''P-51 Dragon Fighter'' is a 2014 science fiction fantasy action film written and directed by Mark Atkins. The film stars Scott Martin, Stephanie Beran, Ross Brooks, Thom Rachford, Clint Glenn Hummel, Harwood Gordon, Stephen Suitts, Trey McCurley,

Riley Litman ''The Othersiders'' is an American paranormal reality television series that premiered on June 17, 2009 on Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It ...

, Anthony Dupray, Johnny Kostrey, Paul Whetstone, Michael Hampton,

Stephen Blackehart Stephen T. Blackehart (born December 1, 1967) is an American character actor, author, and producer. Education Blackehart began his artistic education at the University of South Florida under BAFTA-winning character actor Paul Massie, before ...

and Pernille Trojgaard.

Plot

Some time before World War II, a Nazi

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

expedition had found a dragon's egg and hatched it, setting about to breed more. These dragons are able to reproduce parthenogenically, with one dragon able to reproduce many times, as can each of her "daughters". The dragons themselves are controlled by '' Vril'', Aryan witch women who are psychically connected to the dragons and can command them. In 1942, Dr. Heinrich Gudrun (

Ozman Sirgood Osman Soykut (born January 1, 1957), better known by his stage name Ozman Sirgood, is an Americans, American actor of Turkish people, Turkish and Dagestani heritage. Biography Ozman Sirgood is an established actor who works in film and telev ...

), a Nazi

cryptozoologist Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness M ...

in charge of the dragon breeding program, code named "Skyward", arrives with his brood. The adult dragons and the vrill are intended to regain air superiority in the North African Campaign to support the Afrika Korps, under the command of Field Marshal

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...

(Robert Pike Daniel). To combat the dragons, an American general is dispatched with orders to put together a squadron made up of the best Allied fighter pilots that are available, led by Lieutenant John Robbins (Scott Martin), the only survivor of the first fighter squadron to encounter the dragons. General Ward (Thom Rachford) forms the "Ghost Squadron", so named because it does not officially exist. In their North American P-51 Mustangs, the squadron leads the dragons into a trap made up of numerous flak guns. The guns shoot down two while one of the pilots manages to shoot down a dragon and mark the location before he runs out of fuel and is himself killed by the dragons. Lt. Robbins departs with his friends to go to the shoot-down site to see what they can learn, but are captured by German soldiers, who take them to see Field Marshal Rommel. Rommel, who has serious doubts about Dr. Gudrun's intentions and the vrill's ability to keep the dragons under control, meets with Robbins. He reveals that, that once in a very long while, the parthenogenic females will lay an egg that hatches out a male dragon, and that the incredibly rare males are so powerful that the legends say they herald the end of the world. Rommel explains this actually means the fall of a civilization, saying that one male dragon had laid waste to the Carthaginian Empire, and another had accelerated the fall of the Roman Empire. He also believes Dr. Gudrun has possession of such an egg in his incubator complex, hidden under a mountain. Rommel gives Robbins the location of the incubator and explains that he will have an " inside man" open an air vent that lead directly into the incubator. All the Allied pilots have to do is put a bomb down the vent, and the incubator and the eggs will be destroyed. Armed with this information, an air attack with an accompanying British

SAS SAS or Sas may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''SAS'' (novel series), a French book series by Gérard de Villiers * ''Shimmer and Shine'', an American animated children's television series * Southern All Stars, a Japanese rock ba ...

ground mission is planned. General Anderson (Harwood Gordon) obtains a

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

bomber from an antisubmarine squadron to handle the problem of a down-the-stack shot. The Ghost Squadron, escorting the Fortress, keep the Nazi dragons at bay long enough for it to bomb the incubator and destroy the eggs. Rommel's "inside man" — one of the vrill women Dagmar (Pernille Trojgaard), a British agent — opens the facility's air vent for Ghost Squadron. Gundrun releases Asuzaka, a gigantic male dragon, but is incinerated by him. During the aerial battle, only Lt. Marks (Stephen Suitts) is unscathed as each pilot rams a dragon to halt the attacking force of dragons, buying time for the Fortress to reach the mountain and destroy the facility, taking with it Asuzaka and the remaining dragons. When it is thought that Lt. Robbins is also killed, a SAS ground party, however, locates him and bring him back to the headquarters hospital where he reunites with nurse Rachel McKee (Stephanie Beran). With all the dragon eggs destroyed and the adult dragons killed, the war will proceed with conventional weaponry.

Cast

* Scott Martin as Lieutenant John Robbins * Stephanie Beran as Rachel McKee * Ross Brooks as Lieutenant Drake Holdrin * Thom Rachford as General Ward * Clint Glenn Hummel as Lieutenant Jake Kranston * Harwood Gordon as General Anderson * Stephen Suitts as Lieutenant Arthur Marks * Trey McCurley as Lieutenant Jeff Campbell *

as 2nd Lieutenant Robert Foy * Anthony Dupray as Lieutenant Bertrand Galieu * Johnny Kostrey as Flight Lieutenant Karl Kuttelwascher * Paul Whetstone as General Dirk Emerick * Michael Hampton as Pilot Officer Alistair Godfrey *

as Flight Lieutenant Millet * Pernille Trojgaard as Dagmar (vril) *

as Dr. Heinrich Gudrun * Robert Pike Daniel as General

(spelled as "Irwin" Rommel) * Madison Boyd as Sue Strickland * Jared Cohn as Lieutenant Gilman

Production

''P-51 Dragon Fighter'' relied heavily on

computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...

to recreate the aerial battles of P-51 Fighter aircraft and dragons. The principal photography in a North Africa landscape was based on location shooting at Blue Cloud Movie Ranch, Santa Clarita, Red Rock Canyon State Park, Cantil, and

Trona Pinnacles The Trona Pinnacles are an unusual geological feature in the California Desert National Conservation Area. The landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires (porous rock formed as a deposit when springs interact with other bodies of water), som ...

, Ridgecrest, California.

Reception

In his review of ''P-51 Dragon Fighter'', film critic Martin Hafer notes: "The bottom line is that P-51 is indeed a bad movie—and this should come as no surprise to anyone (except, perhaps, the folks who made the film). It does have some decent production values and might be of interest to the really undemanding and possibly demented film buff. My only worry is that if the film manages to somehow make money that we'll see even weirder mash-ups. What's next—'Cavemen with Nukes', 'Jesus and Gandhi Versus Hitler' or perhaps 'The Obaminator'–where we learn that our president is a robot sent from the future to wipe out mankind?!" Hafer, Martin
"Review: 'P-51 Dragon Fighter
''Influx Magazine''. Retrieved: June 21, 2017.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Gerard, Philip. ''Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception''. New York: Dutton, 2002. .

External links

* * {{tcmdb title, id=2099425
ITunes Review of ''P-51 Dragon Fighter''
2014 films Alternate Nazi Germany films Films about dragons Films directed by Mark Atkins North African campaign films World War II aviation films American alternate history films Cultural depictions of Erwin Rommel American fantasy action films American monster movies American action war films Horror war films Supernatural war films American exploitation films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films