Shock Waves (1977)

Interesting facts

Shock Waves is a 1977 American horror film written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn. The film is about a group of tourists who encounter aquatic Nazi zombies when they become shipwrecked. It stars Peter Cushing as a former SS commander, Brooke Adams as a tourist, and John Carradine as the captain of the tourists' boat.

Production

Prior to making Shock Waves, producer Reuben Trane and director Ken Wiederhorn were students at Columbia University in New York City where they won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Dramatic Student Film. Their next work was filming Shock Waves as their first commercial feature film. Principal photography on the film began in July 1975, shooting in 16mm, which was later blown up to 35mm.

An issue of Cinemagic magazine shows and details the film being shot under the title Death Corps in Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1975 with a budget of $150,000. The swamp scenes in the film were shot near Miami's Crandon Park. It was later noted in the Los Angeles Times in 1978, that the filmmakers raised $200,000 to complete the film.

According to a 2013 interview, Wiederhorn and Trane made Shock Waves because the investors had one requirement: they wanted a horror movie, because, according to Wiederhorn, "they heard that horror movies have a better chance of making their money back than any other genre". Wiederhorn and Trane then "started spitballing ideas. What’s scary? Since we were going to be filming in Florida, we thought: water can be scary.

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