Hollywood Zap

I remember my friend having this movie on VHS back in probably the early 1990s, I guess. And having seen the movie back then, I have to say that I didn't exactly recall the movie "Hollywood Zap" from writer and director David Cohen as being a particularly enjoyable or entertaining movie.

But I had the opportunity to sit down and watch this 1986 movie again here in 2022, and not really remembering much from the movie, of course I did so. And I have to admit that while "Hollywood Zap" certainly is a cheesy and campy movie, naturally so as it is a Troma release, then the movie was actually oddly enjoyable.

It was the character gallery and dialogue that mostly worked for me, as the storyline was just so-so. But wow, talk about having a colorful and creative character gallery. The movie is well worth watching just to go through all the quirky and memorable characters that pop up in this movie.

The acting performances in "Hollywood Zap" were adequate, and especially Ben Frank - playing Nash - was particularly outstanding and memorable in the movie. "Hollywood Zap" also have some familiar faces on the cast list such as Chuck Mitchell, Claude Earl Jones, Carmen Filpi and Tony Cox.

I remember the Punk Pounder vividly from watching the movie back in the early 1990s. Such a hilarious prop in the movie.

I was actually genuinely entertained here in 2022 when I sat down to watch the cheesy and campy "Hollywood Zap" again.

My rating of writer and director David Cohen's 1986 movie lands on a six out of ten stars.

Hollywood Zap is the story of a young southern man (nicknamed 'Downer') and his search for his missing dad. Along the way he meets Nash, a costume-wearing ex-wall street agent who now makes his living beating punks at Zaxxon, a completely random 80's video game. The two form a father-son/love-hate relationship, and along the way Downer must overcome the machinations of Porky, a sex-predator uncle, an evil slumlady, a knunchuck-wielding midget, and a bimbo out to exploit his talent. Downer's quest confronts questions of sexuality, urbanization, and whether or not one is doomed to live in the shadow of one's father. Including one of the most unpredictable twists in film history, Hollywood Zap ends like a happy Henry James novel, with Downer's real need finally quenched.

Ah....the eighties! A time where anything goes....and anything does in this classic eighties adventure. A boy moves from the country out to the wild streets of L.A. to find his father. While there he befriends a psychedelic homeless man and a "sexy" young punk rocker. Hilarity and hijinx ensue. And boy do they. The film descends into a spiral of extreme despair as our protagonist gets nowhere near finding his real dad. Instead madness grips the cast as they take out their anger on the city with the oddly menacing punk pounder. I'm telling you, this movie may make you feel a little weird after watching it, but its rare that a movie can evoke a feeling like this. See it today!

I'm not saying that viewers who loved Repo Man will automatically enjoy this movie, at least not in its entirety. But this is a sort of low-budget, off-beat weirdness similar to Repo Man. Many of the eccentric characters and the odd situations they find themselves in are just plain weird (although the ultimate plot is not as baffling as Repo Man).

This is the story of a well-meaning nerdy doofus, Tucker, who becomes so fed up with his job as a lowly assistant manager at a retail outlet in Alabama, that he packs up the car and decides to head to west to Los Angeles in search of his father, who abandoned he and his mother at six. Despite this, Tucker seems quite optimistic in catching up on lost time with his pops. And it seems that the eccentrics that he meets in L.A. do little to shake his optimism, particularly Nash, the slick former Wall Street broker turned video game hustler whom he befriends. Nash, too, is in search of a higher power--the ultimate video game hustler known as Hollywood Zap, although this has little effect on the story, despite it serving as the title of the film. Nash tries to get Tucker to face it, that maybe his father just isn't worth searching for, advice which comes from a guy who was neglected by his own father.

This movie starts out with its amusing little moments, but ultimately ends up with anti-climatic imbalance, especially when you learn what has really become of Tucker's father and also, what Tucker decides to do in the end. By the middle point of the film, there has been so much of these little moments of humor with no real point, that it carries throughout the rest of the film and never does too much to get to the point, and consequently, it may leave the viewer in ultimate disgust by the resolution (or what little there may be) in the film.

However, because these kind of low-budget, strange sort of stylish comedies (much like Repo Man) end up with some sort of cult fame, if you these are the kind of films you don't mind watching, I wouldn't necessarily advise against catching this one. There are at least some moments destined to get a laugh out of you if you're not so serious about it.