I Was a Teenage Zombie

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.

I was in the video store back in the eighties (probably 1987) and I was just a kid mesmorized by the horror video section. Now, parents let me rent horror films just as long as the cover was not gruesome or had a guy with a chainsaw on it. Boy were they fooled. I saw the cover to this movie and instantly it looked like a cool movie. My parents looked at it and saw nothing objectionable about it, so I rented it. I remember the movie itself was silly and childish but what really stood out for me were some of the gore scenes in the movie. When your a 7 year old kid and you see someone getting their face viciously ripped off that kind of thing sticks with you. Now, going into present day, I had one hell of a time finding a copy of this movie but, thanks to Ebay, I found an original copy just as I remembered it. Boy, was this a jem for me. So, I got some beer, sat down and popped it on. I was not disappointed at all. Basically, the story goes like this. A group of teenage friends are looking for some weed to smoke at high school dance. They can't find it anywhere but through a low life called Mussalini (Moose for short). The weed turns out to be really bad and they go to get their money back but off course Moose plays it like a jerk. So the teens kill Moose by accident and through his body into a local river that has been heavily polluted. Needless to say, Moose comes back to life to seek revenge and soon starts killing the teens. Well, the few that are left decide to fight fire with fire and throw one of their dead friends into the same polluted water and hope that he comes back. This is a great low budget film that brings back a lot of memories from the eighties. For gore fans, don't expect anything to vicious but the movie does have its moments, just very low budget moments. 8 stars

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!

I am saying that in a schlock sense, though. I have to say I like this movie a lot. It's a horror-comedy with an in-joke reference to Lloyd Kaufman, and is a good, goofy, nasty movie. It has more intentional laughs than unintentional, I think. Take the jerk cop for example, wearing a badge that looks like it was made by a little kid with paper and scissors for Halloween. They had to know what they were doing there! The low-budget gore FX are pretty cool, and one scene in particular (where the guy's face is ripped off) actually shocked me when I first saw it. The various artists soundtrack is great (and harder than hell to find). As far as the "plot" goes, we have some misfitly losers (my kinda people!) who go out to buy some pot for a spring dance celebration. What they end up with is some toxin-sprayed weed that makes them feel under the weather. (One drug cartel henchman says, "I wouldn't give that sh*t to my mother-in-law.") Nobody becomes a zombie from this, though. Still, what we do end up with is a very cranky (no pun intended) zombie drug pusher killing off hapless victims left and right. The only person who can stop him is another zombie (which I thought was a cool idea). Everything here is so matter-of-fact, like somebody took a slacker movie like "River's Edge" and mixed it with "The Toxic Avenger". I love this, a classic cheezball splatter-comedy that's just fun.

Well, I've seen TONS of bad reviews for this movie... for no apparent reason. Did people expect a serious movie? On the old VHS copy of this tape I have, it even says on the back of the box "this is a movie for people who like some laughs with their gore." And it certainly delivers the laughs and is just an overall good time. It's not REALLY a horror movie, persé, but it's definitely worth checking out and is pretty easy to find at old mom-and-pop shops across the country.

The minute this movie starts with a long shot of a lake and the hilariously bad rockabilly/swingin' song "I Was a Teenage Zombie" (by the Fleshtones -- I am so lucky to have this song on MP3), you know you're in for a treat. The characters are absolutely priceless: We have a guy that looks like Lars Ulrich (who gets his tongue ripped off, I believe). Then, the main character, who looks like Doogie Howser and is basically a huge geek. Then, there is a Mexican pimp selling some bad weed, and he is just amazing. In one scene, he rips a guy's hilarious and shocking Playdough face off and says, "Yeah, I'm the weedman! I got some WEED!" I was rolling on the floor laughing.

A good b-movie's weight can be measured in how many scenes you will want to show to your friends, and this film certainly delivers. Whether it's the hilarious rape scene (the Mexican zombie pimp is raping a girl and drooling and then breaks her legs in half or something), the decapitated head basketball scene, or the hilarious Troma reference (LLOYD KAUFMAN JUST FELL INTO A CONTAINER OF TOXIC WASTE!). However, the most amazing part of the movie has to be in the first half-hour of the film: One of the characters changes into a baseball uniform JUST to hit another character in the head with a baseball bat and then changes back in the next shot. It's all very humorous.

I'm guessing the people who gave this a bad rating were expecting a Fulci classic or something. All in all, it's definitely a good time, up there with Monster High and Rock N Roll Nightmare as the most amazingly underrated and wonderful B-Movies of all time. See it.