Backtrack: Nazi Regression

Yeah so… this one’s a weird little bugger. Directed by that British bloke Greg Bishop, who’s mostly done indie horror stuff – remember Dance of the Dead? Mad and kinda charming. Now he’s teamed up with German producer Klaus Thalheim (bit of a mystery there, honestly), and what we’ve got is a low-budget sci-fi-thriller-horror thing… but with Nazis. Again.

Mickey Rourke shows up (yes, *that* Mickey, with the same leather-looking face) and chews the scenery like it’s surströmming. One minute he’s doing psychic exposition in a Nazi interrogation bunker from 1944, the next he’s calmly smoking a cigar in a flaming time rift. I don’t know. I mean, he’s still magnetic, but you keep wondering if he thinks he’s in a different movie. Probably does.

The premise? A modern-day trauma therapist (played by Tatiana Maslany who’s usually brilliant) starts uncovering past life stuff in her patients… and it points to some seriously creepy Nazi occult stuff. There’s time slips, gas masks, underground tunnels—it’s all very Berlin 1945 meets Linköping 1972.

Weird flashback

I was 12 when my gran dragged me to a screening of Häxan at the Folket’s Bio, thinking it was a fairy tale. I had nightmares for weeks. This film triggered that same skin-crawling unease. Old footage mixed with staticy war transmissions? Brr…

It’s… a mess. But kind of a fun mess.

Some of the CGI is, well, wonky. Like Xbox 360 level. But it sorta fits? Feels like you’re watching someone’s fever dream after binging WW2 documentaries and eating too much falukorv.

By the end, I didn’t really care what was real or not. But I wasn’t bored. Maybe it says more about me than the film?

Anyway, if you’re into strange timelines, psychic mumbo jumbo and Rourke looking confused, then yeah. Could be your thing. Bring snacks. And maybe a compass.

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