Tag Archives: zombie movies

Trash Or Terror Tuesday: Zombie High (1987)

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It’s time for #TrashOrTerrorTuesday

…when I examine a film that’s been languishing in my personal library to determine if it is #Trash or #Terror

– or more importantly, if it deserves to stay in my collection.

And so, out from the dusty shelves of #VHS tapes & DVDs comes…

VHS box for Zombie High (1987)Zombie High (1987) by #RonLink

w/ #VirginiaMadsen #RichardCox #SherilynFenn

A coed uncovers a plot of secret surgeries on students’ brains.

“The incredible story of a hard-working student and the warped way of life that made her go wacky.”

#Horror #Comedy

#TrashOrTerrorTuesday

 

I first saw Zombie High (1987) back in the ’80s. It’s reputation, thanks to critics, was not good – but I enjoyed it anyway. It was kind of a throwback to old 1950s movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), or maybe Invaders from Mars (1953). Unfortunately, it was called Zombie High at a time when audiences had just been thrilled by The Return of the Living Dead (1985). In terms of horror comedy, that pays homage to an older movie (or two), it simply doesn’t get any better than that. Not to mention the insane, over-the-top zombie action (and gore) that was as hilarious as it was impressive in The Return of the Living Dead. 

Zombie High has none of that. No zombies, no over-the-top gore – nothing. You could say that Zombie High is very understated. I’m not even sure if I knew it was a comedy the first time I saw it. Looking at it now, it’s obvious that there is a sense of humour at work just below the surface – but it’s incredibly subtle. It’s not the kind of movie with clear jokes that pay off with big laughs. I smiled and chuckled a few times, but Zombie High is so straight-faced that some scenes actually work as serious drama (or 1950s horror/sci-fi).

This was director Ron Link’s only feature film. He was apparently more of a theatre director (and actor), and worked on several plays by Tom Eyen, who was known for campy parodies like Women Behind Bars (1975) – which Link directed. This may give us some clue as to where Link was coming from when he made Zombie High. Unfortunately, that campy style didn’t totally come through in the movie.

The cast includes Sherilyn Fenn, before she became a star on Twin Peaks (1989-1991), and Virginia Madsen, who was, at the time, almost a superstar. She had been in some high profile movies with a lot of potential, some of which failed to pan out, like Dune (1984). Zombie High would have done nothing to help her, I’m sure. She did eventually achieve some of the success she deserved with Candyman (1992), and has since done a lot of other good stuff. 

I bought a VHS copy of Zombie High sometime in the ’90s, and watched it at least a couple of times. When I wrote my own high school zombie comedy musical  I Was A Teenage Zombie, I looked at Zombie High as something that might inspire me. As much as I enjoyed it, I was always left with the feeling that it wasn’t quite all that it needed to be. Still, I hung onto to it, as if one day it might finally age just enough to be truly great. So, after not seeing it for a good fifteen years, I decided to put it to the #TrashOrTerrorTuesday test.

So what’s the verdict?

Zombie High (1987) is a very, very mild terror. And what I mean by that, is that it has moments that work, and is oddly likeable in a very understated way – but it’s not really scary. it’s not serious enough to ever be scary. it’s also not funny enough to work as a comedy, although it might occasionally elicit a smile. I can’t call it trash, because it’s not trashy enough to be trash. It’s so tasteful it’s almost strange. It has none of the campy blood, gore and nudity of movies like The Return of the Living Dead and Return to Horror High (1987). It’s also just a little too good (at least in terms of its cast and production values) to be called trash in a Garden of the Dead sort of way. It’s actually a decent little movie, that could be an acceptable time passer for the right person (such as teenage and twenty-something me). Having now seen it about four times over the years, I can probably retire it from my collection. But someone who’s never seen it may find enough ’80s amusements within its reasonable 93 minute running time to warrant adding it to theirs. As long as they don’t let the title fool them into expecting a spectacle of zombie carnage – and they manage keep their expectations reasonably low. 

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Revenge of the Dead (1983)

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I remember going to Adi’s Video to rent movies on Beta back in the early 1980s. Hard to believe now, but Adi’s was the largest chain of video stores in Winnipeg. This was years before Blockbuster, Jumbo and Rogers came to town. Adi, as far as I know, was a just a local guy who started a business that grew and grew as more people bought VCRs. Sadly, he was wiped out by the corporate chains years before the internet and streaming services started to kill the whole concept of video stores (although, oddly enough, they’ve never completely gone away – and some local mom-and-pop stores have actually outlasted Blockbuster and those other assholes).

VHS box for The Witching (1972)Adi’s is where my family bought our first VCR, as I may have mentioned a while back. It’s also where I rented most of the tapes I watched in those early years. They had a pretty good selection of unusual stuff, which was great for a guy like me. While other people were putting their name on a waiting list to be able to get hold of Risky Business (1983) starring Tom Cruise, I was renting movies like The Witching (1972), Zombie (1979) and Revenge of the Dead (1983) – which in retrospect must have been pretty brand new.

VHS box of Revenge of the Dead (1983)I rented Revenge of the Dead with my brother, and what attracted us to it was the cover art on the Beta box (just look at it! If that didn’t scream rent me to every young horror fan in the store, then there was something wrong with the universe) and the title, of course. Revenge of the Dead – this sounded (and looked) like an unauthorized sequel to Dawn of the Dead (1978) – and what could be better than that?

As it turns out, Revenge of the Dead was not like Dawn of the Dead at all. Or Zombie for that matter, which was in fact a sequel of sorts to Dawn of the Dead. We didn’t know it at the time, but Revenge of the Dead was originally titled Zeder, and was not really a zombie movie as we had come to know them. It’s more of a weird, creepy mystery about a writer who (thanks to a used typewriter ribbon) stumbles onto a story about a scientist who had discovered places in the world, called K-Zones, where the dead could be brought back to life.

