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!!!

Zapped with Scott Baio, borrowed from The Exorcist and Carrie and hordes of other films in the horror genre. The sequel tends to go in a different direction, borrowing from teen comedies like Revenge Of The Nerds, Some Kind Of Wonderful and Teen Wolf. The outcome is surprisingly better.

Similar premise as Revenge Of The Nerds finds a group of nerdy Science Club members being muscled out of their giant Science lab by the jocky Key Club members. The Key's want a place to party and the Science lab is just big enough to accommodate their needs. A hitch arises when the new kid in school, Kevin Mathews (Todd Eric Andrews), a sort-of outcast jock, persuades the Science Club members not to give in. The rivalry comes to a head when the two clubs face off in an event called ‘The Penguin Run.'

In the middle of all this rehashed material emerges a formulaic but sweet love story. This is the main reason I found the film so appealing. Kelli Williams(The Practice) plays Lucy, a shy, kind-hearted but nerdy Science Club member who falls in love with Kevin on the first day of school. Kevin spends so much time chasing Amanda, a beautiful Key Club member, that he doesn't notice Lucy's subtle advances. When Lucy attempts to pour her heart out, her awkward insecurities doesn't allow for the words to come the way she intended, `Before you came here all I cared about was studying and now...' Needless to say Kevin chooses the more confident Amanda. Heartbroken, Lucy soon distances herself from him. It is only then that Kevin notices just how beautiful the less attractive girl is.

The only reference to the original Zapped comes with the discovery of prune juice bottles stored inside the Science lab wall. Inside the bottles is the formula which gave Baio telekinesis in the original. Kevin Mathews uses the formula to help win ‘The Penguin Run' among other things. Zapped Again doesn't get bogged down in the implications of having telekinesis the way the original film did. It's more like a background thought in this one.

Despite what some reviews say about Zapped Again, it is not an overtly sexual movie. The amount of nudity in Again equals about one half of a second of screen time. Watch for Linda Blair, Lyle Alzado and Karen Black as teachers.

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.

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.

It's not all that awful ... it's actually sort of fun.

Yes, it's completely formula. Yes, it's total cheese. That's what everyone expects, though. It's light, it's funny, and it's got just a smattering of naked. Just what you need for 2 in the morning.

Lighten up.

AK