Variety deemed it "a skillfully contrived, clinically ghoulish pic that should keep the young set riveted to their seats... May revolt adults. Faint-hearted parents should be advised to stay comfortably at home watching tv." Film historian Phil Hardy (The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction) later wrote: "Even Leder's pedestrian direction cannot remove the delirium from images such as the rack of human arms ready for use and Breck's soulful, boxed-in head."
Shot in color, The Frozen Dead was released to theaters in black-and-white. (Color prints later showed up on television.) In the United States, Warner Bros. released the picture on the bottom half of a double bill with It! (1967), another Herbert J. Leder horror film, this one starring Roddy McDowall, which didn't garner much enthusiasm either.
The story idea of Nazi zombies was revisited somewhat in Shock Waves (1977), starring Peter Cushing and John Carradine.
Look for Edward Fox, later to star in The Day of the Jackal (1973), as a zombie known as "Prisoner #3."
By Jeremy Arnold
