Angel Of Death — Angel Of Death(Blu Ray)

Angel Of Death ( aka Commando Mengele) is a late 80’s slice of cheesy ‘n’ camp lined euro-action, which follows the hunt for deranged Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in 1980’s Uruguay. The film was jointly directed by two-euro trash mavericks- Jess Franco and Andrea Bianchi, and with that pedigree, you’d imagine this would be a fleshy, sleazy, and gored-out ride. But in reality, it’s a fairly straight-if-silly/ campy take on The Boys From Brazil territory. Here from Full Moon Features is a recent Blu Ray release of the film, taking in just the film and a trailer reel for other trashy euro genre pictures put out by Fullmoon.

Originally appearing in the year 1987 Angel Of Death was produced by notorious trashy genre film studio Eurocine, and surprisingly it has relatively good production value, well if you compare it to other Franco films of this period. As mentioned in my introduction it was jointly directed by both Franco and Bianchi, and having seen a fair few late 80’s Franco films, I’d say it’s more of a Bianchi film- as it’s scoped and plotted in a fairly formal/ standard manner. We do get through Franco regulars like Howard Vernon, Jake Taylor, and Antonio Mayans appearing in lead roles. Also, there are a few fleeting Franco quirks- wonky flashbacks, off-angle shots, and low-grade effects. But largely it plays very much like a straight-if-campy 80’s action film.
 
The film centres on a group of Nazi hunters- which are led up by HQ based boss Ohmei Felsberg played by Fernando Rey( The French Connection, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and That Obscure Object of Desire). On the team and on the ground in Uruguay, we have Mark Logan(Mayans), who is assisted by a bulky, bearded, shell suite wearing henchman, a middle-aged male circus acrobat, and a constantly kung fu fighting moustached/ thin wiry guy. Mark gets chatting with a nightclub stewardess who thinks she knows where Josef Mengele is hiding in plain sight, in a large mansion/ compound on hills above the city. So Mark and his buddies head out to find out and confirm if the supposable ageing businessman is really the deranged Nazi doctor.
 
Playing Mengele we have Howard Vernon- who well enough shifts between stilted sinister-ness and hamming it up, joining him as his lead military assistant is Wolfgang von Backey- played by walking with a stick Christopher Mitchum. The compound/ surrounding grounds look fairly impressive for this type of thing, with a large number of henchmen on the sight wandering around with red armbands that feature black on white 4R logo( for the fourth Reich!).
 
The film unfolds at a fair and even pace going from campy 80’s clubs, hotel rooms/ lobbies, onto the city streets, and of course the compound. As we get into the film we get a car chase- then car blown up with a grenade, a chopper led motorbike chase, and in the latter part of the film some blood gunplay and a neat enough bow ‘n’ arrow kill. Sadly there was little or no budget for Mengele deranged lab, and all we get is a room with a chimp in, and two men who are meant to have been crossbred between a chimp and human, with stuck-on huge eyebrows, Chimp fir arm/ side of the face. We get, as you’d hope, a Nazi room in the compound- this is adorned with a mix of large swastika and 4R banners, and a really dodgy( before) photoshop picture of Vernon with a certain Mr Hitler. 
 
On the whole Angel Of Death is an entertaining enough slice of Nazi focused euro action from the late ’80s, with loads of camp dress, hammy-to-bad acting, and some fairly competent machine gunplay/ action scenes. There really is little or nothing of Franco’s normal late 80’s wackiness/ sleaze, which is a pity- but if you know what you're getting into up front, you’ll enjoy this well enough.
 
Moving onto this new region free Blu Ray release, and the new scan of the film looks nice, bold, and crisp- really popping with the blood reds and bright 80’s fashion clothing. Sadly, there are no extras here, aside from a trailer reel of similar euro trash fare from Full Moon.
 
It’s always great to see another Franco film been reissued, and Angel Of Death is an enjoyable, if not very typical late 80’s Franco film. Go into this expecting fairly straight, though cheese-bound 80’s euro action fare, and not the normal Franco weird-ness/ sleaze, and you’ll enjoy what we have here,