Zapped Again!

I loved the original Zapped! with Scott Baio and Willie Aames. So when I first heard there was a sequel, I was shocked. I thought this is gonna stink. However, seeing it on cable, I actually enjoyed it. I like how they have Ms. Burnhart now the principal of the school where Barney first used his powers. Also the new fresh cast (at the time) delievered some B-moviesque performances. And Linda Blair??? Ummm...I would've liked to see Heather Thomas reprise that role but it's all sheer out fun. The song at the end is too laughable...ahhh...B-movies like this...so much fun and cheese to enjoy!!!

My review was written in March 1990 after watching the movie on Nelson Entertainment video cassette.

This made-for-home video (it even lists a teleplay credit) sequel to 1982's "Zapped" offers the same formula of teen t&a, but it's gotten stale over the years.

With verbal references to the Scott Baio-starring original, pic covers exactly the same territory. Todd Eric Andrews, a poor man's Kevin Bacon, is the new boy at Emerson High School who joins the Science Club and finds Baio's mysterious elixir, which gives him telekinetic powers.

These are used, naturally to cause girls' garments to raise, drop or split on cue. Other dumb gags proliferate as Andr4ews, plain Jane heroine Kelli Williams and their friends fight with the stuck-up campus bullies led by Reed Rudy.

Overacting in the adult roles are Lyle Alzado as the football coach and Sue Ann Langdon as school principal. Linda Blair and Karen Black camp it up in guest shots as teachers.

Limp effort is quite dated, presenting a condescending, old fogeys' approach to the way young people supposedly talk and behave.

There was nothing so terribly great about the first Zapped movie, certainly nothing that warranted inflicting a sequel on the American movie going public. But who knows what the producers thought in making another film. I can't believe there was a great demand for a sequel.

All the tumult from the Carrie like prom night that ended the first Zapped movie has died down. It's some eight years later and a whole new group of kids is at Emerson High School. A new misfit of a kid in Todd Eric Andrews comes to town.

After that it's the usual angst as the various cliques in the school shun him and he joins the science club where they find in the lab where Scott Baio accidentally discovered that telekinesis formula. It's seems like he hid a stash of it behind the Albert Einstein picture in a hole in the wall. When Todd imbibes, the high school world becomes his.

Of course Todd's got eyes for the head cheerleader Maria McCann even though Kelli Williams of the science club really digs him. Maria's property of Reed Rudy the head jock at the school and he and Todd keep having it out. Of course Reed's overmatched from the gitgo with that telekinesis thing Todd's got going for him.

The climax at the homecoming was really dumb. Rudy frames the science club and gets their space for his exclusive fraternity and then further tries to humiliate them at the homecoming. But putting them in charge of the food? Dumb, Dumberer, Dumbest, that's just begging for payback. What a MAROON.

It's funny like the first Zapped in a juvenile sort of way and its for them I'd recommend it.

I'm glad I saw this movie on late-night TV rather than renting it for four bucks on video, because I got screwed big time. Why weren't the characters as funny and outrageous as they were in the 1982 original? More to the point, where was the SEX? The Scott Baio movie fairly dripped with prurient appeal. I mean, they had an entire prom full of scantily-clad people running around; why didn't they have a prom scene this time? And why was this movie so gosh darn wholesome? You have to be between the ages of 13 and 18 to fully appreciate it, and I think I was about 20 when I saw it. There's hardly any profanity, and the writers must have thought that people would find jokes about the word "wiener" daring and hilarious. Who thought up this sequel, a roomful of second graders? It was direct-to-video, for God's sake! There should have been MORE racy material, not less! It should have been worthy of an R rating, but instead they made it tantamount to a PG-13. I was very disappointed with ZAPPED AGAIN! Watch it for the laughs, but not so much for the flesh.

This is your brain. This is your brain on prune juice. A lot of people hate this movie, but it offers entertainment of the mindless kind! And it's good for that purpose. I saw it when I was teenager (I'm 24 now) and it has been a classic between my homies and I. Buddah help you if you don't like this film when I show it to you (GET OUT)!;-) I worry about people who dislike it so much. It means they are too serious. I suppose you need to be in the mind frame of a kid to really enjoy it, without jaded sexual expectations (and weirdoes, don't rent/buy this movie if you're just horny). Not the typical eighties sex fest. Rent it or buy it just to see the stupid mistakes (they are unreal) and the endless jokes you can get from it. Classic! It's genius. So bad it's good. For instance, when they have the super cheesy 13th annual penguin run, then they say the key club has held the title since the 40's or something, IT JUST DOESN'T ADD UP! and its GREAT! Or when they lock doors and three seconds later they just pop open. HILARIOUS, because it's not intentional!!! C'mon now! If you cant find humor here, you are DEAD or just too damn serious. Don't expect an award winning script, it's about prune juice and telekinesis!!!!!