I Was a Teenage Zombie

Six high school buddies accidentally kill a drug pusher and dump his body in toxic waters. When the pusher returns as a zombie and goes on a killing spree, their only recourse is to dump the body of one of their own recently dead, and have him return as a "good" zombie to face off with the "bad" one.

If this film wasn't inspired by "The Toxic Avenger", I'd be very surprised. The toxic waste theme, the low budget production, the offbeat sense of humor. It seems like a Troma film with some touches of John Hughes (with a nerd hanging out with cooler kids).

If you don't like horror-comedy of the no-budget variety, you won't like this. But if you do, you'll love it! This is just an absolutely wonderful example of what could be done in the 1980s if you had the right minds... somehow we seemed to lose that charm when the decade ended.

"I Was a Teenage Zombie" follows a group of teenagers who kill a drug dealer at their high school and dump his corpse in a toxic river that turns him into a zombie. Chaos ensues in true eighties teen film fashion.

One of the weirder offerings of the late 1980s, "I Was a Teenage Zombie" is borderline-"so bad it's good," but it has several things going for it that make it at least semi-interesting. I have seen some compare the film to those of John Waters, and the comparison is most definitely warranted. The film has the kitschy, gritty edge of Waters' early work, with a dash of John Hughes, resting in the framework of a solid horror movie.

The film certainly stands out among the crop of late-eighties horror films, when the slasher was in its death knell between 1987 and the post-"Scream" landscape. It is aesthetically on par with the greatest of eighties teen cult films, and boasts some economical yet serviceable special effects. It's quite clearly low-budget, but rather charming in all its ridiculousness. The acting is by and large quite poor as well, punctuated with bad delivery and bad dialogue. The film has the distinguishing feature of boasting a wildly memorable soundtrack, including a title track by The Fleshtones and other songs from the Violent Femmes and the late and great Alex Chilton. Are you interested yet?

Overall, it's easy to see why "I Was a Teenage Zombie" has become a minor cult hit, though at the same time, it's surprising that the cult hasn't grown over the years. The film's niche audience sees in it precisely what it was striving for, and expects no more and no less of it. It's an absurd film, humorous and utterly inane, but ceaselessly amusing. Fans of low-budget cheese will have a ball with this one. 7/10.

One of the best movies I've seen in a while. No wonder it is in the Criterion Collection. Yes, of course its stupid,but so what? Does stupid necessarily equal bad? I don't think so at all.. This movie had almost everything I admire about zombie and more generally, horror movies: the camp (poor video/audio quality and dialogue in this regard) action, raunchiness, some gore yes, and laughs. I thought the plot was entirey original and well thought out. The film had many likable characters and includes great performances by the drug dealer and the two main heroes. In fact they were most all endearing. There were one or two particularly gross scenes which I could have done without. Awesome soundtrack also. Highly recommend to any zombie fan. Bravo!

Maybe it was because I was a teenager when I rented it, but, I don't think this flick is all that bad. The basic element is dumb, naturally: some sort of toxic, polluted marijuana turns a dealer and a teen into zombies who must, for some reason, battle each other. But, there are some okay moments. The guy who gets his face torn off and then has his face rubbed in... well, his face. And, the odd rape scene on the car hood, with our resident dealer zombie, who tears off her legs, apparently to the victim's delight, is just plain odd enough to make you laugh inquisitively.

This movie smells worse than a rotting corpse. The film maker wasn't interested in little things like continuity, synchronized dialogue, or comprehensible shot angles. I'm undecided on whether to put this in the "it's so bad it's good" category because it may just be too horrible. Watch it and decide for yourselves.