Directed by Jack Bravman
Starring Adam West, Tia Carrere, Shawn Levy and Jon Mikl Thor
I'm sure that I've proclaimed my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 on this blog before, so I'll spare everyone the re-re-re-iteration of how awesome that show is. I owe my love of bad B-movies, micro-budget sci-fi, and even partly horror flicks to it, and it's a debt that I'll never be able to repay. These days, it even seems to be making quite the comeback. A new season is on the horizon after a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, and to build up the hype, Netflix has just released a 20-episode "Best-of" collection for everyone to freely peruse. The movie in question today is one of those episodes, and it's also one of the few movies featured on the show that I've actually seen in its un-MSTed form.
Released in 1986, this movie had to be some kind of labor of love for everyone involved. It was written by a dude named John Fasano, and he also has a cameo in the movie as the first guy who gets killed. Oh yeah, spoiler alert (overused phrase #3). One of the main stars is John Mikl Thor, he of the amazingly named heavy metal band Thorkestra, and the dude also performs most of the background music in the film. It's also got a fairly recognizable cast, all things considered, but we'll get to them in due time. Finally, I've got to comment on the atmosphere. This movie was made in Canada, and it's something that I can't quite explain, but low-budget movies from our friends up North just seem to have this certain...quality. It's kind of a calmness, very different from the hectic feel of so many movies produced here in the States. When I'm watching a Canadian horror film, time just seems to slow to a crawl and I enter a dreamlike trance state, it's weird. And while this movie is pretty bad, it definitely fits that bill. Enough jibber jabber. Let's get to the flick.
One of the glories of the horror genre is the unapologetic simplicity of their stories. Zombie Nightmare takes a different approach, at least with its setup. In fact, it has an unnecessarily complicated intro switch, as we first get the suburban murder of a father who's in the midst of walking his wife and son back from a baseball game. Yes, folks, I'm serious. From here, we warp forward some 10 years to the kid from the intro now grown up as John Mikl Thor, complete with an amazing mane of '80s rock and roll hair and the most amazing tank top you've ever seen. You'll never forget it, that's for sure. The script establishes that said son (named Tony Washington, for all two people who might be interested) is a nice guy as we watch him beat up a couple shoplifters. And while the shopkeeper is grateful to Tony, the local group of trouble-making hooligans are decidedly more hostile as they promptly run their party wagon over Tony as he crosses the street.
This would be our requisite group of teenage victim characters, but amazingly, we're not done setting up the premise yet. Tony's mother takes his body to a voodoo priestess who resurrects his body with the promise of exacting vengeance on his killers, and he goes about doing just that. Think John Mikl Thor with green ghoul makeup running around with a baseball bat and you've got your villain. But these characters...yikes. It's easy to see why this flick was featured in such a popular MST3K episode, because these characters were something else, ranging from cartoon characters to outright nonentities.
The former is taken care of by Jim, the leader of the group who was actually driving the car that ran Tony over. He's one bad dude. For starters, he likes the fact that he killed somebody due to the thrill it provided. He also repeatedly attempts to charm/creepily stalks a local waitress. Jim is also played by Shawn Levy, and he's without a doubt the most successful person connected to this movie. He's directed a whole bunch of movies you've actually heard of, and he's currently an executive producer on Stranger Things, a show that I haven't seen due to the fact that it sounds like yet another ham-fisted attempt at trying to hook '80s horror fans like myself by paying fan service while capturing none of the dirty atmosphere. Or am I wrong on that one? At any rate, it's easy to see why Levy made it big, because he did a damn good job acting like he actually cared about Zombie Nightmare. He chews scenery every chance he gets and really stands out as a dislikable prick, so it's too bad he's not the last one to die.
What else am I missing? Well, Tia Carrere is in this movie, as one of the partying teens. She's also pretty damn good in her role for what it is, and, again, it's easy to see why she was destined for bigger and better things including Wayne's World and starring in some of my late-night dreams. This movie is different from a lot of horror movies in one big regard. Most slashers focus on a killer who kills indiscriminately, but there's a smaller group of films that are focused on a specific revenge against specific characters. That can work really well if we care about the characters, but here...not so much. Especially when our backup group of characters are a group of police officers who aren't connected at all to the main plot, and when one of them is played by Adam West in "clearly not giving a shit" mode.
I can't help but think that this movie would have been a LOT better with one simple switch: imagine this same story with minimal involvement from the cops (seriously, they take up like 30 minutes of the movie that I'm not going to bother recapping), the three lesser kids biting it first just like they do here, and the final two being Levy and Carrere. One of the characters is bad, one is good, and we would get a better catharsis when Thor starts chasing them around. We get one final "crowd pleaser" kill with Levy, and Carrere could have played an awesome final girl. I don't know, at least this would have worked for me. Don't say I never offer constructive criticism.
So what we're left with is a prime slice of '80s horror movie cheese. It's not scary in the least bit, the characters are laughable to the max (particularly that forensics guy with the ridiculous voice), and it was made for almost zero dollars and clearly shows it. And while the movie definitely isn't GOOD by any conventional standards, it's a fun enough watch for that reason alone. It's also got an awesome soundtrack of heavy metal starting with Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" over the opening credits, so if you've in the mood for some prime butt rock, look no further.
Rating time. Zombie Nightmare gets * 1/2 out of ****. If you buy horror movies strictly expecting quality, you're barking up the wrong tree on this one. But the "hilariously bad" label definitely applies here, which means that it was GREAT fodder for Mike and the 'Bots.
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