Oh, that old chestnut, you might say! But at first it seemed to hold some promise to my brother and me. After all, if the dead could be brought back to life in a K-Zone, that could lead to a zombie apocalypse, couldn’t it? SPOILER ALERT:  It doesn’t.

My brother and I were greatly disappointed that there were no George Romero, or Lucio Fulci, style zombies ripping people apart in impressive displays of blood and gore. No, there was really nothing like that. What did we get instead? Plot and dialogue – perhaps even some character development. We were very unhappy about that. In fact, we felt completely ripped off by Adi’s, the people who made the film, and the people who made the box cover art (it’s the best part of the movie!). Revenge of the Dead was on my list of most hated films for a few years. However…

I never forgot about it. Something about the weird story, the K-Zones and the typewriter ribbon kept coming back to haunt my memories. As an adult, I actually found myself wanting to track it down and watch it again. Why?!! my twelve year old self might have screamed. Maybe it’s nostalgia for an almost forgotten experience, maybe it’s because I’ve never seen another movie quite like it (at least the way I remembered it) – I simply had to find out what that crazy old movie was all about.

Zeder, or Revenge of the Dead, was almost certainly retitled by greedy distributors who wanted to cash in on the lucrative zombie genre. They are the ones I should have been mad at – not the filmmakers. Pupi Avati wrote and directed the film. He’s had a long career, and has made over fifty movies and TV shows (so far), but is probably best remembered for The House with Laughing Windows (1976). Knowing more about him now, it’s no surprise that Revenge of the Dead was not just another typical zombie movie. And as much as I love that kind of movie, I can now say that Revenge of the Dead is actually much more interesting than that. It’s creepy, atmospheric, intriguing and unusual – if you accept it on it’s own terms. When I was a kid, I wanted to see more of a Fulci styled gore-fest and was disappointed. It’s much better than I realized back then.

Probably due to it’s misleading promotional campaign, Zeder, or Revenge of the Dead, doesn’t seem to get talked about very often. It’s #NotQuiteClassicCinema that could have achieved more respect if it had been given a fair chance. But regardless of how respected it was, or how much money it made back in the day, it would still be a perfect addition to any #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn – provided that the audience isn’t full of screaming kids expecting to see a non-stop spectacle of blood and gore.

Trash Or Terror Tuesday: Undead or Alive (2007)

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It’s time for #TrashOrTerrorTuesday

…when I examine a film that’s been languishing in my personal library to determine if it is #Trash or #Terror

– or more importantly, if it deserves to stay in my collection.

And so, out from the dusty shelves of #VHS tapes & DVDs comes…

DVD cover for Undead or AliveUndead or Alive (2007) by #GlasgowPhillips

w/ #ChrisKattan #ChrisCoppola #NaviRawat

Two misfits rob a corrupt sheriff as a plague of zombies begins to sweep the country.

“Guns don’t kill people. Zombies kill people.”

“A Zombie Western Comedy … no really!”

#Comedy #Horror #Western

 

Undead or Alive (2007) is another example of a movie (like last week’s Cult (2007)), which has been sitting on my shelf for about a decade – and which I certainly did watch before putting it there – that I basically have no specific memories of, in terms of plot and content. I recalled it being a zombie western, but other than that – nothing. So, I decided to put it to the #TrashOrTerrorTuesday test.

Right off the top, they seem to be blaming the zombie plague on Geronimo – who they claim put some kind of curse on white people. Later in the movie, they even refer to the zombies as Geronimonsters. This didn’t quite sit right with me. I have undoubtedly written my fair share of politically incorrect humour in my time, and maybe I’m just getting old and cranky, but I felt that Geronimo deserved a better (albeit fictional) legacy than this.

I must have bought Undead or Alive during the time that I was thoroughly immersing myself in Westerns. I was writing my own epic Western play (an exploration of the history of Western Canada, in fact), and I wanted to soak up as much old west atmosphere as I possibly could. I was also watching a lot of zombie movies because, well, I like zombies – and we were in the midst of a huge zombie resurgence at that time (post Dawn of the Dead (2004)  – which was released, coincidentally, while I was in rehearsal with my brand new  zombie musical – but that’s another story).

Undead or Alive probably intrigued me because it was a combination of two of my current obsessions, Westerns and  zombies, and in theory it’s a brilliant idea. In reality, Undead or Alive just made me want to re-watch Blazing Saddles (1974) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – both far superior movies. I feel that Undead or Alive was lifting ideas from The Return of the Living Dead (like shooting zombies in the head doesn’t seem to work), but it was nowhere near as funny. The zombies in Undead or Alive were not that different from regular Western bad guys. They keep on riding horses, shooting guns, and having conversations. This is not what I generally look for in a zombie movie.

Undead or Alive is by no means a terrible movie. It’s well made, with decent action and gore. Unfortunately, the script is not as clever as it needs to be. The movie really aims for comedy much more than horror, and the comedy just isn’t good enough. A person looking for an effective satire of Western conventions would be far better off watching Blazing Saddles, Cat Ballou (1965), or Destry Rides Again (1939).

So what’s the verdict?

Undead or Alive (2007) is neither Trash nor Terror. It simply isn’t good enough, or bad enough, to be one or the other. It’s just floating somewhere in the middle, not particularly interesting enough to be worth multiple viewings. Having watched it twice in ten years, I don’t think I’ll need to be doing that again. It might be an acceptable time passer for those who haven’t already seen it. But I doubt that anyone will love it as much as I love Blazing Saddles (1974) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985). And in the future, I will be watching those movies instead of this one.