When Zombies and Nazis Collide—And No One Wins
You know you’re in trouble when a movie about Nazi zombies somehow manages to be boring. War of the Dead (also known as Stone’s War, because “Rock’s War” was apparently taken) is one of those cinematic curiosities that sounds incredible in theory—American and Finnish soldiers versus undead super-soldiers in a cursed World War II bunker—but in execution feels like watching someone play Call of Duty: Undead Edition on mute.
Written and directed by Marko Mäkilaakso, this 2011 action-horror film had every ingredient for glorious B-movie chaos: bullets, blood, and the undead. Instead, it delivers all the excitement of a wet sock in a snowstorm.
A Plot So Thin It Could Be Drafted
The story begins promisingly enough: an underground Nazi bunker, prisoners, a shady experiment gone wrong, and one very dead guy waking up with milky zombie eyes. For a moment, you think, “Okay, this might actually be fun.”
But then the film fast-forwards to 1941, where we meet Captain Martin Stone (Andrew Tiernan), an American soldier with a jawline that could open cans but a personality flatter than Finland’s topography. He’s leading a squad of American and Finnish soldiers—because apparently the U.S. Army outsourced its supernatural warfare division—to storm said bunker.
Unfortunately, they’re ambushed by zombies before they can even get lost properly. Within ten minutes, half the team is dead, the other half is shouting military clichés like “We need to move!” and “We’ve got hostiles!” as though the dialogue was written by a malfunctioning Xbox.
From there, the movie becomes a grueling loop of running, shooting, and bad lighting. Every scene looks like it was filmed through a damp potato. The surviving soldiers stumble upon a lone Russian named Kolya, who joins them for reasons that are never adequately explained—because logic, like entertainment, is dead in this film.
Acting That Makes the Zombies Look Expressive
Let’s talk performances.
Andrew Tiernan as Captain Stone delivers his lines like he’s competing in the World Monotone Championships. Mikko Leppilampi’s Lieutenant Laakso spends most of the movie squinting meaningfully into the fog, as if trying to remember why he agreed to this. Jouko Ahola, as Captain Niemi, gets bitten early on and spends the rest of his screen time growling—because that’s what passes for character development here.
Even the zombies look confused, which, to be fair, might be because they were resurrected just to star in this movie.
The cast speaks a blend of English, Finnish, and pure exhaustion, and while the multinational aspect could have been fascinating, it instead feels like everyone’s acting in a different movie—one that might actually be better.
Action Without Consequence (Or Logic, Or Coherence)
If you like your action scenes filmed like a toddler discovered the zoom button, then congratulations—War of the Dead is your masterpiece. The camera shakes so violently during firefights that you might need a neck brace afterward.
Gunfire erupts constantly, but it’s never clear who’s shooting whom, or why, or whether it even matters. At one point, a soldier empties an entire clip into a zombie, who promptly shrugs it off and walks away. It’s less Saving Private Ryan and more Mildly Annoying the Undead.
The choreography feels improvised, like the director yelled, “Pretend there’s a zombie, now react!” and everyone just flailed around until he yelled “Cut.”
And then there’s the bunker—the supposed epicenter of horror. Instead of claustrophobic terror, we get a series of identical concrete hallways, dimly lit and endlessly reused, giving the impression that the film was shot in a parking garage rented by the hour.
The Zombies: Un-dead, Un-scary, Unnecessary
Zombie Nazis are cinematic gold when done right. Just ask Dead Snow, which took the same premise and injected it with humor, gore, and style. War of the Dead, however, treats its zombies like an afterthought.
They’re barely in the film, and when they do appear, they’re just fast-moving extras covered in gray paint. They don’t lurch, they don’t groan, they don’t even menace properly—they just sprint into the frame, get shot, and disappear.
Even their makeup seems confused about whether they’re undead or just really tired. One zombie looks like he wandered in from a paintball game. Another has the vibe of a guy who lost a bar fight with a cement mixer.
If you’re going to make Nazi zombies, go big or go home. These look like they got lost on the way to a Halloween party.
A Love Story Nobody Asked For
About halfway through, the film inexplicably introduces a romantic subplot between Kolya and his ex-girlfriend Dasha, because nothing says “romance” like decaying corpses and artillery fire. Their reunion is brief, tragic, and completely devoid of chemistry. Dasha gets bitten, Kolya cries a little, and then shoots her in the head.
It’s supposed to be emotional. It isn’t. By that point, you’re just impressed anyone remembers each other’s names.
War of Attrition: The Viewer vs. the Runtime
At 90 minutes, War of the Dead somehow feels longer than World War II itself. Time becomes meaningless as the movie lurches from one poorly lit gunfight to another.
Characters die, resurrect, die again, and still manage to feel less alive than the set décor. The dialogue is an endless parade of military jargon—“Move out!” “Cover me!” “We’ve got company!”—delivered with all the conviction of a GPS voice prompt.
You start rooting for the zombies, not because they’re scary, but because they might end this misery faster.
Direction: A War Crime of Pacing
Marko Mäkilaakso clearly loves the genre—there’s enthusiasm buried somewhere under all the smoke and fog—but the execution is catastrophic. He wants to make a gritty war movie and a horror movie, but ends up with neither.
The tone wobbles between serious wartime drama and supernatural silliness. One moment, soldiers are tearfully reminiscing about fallen comrades; the next, they’re fistfighting reanimated Nazis like it’s an undead bar brawl.
The editing doesn’t help. Scenes fade to black so often you start thinking your screen is broken. The score tries to be epic but mostly sounds like someone testing every setting on GarageBand’s “Action Sequence” template.
The Final Battle: Bang, Boom, Why?
The climax involves flares, airstrikes, and an unconvincing fistfight between Stone and a zombie version of Niemi. It’s meant to be emotional—a final showdown between brothers-in-arms—but it plays out like two drunk uncles wrestling at a wedding.
An airstrike conveniently wipes out the bunker (and presumably the audience’s patience), and our heroes surrender to the Russians, who wisely decide not to watch the rest of the film.
The credits roll. You breathe again.
The Verdict: More “War of the Dull” Than “War of the Dead”
In theory, War of the Dead should have been a glorious B-movie bloodbath—a Finnish Resident Evil with tanks. Instead, it’s an aimless slog where every explosion feels like an apology.
It’s not scary. It’s not exciting. It’s not even campy enough to laugh at. It’s cinematic purgatory—loud, gray, and relentlessly joyless.
Still, credit where it’s due: the filmmakers managed to make a movie about Nazi zombies without offending anyone. Mostly because no one cared enough to notice.
Verdict: ★½☆☆☆
War of the Dead promises undead mayhem and delivers a nap. It’s a film where even the zombies look tired of being there. Bring caffeine, lower your expectations, and remember: sometimes the true horror is realizing there are still forty minutes left.
