Written by nobodies and directed by nobodies, Horrors of War is a pun on the old cliché, bringing us a war movie with horror movie elements... as shot in someone's backyard. Okay, so it's not a backyard per say, but I grew up in rural New York and there's nothing to distinguish the so-called terrain of "Nazi Germany" from my grandparents' farm. Anyway, the Allied forces are pushing their way into Bratwurst territory, gunning down krauts trying to avoid becoming fertilizer for future generations of the Father Land's deciduous population. A ragtag group of shamed US soldiers are sent on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines to take out an Axis weapons facility in France. If they should come back from said mission in one piece (or at least several fairly well functioning pieces), their records will be wiped clean of any misdoings and they'll be reinstated in their old units. Every guy in the group fills one of three typical movie military stereotypes: wormy educated "college boy" type that plays the voice of reason, "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" tough guy leader, and the personality devoid fodder-in-uniform grunts just there to follow orders. My interest is waning faster than George Michael's libido at the Playboy mansion.

The crew runs across a distressed fellow Allie in the woods who was beaten by his goose-stepping captors only to be torn apart by what sounds like a wolf man. Leaving the head case behind, our crew continues on to a small farmhouse, where they take turns raping and beating a pair of French women who only live out their fantasies of playfully making croissants and throwing flour at each other... So, when the movie realized that it wasn't going to win me over with it's home computer special effects, it decides to try and win me over by taking a shit in my Apple Jacks?! I don't know if the makers of this movie are just projecting their unhappiness and traumatized childhoods onto their audience, but I'm ready and willing to put boot to balls on every person involved in its creation.

The following night, all but two of the troops are killed by the werewolf. One of the survivors kills the beast while the other is infected with lycanthropy. The military sees this as "experience with the enemy", so they attach the duo to yet another troupe of corpses-to-be and send them back into enemy territory to investigate rumors of Hitler's occult science fair projects. The latest from the Nazis' Creepy Crawler Thingmaker is a Romero zombies: slow moving member of the living dead who can only be killed with a headshot. Despite having military training, these guys aren't too "strategic" when it comes to staying out of arm's reach of the ghoul, as half the crew stands in place, firing their rifles uselessly into the monster's chest until it can get close enough to break their necks. Someone finally has the bright idea of vacating the thing's skull and it finally goes down. The surviving members of the group are then immediately assigned to ANOTHER unit who are sent back into the monster mash yet again! I didn't think anyone could capture the pain of having your toenails torn out with pliers and imbue such an essence onto a simple DVD, but the Grand Inquisitors at "Hollywood Wizards" are doing a Hell of a job at convincing me it's possible.

The newest breed of German made zombies are much more dangerous then their predecessors, as for the rest of the movie they tend to run onto screen rather than amble. This burst of speed and agility is only temporary though, as the ghouls immediately go stationary once in range of the heroes, allowing the good guys to shoot them several times before finally remembering that a headshot is the only cure. Who knows, if the Nazis had been allowed to continue their experiments, they very well could have created efficient zombies capable of maintaining a casual jogging speed and decked them out in Quiet Riot style steel hockey masks! They could've been the Volkswagens of the undead crowd! Then again that means they probably would've also been bought up by the same hipster crotch crampers who think driving around in a car shaped like a bowler hat is cool and I'd have to start hating moderately paced undead wearing steel hockey masks too, so it's probably better they never got that far into the manufacturing phase. That last paragraph sounded a lot funnier until I typed it. I think my disdain for the movie is starting to affect my sense of humor. Can I use this to get a restraining order against future "Hollywood Wizards" releases?

The flick tries to save itself from driving headlong into oncoming traffic by veering to the right and giving us an "Army werewolf vs. Nazi super zombie" fight, but just winds up driving straight into an oil tanker and blowing itself to shit when the fight is terribly choreographed and ends with an infuriatingly overacted "dramatic" scene. On the plus side that means the movie's not only dead, but so horribly mutilated that you'll need dental records to identify it. On the negative side though, a "wide open for a sequel" finish threatens us with the possibility that the movie may have a brother who could come back seeking revenge on the audience in the future. Granted, given how sucktastic the flick was I think the creative (and I use the term in a looser sense than Lindsey Lohan's meat curtains) staff is really giving itself too much credit by even implying that there could be a sequel, but the threat is still there. Now more than ever (or at least the last hour and a half) I think I'll be needing that restraining order...

When it's all said and done, no one should be surprised that I can't, with good conscience, recommend this movie to anyone. I can, however, recommend it people I secretly don't like if they ask me what I think they should rent, as I squashed my personal Jiminy Cricket long ago. In case you weren't paying attention, think of Horrors of War as House of Frankenstein meets Saving Private Ryan, but on a budget that makes a Sci-Fi Channel Original look like the next Pirates of the Caribbean and with a script that makes the stories I wrote for my 5th grade creative writing class look like the best of Isaac Asimov. At least the opening credits and the box art are kinda cool though, right? A pretty picture and 2 minutes of credits don't even come close to making up for 89 minutes of "hey, acting ain't so hard!" performances, a revolving door of generic asswipe characters, dime store makeup effects and CGI gun fire though, so it's hardly worth reaching into a pile of AIDS infected needles for a couple of sweet and delicious Twizzlers, even if you plan on biting off both ends of said Twizzlers and using them as straws to slurp up some tasty, artificially flavored grape Kool-Aid... damn it, now I want Twizzlers and Kool-Aid. So, I guess that's what it all comes down to: