Zombie High

A girl decides to go to a prep school on a scholarship (Virginia Madsen), which displeases her cool beau (James Wilder). He warns her with rumors of a diabolical covenant the faculty has, but she dismisses it until strange things help her to see otherwise. Sherilyn Fenn plays a student and Richard Cox a sympathetic teacher.

"Zombie High" (1987) is a mixture of two future movies: "Disturbing Behavior" (1998) and a little "Dead Poets Society" (1989) albeit with a wink of humor & camp. There's also a bit o' "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956/1978). The title is somewhat misleading since you won't see a school full of literal zombies, yet it's applicable in another way.

It's nice to see Virginia when she was so young (25 during shooting) and Fenn doesn't hurt.

The film runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot at School of Cinema-Television, USC, Los Angeles, California.

GRADE: B-

Virgina Madsen ( looking a bit too old for her role ) stars as a student at a prep school who discovers that the staff is stealing brain tissue from the students and using it to keep their youth. The idea is nothing new, but the film is given decent treatment and remains entertaining for most of its running time. The ending feels rushed though, but it is nice to see a zombie film with only mild violence that manages to scare and entertain these days. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Zombie High is a movie that is absolutely all over the place. It can never decide if it's going to play it straight or play it for laughs. It never finds an even tone and it's a disaster of a horror film. The plot should sound familiar: A new student at a prep school finds that her fellow classmates are being brainwashed to be the perfect students. Ever hear of Disturbing Behavior? Well, it stole Zombie High's storyline...and vastly improved upon it. So, yes, the title is misleading. Very misleading. There are no actual zombies and they aren't even in high school. Virginia Madsen proves that she can carry a movie, but she can't compensate for the horrible music choices in the film and car chases that come out of nowhere. Go watch Disturbing Behavior instead.

A very exclusive school is lobotomising (what is it about lobotomies in my choice of films for this year's 31 Days of Halloween?!) it's students so that they become the kind of upstanding captains of industry that makes society great. This is the High School version of The Stepford Wives.

Played more for comedy than horror, this film isn't as irritating as many other horror-comedies. Great characters, especially the unconventional supporting players and nice art direction help proceedings pass very well indeed.

The idea of the school being a kind of sausage factory to make capitalist highflyers out of isn't really explored enough but who cares as this is a late 80's horror comedy yarn after all.

Notable for it's cast which includes Virginia Madsen, Sherilyn 'Laura Palmer' Fenn and Richard 'Cruising' Cox all of whom should be known to cult film/TV fans.

This film is according to me not only about zombies it is actually made by them. Unbelievbly stupid, boring, sick movie, made by and directed by zombies.