Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies Directed By Krishna Shah, Starring "The Usual Gang of Idiots" (1985).

Perhaps you fancy yourself a metal movie maniac and think you've seen it all. Maybe you've read the book Heavy Metal Movies by Mike "McBeardo" Mcpadden and consider yourself a scholar in metallurgy or metalology. There are all kinds of rad heavy metal films out there, you've got the so shitty, they're good ones like Rock n Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare (starring Thor)! And the barely watchable ones like Terror on Tour, Slaughterhouse Rock, Rocktober Blood and even higher grade trash like Trick or Treat (with Ozzy and Gene Simmons as a dumbass Wolfman Jack impersonator named Nuke). So what's left at the bottom of the Showbiz Pizza ballpit, but Hard Rock Zombies, which according to Chas is the Plan 9 or zombiedom! 

   John Carl Buechler completists should have this on their bucket list as well because he was the Assistant Director and chipped in a few special effects here and there. Plus it's got all the Charles Band kind of garbage any self respecting gore hound should run away from in terror! 

   I recently watched this over at Sharky's (Hollywood High's #1 fan) pad and maybe it was the booze, the Chex mix or the double feature pairing with Shock 'Em Dead; but I didn't want to immediately slit my wrists like I imagined I would and even stayed awake throughout the entire film! 

I'm warning you though, this is a special case, so act accordingly when you view Hard Rock Zombies (you'll notice it's not called Heavy Metal Zombies--that should scare you already)! Watch this sufficiently baked, drunk out of your mind or dump 1000 cups over your head or you'll never make it out alive!

Not Enough Beer!

   We start off in the desert with a blonde skinny dipper, who kills two of the wimpiest kids on the road as midgets in tuxedos frolic with delight across the pond. She hacks off an arm and does a Beatles joke and we're off!!

Coke party at Jeff Dunham's house!

   At this point in time, I must stress that we've got at least an hour and 20 minutes left, so start boozin' early!

   Then we're thrust face first into a concert where a dude with hockey hair and a peach fuzz mustache plays what I can only describe as "New Wave Bob Seeger". Their solo guitarist holds a rose in his teeth (reminding me of another awesome metal movie Black Roses with rocking Howard the Duck looking demons). The room tone is extremely loud for some reason and when you hear the rocknroll, it sounds like its blaring from a busted transistor radio. A droopy eyed girl with french fried hair named Cassie (Jennifer Coe) shows up in a sea of groupies and warns them not to go to their next gig. Later on she becomes the object of Jessie (E.J. Curse) the lead singer's affections; He's 40, she looks like she's 12 and you thought Winger's "She's Only 17 was scandalous!"  

Ride away on my back, I'm a pedophile unicorn!

   The country bumpkin locations remind me a little bit of Please Don't Eat The Babies (man I thought I blocked that one out of my mind forever)! 

   They pick up the same blonde from the beginning out hitchhiking and she leads them into a trap. Oh yeah and her mother is a werewolf, howling up in the attic. She makes more "hilariously unfunny" hand jokes and the band ditches them to act like The Monkees. They spray beer at people over at a Bank of America line, bust out a giant cardboard cut out of themselves and do some mime-- I mean these guys know how to party!

Peter Frampton in Kiss makeup

   It turns out the midgets aren't just regular little people, but the inbred offspring of an elderly Adolf Hitler (in a Rip Taylor wig no less, perfect disguise if you ask me). This was the true story of the Ratt "Round and Round" video, it turns out Hitler's master race plan was to have butlers and sexy rodent hybrid girls painted silver look like new wave dicks and rock out with Milton Berle!     

Ratt and Roll, more like Reich N Roll

    Jessie (played by E.J. Curse), the leader of the miscellaneous band (they don't bother to mention their name) starts to fall in love with Cassie, who's criminally underage. I'm guessing she's the Tory Spelling of this film and got the job because her father is the producer or something.     

   They try to play a song for the Nazis in their courtyard that sounds like fake "Hysteria" era Def Lepard and wind up getting electrocuted. 

Working on a SEX FARM! 

   The repressed authority has a council meeting to try and stop the band from playing and giggle a lot about various types of sex that's are forbidden in town. Hard rock Zombies has got some real gusto, I mean they even decide to throw in a reverse Psycho shower scene, where one of the males in the band is stabbed by a woman. I've noticed a pattern with terrible directors who think they're doing us a favor by tossing in an Alfred Hitchcock homage, just stop right now! Birdemic is another wretched example I can think of.

Do I hear Hitchcock spinning in his grave again?

   Cassie plays a shitty song over the bands gravesite (they are all buried in about 3 inches of dirt, right next to each other). The beat makes the dead band pop out of the ground and march around like Thriller extras. 

Why the hell is Hitler so chipper?

   I think Jack Bliesener, is not an actor at all, but a genuine Hitler impersonator, because he's uncomfortably gleeful in his role and wears out the welcome mat really fast. The contrast between Holocaust humor and unfunny comedy is very unsettling--I also have to mention that I'm watching this again sober! The zombies strut around like undead mimes and start killing all the Nazis that murdered them. They play this awful fake Peter Gabriel song during the montage of them slaughtering their killers. 

Not a Kids in the Hall sketch

   A scuzzy promoter who looks like Dennis Miller or Rich Hall shows up to watch them play that Hysteria "Ode to Cassie" song on stage. Now here's a relationship too forbidden-- I mean he's a walking worm feast in his 40's who should be arrested for statutory.

  After awhile, I know it's hard to believe, but they run out of script and it turns into a wacky comedy, complete with Benny Hill music and too many severed head gags!

Man, I love Der Wienerschnitzel!

   One Nazi dwarf sits at a table and eats himself to death in different meal courses. Phil Fondacaro, the famous dwarf actor from Troll and Willow tries to eat a giant cow, I mean these are some cheap gags folks! The promoter freaks out over the zombie band and has a "Back to the Future" Chuck Berry's cousin moment.

I CAME UP WITH THE BEST SNIGLET EVER!

   I know its crazy to apply logic to this film, but that's my job here over at the TOG headquarters. I wonder why they keep the blonde who helped kill the band in the first place around and don't kill her. If anything she's more crucial to the plot then killing Hitler, they even encourage her to dance on stage!

   Toward the end, it gets so dark that it looks like they sent the lighting guy home! This movie is even worse the second time! I like how they took the slogan from Return of the Living Dead and paraphrased it to the effect of "They came back from the grave to misbehave"! Your patience may just completely run out as you watch this film and degenerate into a puddle of goop. 

ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER! MAKE SURE YOU ARE SMASHED BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION BEFORE WATCHING! 

WATCH HERE IF MUST

I came back from the grave to get some RC Cola!

Groupies!

Nothing scarier then an elderly dog with a switchblade