Night Life

High school loser and funeral parlour assistant Archie Melville (Scott Grimes) is unable to escape persecution from a pair of preppy bullies and their beautiful girlfriends, even after all four die in a horrific car crash: a combination of toxic gas and lightning brings the malicious teens back from the dead so that they can continue to make life hell for the poor misfit.

Despite adequate performances from all involved, one or two stylish touches from director David Acomba (the dream-like, mist-shrouded crash aftermath scene being particularly effective), some fun cheesy gore from FX man Craig Reardon (including a split head, an eye being drilled, and Gomez Adams getting pumped full of oil), and the unforgettable sight of gorgeous blonde Lisa Fuller on all fours in her underwear, '80s teen zombie horror/comedy Night Life (AKA Grave Misdemeanours) must still be considered something of a disappointment: the film offers very little in the way of originality for fans of '80s horror, its outcast main character, his pretty tomboy sidekick, and the obnoxious preppy jocks all being clichéd mainstays of the genre; the pacing is terrible, with Acomba devoting far too much time depicting Archie's pathetic life both at school and at home, rather than getting on with the horror; and the laughs are rare, with lame attempts at Porky's style teen humour and woeful stabs at black comedy. Furthermore (and contrary to other comments here on IMDb), I found Archie to be an irritating character who brings much of his woes upon himself by being a smart-ass who just doesn't know when to shut up.

Unsurprisingly, the film has disappeared into relative obscurity, along with much of its cast.

This probably got better as it went on but it so filled with obnoxious, profane bully-type high school morons that I had a hard time finishing this...and I didn't.

Typically-stupid modern-day Hollywood teen dialog (see "Scream" for better examples) turns me off, big-time, and this movie is filled with them. Four of the punks turn into zombies. Well, good for them. Do they get what's coming to them by the nerdy good guys? Of course, with a few twists but too many similarities to the theme of "Revenge Of The Nerds." The big difference is all the blood in here in this horror-comedy.

This is definitely for young adults, not for discerning, older farts like me.

I thought that Night Life was very promising for the first half hour. The characters were likeable, and the story was interesting. But the horror aspects don't really enter the picture until the last half hour - and when they do, they are disappointing. The zombies are not like traditional zombies at all. They drive cars, operate machinery, and seem to retain much of their human personalities. What's worse, there are only four of them and they seem to be indestructible (like Jason from Friday the 13th pt 2 -?). In my opinion, the threat of zombies should be sheer numbers. As individuals, they are not very strong, fast, or coordinated. It should not have been so difficult for the heroes of this movie to deal with a paltry four walking corpses.

"Archie Melville" (Scott Grimes) is a high school student who works at the local mortuary during the night for his uncle "Verlin Flanders" (John Astin). Unfortunately, this severely impacts his social life and the girl of his dreams "Joanie Snowland" (Lisa Fuller) wants nothing to do with him. Not only that but two jocks at the high school have made it their mission to harass him endlessly as well. To make matters even worse the only friend he has named "Chary Dorn" (Cheryl Pollak) tells him she is leaving town permanently. But things change quickly after a fatal car accident involving a toxic spill sends his two tormentors along with Joanie and her friend "Roberta Woods" (Darcy DeMoss) to the funeral home where he works--and then lightning strikes! Now rather than reveal any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a peculiar zombie film which had its ups and downs. For starters, there were some parts which I thought were extremely slow and I didn't think the humor was all that keen either. But the gore factor was quite high and having 3 attractive actresses like the aforementioned Lisa Fuller, Cheryl Pollak and Darcy DeMoss certainly didn't hurt. In short, while I didn't think this was a great zombie movie by any means it was okay for the time spent and I rate it as about average.

Another poster called it the Citizen Kane of zombie movies. They were right. It's got some magic in it.

If you heard the premise you'd judge this film in advance and in doing so you'd be missing a real horror classic. There's something about it that follows you out of the end. It's scored in a very interesting way, shot in a very interesting way and the whole thing has a dreamlike quality. Scott Grimes was superb in the lead.

The very last bit really makes the film. Clever. The whole thing is well written. The dialogue is not hackneyed or trite, it's literate.

Watching it I thought the director must have been really hungry because he spun this simple story into something gold.