Disappointment for a huge fan!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Shock Waves is a creepy and atmospheric horror classic that was quite original for the time and well done overall. A ship cruises on the Carribean and when they are hit by a big, old ship with no crew they take refuge on an island. They don't have Johnny Depp's pirates to worry about, but nazi zombies that have been out to pasture since the second great war. Peter Cushing was the commander of this special unit of undead super soldiers that were put out of commission because they could not be controlled. John Carradine also appears in the film as the boat's captain. Excellent performances from both these legends as well as solid performances from the rest of the cast. Even though the film is very low budget, the zombie make up f/x are great. The film is not gory at all and for the time that this was made the approach to the genre was pretty old school. Nevertheless, this picture was very well done with great tension and ambiance with an ominous, haunting score. Shock Waves holds up well and is very influential for film and other media to come. Great film!

this film is a very good nazi-zombie sub-genre film. it has suspense and violence with an aquatic twist in it. the film is unique because of it's aquatic twist. it has one scene where a character falls on sea urchins that seem to have come out of nowhere and the zombies always being shown emerging from the water. the film relies slightly on stock footage used and repeated but makes up for this with its interesting underwater sequences and bizarre plot. it revolves around a tour group getting stuck on an island where an old ss general warns them. through the film, their is a subplot of the main character ( Peter Cushing) having fear and hatred for what he has done int he past when he was a general and in the film tries to confront his grotesque experiments.

A small boat carrying 4 passengers encounters a strange phenomenon while at sea which causes consternation among them. But rather than turn back to appease his passengers—and have to give them a refund—the captain (John Carradine) continues on. That night the small boat is struck by a mysterious "ghost ship" which causes damage to the boat's hull. Although they manage to row a lifeboat to a nearby island, they soon discover that they are not alone on the island. Not only does it harbor a Nazi SS Commander (Peter Cushing) but there are other Nazis on the island as well. Nazi zombies. Anyway, while this movie certainly had potential, it suffered from the fact that the very beginning of the movie featured only one survivor, "Rose" (Brooke Adams) which essentially ruined any surprise value that might have been had. As a result, it was pretty much a paint-by-numbers production from there on out. Hence my rating of average.

... when on a remote island surrounded by an unknown number of enemies.The acting was below low budget, the script may have been a good idea but was poorly implemented... I have seen worse movies but not many... there is just so much WRONG with this film the viewer finds them self scratching their head wondering what in the world the director was thinking...Lessons we learned: When you have an enemy known to be water based, stay away from water When you are only but a few, and get separated, do NOT scream out for each other lest you attract said enemy If you DO find yourself in a body of water and you cant see your feet, don't take off your shoes.... (this is common sense anyhow) The way to kill a supposedly invincible water bound zombie is take off their "sunglasses" Don't stand up in a boat that's in water (duh) I can go on and on of things that were stupid about this movie, which was not frightening in the least and very predictable, but I don't have time to write a novel :). The ONLY redeeming quality about this movie was the "The End" at the end.