Zombie Nightmare

The acting was woeful, the continuity non-existent and the whole budget must have been less than 100 bucks, but I sure did laugh. Although, probably not for reasons the film-makers intended.

If you love bad movies and inept film-making, this is for you. The added bonus is Adam West, who deserved better but is always a welcome sight.

Worth a watch if you don't want to be challenged in any way and need a good chuckle.

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!

As a boy, Tony Washington witnesses the fatal stabbing of his father after he goes to the rescue of a young black woman, Molly Mokembe, who is being sexually molested by two teenage thugs.

Cut to the present day, and Tony (now played by heavy metal singer Jon Mikl Thor) is a musclebound, long-haired baseball player who, like his father, has no time for hoodlums: when his local grocery store is held up by armed robbers, Tony steps in and saves the day (the Italian shopkeeper is-a so-a grateful, he lets-a Tony have his-a groceries for-a nothing!).

Unfortunately, as Tony crosses the road with his freebies, he is run down and killed by a gang of no-good punks, lead by psycho Jim Batten (played by Shaun Levy, now a successful Hollywood director). When Tony's mother sees her son's lifeless body, she calls for Molly (Manuska Rigaud), who uses her voodoo powers to resurrect Tony from the dead. Armed with his trusty metal baseball bat, shuffling zombie Tony goes looking for revenge.

As I type, Zombie Nightmare is currently sitting at #53 on IMDb's bottom 100 movies (most likely thanks to being featured on MST3K); but while I cannot deny that the film is no classic of the zombie genre, and is sadly lacking in both the gore and nudity one expects from 80s trash (a blonde cutie in her underwear doesn't cut it), neither is it deserving of such contempt. I've seen hundreds of films that are tougher to endure than this one, which at least entertains with its 80s cheesiness and sheer silliness.

Boasting a rocking metal soundtrack courtesy of Motorhead, Girlschool, Thor, Deathmask and Fist (no, I've never heard of the last two bands either), an early performance from Wayne's World babe Tia Carrere (schwing!), Adam 'Batman' West as a police captain with a dark secret, hilariously bad zombie make-up, terrible acting (Manuska's Haitian voodoo routine is a masterclass in over-acting), some really nasty 80s fashion, and a fun finale in a foggy cemetery (smoke machine on overdrive!) that sees West dragged to hell, Zombie Nightmare is definitely worth a go for fans of z-grade horror.

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'.