Zombie Nightmare

ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE was my very first movie as an actor. I was chosen to play the hero, Frank Sorrel, a young detective who uncovers the secret of the zombie murders. When I made this picture, I was told it would be a big theatrical release. And I was thrilled to work with my childhood hero, Adam West. But about half-way through production, I began to realize how low-budget this epic was. I was mortified by the final product...that is, until MST3000 turned it from a lousy horror film to a downright hysterical comedy. Thank you, Crow and Tom Servo, for making me proud to be an actor!

Never before have so few words so fittingly summed up a film as the VideoHound Movie Guide's entry on ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE. "Cheap and stupid" were the key words in its evaluation of this (extremely) low-budget, Canadian-made horror flick. But what our friends at VideoHound forgot to mention is that ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE is also occasionally (and unintentionally) hilarious in the tradition of awful movies from yesteryear.

Jon Mikl Thor plays a muscle-bound lunkhead who heads to the corner store for Momma one fateful night. After heroically fending off two would-be robbers, our good ol' boy is fatally struck by a car full of bad ass punks who speed away from the scene. Rather than call an ambulance, the store owner does what any of us would, loading the corpse into a car and dropping it off to Lunkhead's fretful mom. Having already lost her husband to punkery, Momma calls in the friendly neighborhood voodoo practitioner to turn her son into a modern day Lazarus. Soon the goon is up and around once more, only he's not nearly as friendly as he now screams a lot and clobbers the hit-and-runners with a baseball bat.

ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE is like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE in that everyone will have their own favorite example of its ineptitude. For this reviewer, the hands down winner is Shawn Levy, who is inadvertently uproarious as Jim the head punk. It's positively priceless to see Jim, he of blow-dried '80s hair and preppy clothes, recant how he actually enjoyed striking Lunkhead. "Christ," he says in what was intended as a creepily dramatic moment, "it was so easy." And who could forget the moment when Jim, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, hurls a handful of cold spaghetti at his nagging mom? You just know this dude and his cohorts would last about 10 minutes in a real high school.

Of course there are other highlights (lowlights?). There's never been a less frightening zombie than Thor. I'm sorry, but big muscles, long hair and short sweat pants exude stupidity, not fury. The zombie's appearance becomes increasingly ridiculous as the film progresses, going from Lunkhead to some Munster-looking dude with short black hair. ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE also attempts some humor, most notably with Jim's frequent non-success with the ladies. But it's all so lame you end up laughing AT the movie, not WITH it. Then there's the Adam West factor. You just know that any film that has to misleadingly give top billing to the former BATMAN star is doomed. That said, there is a certain perverse pleasure in seeing a man we all know and love from childhood being dragged into the cruel depths of hell by a born-again corpse.

It's quite stunning that that something like ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE was able to clear all the hurdles involved in seeing a a film come to fruition. It's amazing someone thought of it. It's more amazing that someone had enough faith in those involved to fund it. Our amazement continues to escalate when we think that real people -- presumably those interested in careers in the motion picture industry -- would allow their names to be attached to it and that a company, no matter how desperate, would release it on video. No wonder they say truth is stranger than fiction.

As a boy, Tony Washington witnesses the fatal stabbing of his father after he goes to the rescue of a young black woman, Molly Mokembe, who is being sexually molested by two teenage thugs.

Cut to the present day, and Tony (now played by heavy metal singer Jon Mikl Thor) is a musclebound, long-haired baseball player who, like his father, has no time for hoodlums: when his local grocery store is held up by armed robbers, Tony steps in and saves the day (the Italian shopkeeper is-a so-a grateful, he lets-a Tony have his-a groceries for-a nothing!).

Unfortunately, as Tony crosses the road with his freebies, he is run down and killed by a gang of no-good punks, lead by psycho Jim Batten (played by Shaun Levy, now a successful Hollywood director). When Tony's mother sees her son's lifeless body, she calls for Molly (Manuska Rigaud), who uses her voodoo powers to resurrect Tony from the dead. Armed with his trusty metal baseball bat, shuffling zombie Tony goes looking for revenge.

As I type, Zombie Nightmare is currently sitting at #53 on IMDb's bottom 100 movies (most likely thanks to being featured on MST3K); but while I cannot deny that the film is no classic of the zombie genre, and is sadly lacking in both the gore and nudity one expects from 80s trash (a blonde cutie in her underwear doesn't cut it), neither is it deserving of such contempt. I've seen hundreds of films that are tougher to endure than this one, which at least entertains with its 80s cheesiness and sheer silliness.

Boasting a rocking metal soundtrack courtesy of Motorhead, Girlschool, Thor, Deathmask and Fist (no, I've never heard of the last two bands either), an early performance from Wayne's World babe Tia Carrere (schwing!), Adam 'Batman' West as a police captain with a dark secret, hilariously bad zombie make-up, terrible acting (Manuska's Haitian voodoo routine is a masterclass in over-acting), some really nasty 80s fashion, and a fun finale in a foggy cemetery (smoke machine on overdrive!) that sees West dragged to hell, Zombie Nightmare is definitely worth a go for fans of z-grade horror.

Ever get together with your pals and watch horrible movies while you suck down donuts and cheap beer? Well then this one is for you! Actually this movie really sucks. However there are some inspired moments of suckiness. Such as when the heavy metal oaf with the heart of gold is about to get struck by a car of "mall punks." He stands in the road looking at them and yelling in slow motion until they mow him down! Pretty amusing. The leader of the mall punks is the best part though. Definitely one of the best cheesiest cool badass leaders ever put in a crappy film. There is one hilarious scene in particular where he is arguing with his Mom. So what does this badass gang leader do? He throws a strainer full of wet noodles at his Mom! Watch and laugh. Make sure to get plenty of beer and donuts for this one!

When the film begins, a father is stabbed to death trying to save a young lady from being raped. Years later, the man's son is hit by a bunch of jerks in a Mercedes and his angry mother gets the local voodoo priestess to resurrect her son in order to exact revenge on his killers.

"Zombie Nightmare" is a very bad movie. However, it's not nearly bad enough to be the third lowest rated film on all of IMDb. Like so many films on IMDb's Bottom 100 list, it was spoofed on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and because of this it's rated so low. I assume most of the folks who scored this one a 1 never saw the actual film--just the MST3000 version. Other films unfairly on the list are such bad but not that bad movies like "The Girl With Gold Boots" and "Mitchell". So don't believe the hype--it's just not 100% horrible--just 98.7% bad!

I was excited to see that this film stars Adam West and Jon Mikl Thor. Thor is also the guy who played the lead in the terrible "Rock 'n Roll Nightmare"--and like in that film, he and his bad provide some of the music for this movie. And, speaking of music, that's the ONLY good thing about the film--the hard rock tunes are pretty decent. However, the bad very, very easily outweighs the good. The acting (especially by Molly Mekembe and Jim) is just pathetic--and who, exactly, was the coroner trying to imitate?! The zombie is hilarious, as it's supposed to be Tony (Jon Mikl Thor) but has completely different color and length hair! I suppose that in this bizarre town, zombies go to the hair salon before going on their rampage! The directing and editing are also terrible--such as when you see the dead guy in the pool moving his arms back and forth. Hey, hello...he's DEAD so why is he still moving?! Overall, this is a terrible film--don't misunderstand me about this. But there are hundreds of movies that are worse--much worse. The music alone is reason to give the film a 2 instead of a 1. Still, this one is bad enough that it does make for fun viewing by bad movie junkies as its full of unintended laughs.