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!

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.

MST covered this one and did a good job with it.(The quote is from the first zombie attack.) And as I recall, Adam West even introduced their cover of it for its first broadcast during a "Turkey Day" Thanksgiving marathon. (Good for you, Adam! You look good!)

Hey, Frank Dietz, it was fun to see your comment about the movie; glad you have a good sense of perspective about it, and I hope you are doing well. ZN was completely cheesy, but it wasn't your fault...you were just in over your head!

Adam West has taken a lot of crap over the decades for his somewhat hammy style and fruity baritone, but he's still the real deal as an actor. Put him in a 3rd rate film like this one, and he instantly blows everyone else in the film away without trying. This movie was lucky to have him.

The film also gets an extra star for starting out with "Ace Of Spades" as the opening song on the soundtrack and a nice little thumbprint graphic for the opening title. It was a great choice and started the movie with a nice burst of energy.

But after that, things go downhill pretty fast. There are lots of missteps here: pacing, plot holes, characterization and consistency of tone. For instance, the movie stops dead in its tracks at one points and spends 2-3 minutes watching a mediocre tennis match between the tall, lanky mall punk and his blond girlfriend. It spends an inordinate amount of time driving to the local 'Twist and Creme' ice cream store. When the hero/zombie-to-be gets run over by the mall punks at the beginning of the movie, his mother doesn't call a doctor, call an ambulance, or start CPR, she calls her local voodoo practitioner "Molly Mokembe" so she can go about getting revenge for her son's death.

(This brings all kinds of questions to mind, BTW. The movie seems to find it unremarkable that there is a high priestess of voodoo just down the street in an average Canadian urban neighborhood. Geez, not ONE of the black people I grew up with turned out to be voodoo masters, not even the ones whose life my father saved! I never knew Canada was so wild at heart!)

Oh, and if YOU were attacked by a zombie, and you knocked him down with a shotgun and then you got in your car to flee, wouldn't you a)shoot the zombie in the head and knees a couple of just to slow him down a bit more and b) CLOSE THE CAR DOOR while you cranked the ignition??? I'm just asking...

But the biggest weakness, IMO, is in the part and performance of the mall punk's 'psycho' member. Ooooo, he has an ATTITUDE! OOooo, he throws pasta at his mom! Ooooo, he harasses a waitress with juvenile remarks about the size of his 'member'! Ooooo, he...well, he goes for a drive! (See 'Twist and Creme' reference above.)

He's about 105 lbs, soaking wet, with pencil thin arms and elaborately blow-dried-and-feathered shoulder length hair, but we are supposed to accept that he's some kind of menacing James Dean stand-in. And he is, in fact, almost infinitely annoying. But he (the character that is) wouldn't last 10 minutes at my old junior high school (it was on the 'wrong side of the tracks' in a town of 60,000 people.)

The rest of the cast is OK. The other four mall punks are natural and at ease in front of the camera. Frank Dietz manages to hold his own in his scenes with Adam West. A couple of the murders are fairly gruesome. And the blond cutie looks sexy as she 'briskly jogs' away from the zombie in her towel. Some of the other songs on the soundtrack are pretty good, especially the one by Girlschool. Even Jon Mikl Thor is, well, not as bad as he could be, although it's pretty obvious that the project began to overwhelm him and he was forced to get another actor to play the zombie for some scenes. Don't quit your day job, JMT.

An amusing mess. Watch with one dose of alcohol clutched firmly in your mitt and several more readily at hand and you'll have no problem with 'Nightmare'.

After witnessing the murder of his father, young Tony Washington grows up into the hulking, musclebound version of himself (Jon Mikl Thor). Meanwhile, a gang of brainless punks are causing trouble. Tony, busily ridding the streets of crime, encounters said ne'er do wells, resulting in his untimely demise.

Thankfully, Tony's mum knows the local voodoo priestess, who dresses up like an eeevil clown and whips up some mumbo jumbo tout de suite! Let the ungodly ineptitude that is ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE begin! Rising from his grave with hard-boiled eggs for eyes, Tony sets out for ultimate vengeance.

A masterwork of hyper-schlock cinema, this movie excels in every category! There are non-actors, acting as though they've just been handed their scripts for the first time. This gives the dialogue that fresh, robotic sound. Lines are delivered in a quasi-human fashion, making us believe that animated mannequins have somehow learned to speak.

The plot proves that scripts can be written "on the fly", during filming, without editing! This forces the various characters to wander about, oblivious to whatever is taking place. The crooks, the cops, the squawking medical examiner, the whole cast!

However, no one outshines Thor as the Frankenstein-in-sweat-clothes hero, who's hair length changes in every scene! A true stroke of genius!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: Adam West as Capt. Tom Churchman. He's rough! He smokes cigars! He's Batman with a mustache!

EXTRA-EXTRA POINTS FOR: The music! Any movie that opens with Ace Of Spades by Motorhead... um, at least has that going for it!...

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!