Reviewed by: Eric R. Lowther
Posted by: Root Rot
Zombie High (1987)
Directed by: Ron Link
Hey, Kids! It’s Eric R. Lowther aka biguglyhairyscary here with my thoughts on 1987’s “Zombie High”, directed by Ron Link and written by not one, not two, but three-count-em-three writers; Tim Doyle, Aziz Ghazal and Elizabeth Passarelli. I’m surprised even one of them wanted their names attached to this thing, really, but with three writers… know what? We’ll get to that later. I’d seen this one back in the day (for those of you that don’t know, I’m an old man) but decided I’d give it one more go-round. It was just as I remembered it. But before I get into the review, I need to get something off my chest;
Shenanigans! Shenanigans! Shenanigans!
Whew! Okay then. Here we have a film titled “Zombie High”, and you know what? There ain’t even ONE GODDAMNED ZOMBIE IN IT. Not one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. The mid-80’s had a slew of zombie movies after Romero’s “Day of the Dead” shambled into being and “Return of the Living Dead” roared to unlife in 1985 (not to mention “Evil Dead” I & II, “Night of the Creeps” and many other far-superior films that ACTUALLY HAD THE DEAD IN THEM from 1985 on through the very late 80’s) and for a few years it was quite the popular thing to intimate that your movie had zombies in it. I can see where the writer(s) and director were going with the title, though I’m sure they knew what huge-mega-colossal dicks they were being just to get the video rentals flowing from title recognition. I think you’ll see what I mean.
Welcome to Ettinger Academy, a private and once all-boys preparatory school. This fine institution has been around since the late 1800’s and counts corporate chiefs, high-ranking military and even the movie’s current President of the United States among its honored alumni. But like other private schools it’s faced with declining enrollment. I really don’t see how that’s possible, since most 80’s movies always had at least one teen character that was being threatened with being shipped off to military or boarding school, but I digress. So this year, they’ve opened their formerly testosterone-based campus to icky girls in efforts to broaden and deepen the student body’s flagging numbers. Well, yeah… nothing’s gonna go wrong here, huh? Enter Andrea, played by a very young and very 80’s-hotness Virginia Madsen. Andrea is one of Ettinger’s first female scholarship students, and though she’s excited by what such a scholarship will mean for her future, her jock tough-guy boyfriend she’s leaving behind, Barry, doesn’t like it one bit and even tries to talk her out of it while he helps move her in to the dorm room she’ll share with roomies Susie and Marybeth. While all four are on-screen together, we have the quintessential 80’s late teen stereotypes; the tough jock hero, the smart, attractive blonde chick, the slutty brunette and the stuck-up goody-goody chick (Don’t worry, we’ll add the goofy-dressed, horndog guy best friend and the upscale preppies into the mix soon enough). With a dire foreshadowing warning that Ettinger just feels wrong, Barry leaves his lady-love and goes back to football.
In all her excitement at the new school, Andrea is slow to realize that something at Ettinger certainly is wrong. Most of the support staff and the upscale preppie students don’t seem quite right. They are perfect students, rarely ever smile and really seem to dig the classical muzac that’s piped all through the school. Enter Paul, the horndog best-friend-wanting-more (ah, there he is). Paul is sort of like Ducky from “Pretty in Pink” except he’s not as well written, acted or dressed. He, too, has noticed the dead eyes of the bulk of the student body but is really more interested in Andrea and her roommates. There’s also another man that’s very interested in Andrea; Professor Louis Philo. Now, it’s not uncommon for a prof’ to have impure thoughts about his female students or even to act upon them. I mean, the porno industry rakes in millions on just this concept alone. But as we move along, we find Philo’s fascination with Andrea runs much deeper than the usual “extra credit” assignments that other horny professors would offer. We can see from an old tintype picture that Andrea is a dead ringer for Philo’s long lost love. And since the photograph is obviously very old, we’re tipped off right away that Barry was right and that something here is definitely wrong. Philo even goes so far as to summon Andrea to his private quarters that night and makes a pass at her. Andrea refuses his advances, but that doesn’t stop the good Prof from continuing his creepy pursuit of her. While all this is going on, other students start disappearing for a time then reappearing as dead-eyed, straight-A preppy students.
Hey kids! Fun fact; now, for those of you that can’t remember where you were the day Reagan was shot because you didn’t exist yet, I probably should explain a little bit of the 80’s to you so you can better understand this movie. When I say “prep” or “preppy”, there are two main types. The first type is probably more what most readers here have personal familiarity with. These were the guys in high school that had the cool cars, the cool clothes and usually a lot of Mommy and Daddy’s cool money at their disposal. You know, the “Cool Clique”. The second type is more what the term came from and what we see here; a slang term for a teen that is more concerned with his adult future and dresses and acts towards this life goal instead of hanging out, listening to hair bands or Madonna and drinking, smoking and having casual sex. I’ll give you two guesses where in these three main groups I could be found. Okay, now that we have that down…
While the number of preppies grows around her, Andrea starts to uncover little clues as to what’s really going on. Barry reappears from time to time, fueled by his jealousy and teenage libido, until Professor Philo finally confronts him and throws him off campus. Dean Eisner, the headmaster of the school, catches wind of Philo’s wooing of the fair Andrea, and in their fighting and through other haphazard clues and the viewer using detection skills no higher than that of Shaggy and Scooby (not even Velma, just Shaggy and Scooby) we already know the dead-eyed preppies and the long-lived staff have a big connection. Here we get into silly bits about harvesting brain tissue, creating long-life serums from ancient Native American rites, and crystals. Yeah, crystals. They were the cure-all in the 80’s, don’t you know. Suffice to say, the movie just keeps going through the motions with bad plot twists, carbon-copy 80’s horror tropes and, of course, a dance complete with an 80’s pop/dance band. The climax is one you’ll see coming just by virtue of pressing “play” and falls back on another 80’s staple; rock and roll will save us all.
Now for the nuts and bolts. The movie is actually fairly well put together in its technical aspects, though the directing is really nothing special. The script feels more like a collection of 80’s standards, phrases and lines, and situations taken from other, better horror and non-genre movies of its era only watered down to avoid copyright issues. Many movies can be said to be “dated”. In this case, it’s not only “dated” but is truly a product of its age. Everything about this movie just screams “80’s video-store-crap-but-the-box-looked-good” right at you, most especially the very end.
So, is it any good? Really? Do I really need to answer this time? Ok then… no. No, it isn’t. The only value this will have is to a voracious fan of 80’s bad horror. The movie’s title was designed to be misleading, with only the barest conception that its “zombies” were actually very deep representations of how a conformist culture can… no, you know what? I’m not going to justify this crap. It’s just a bad movie, okay? Still, if you’re a glutton for punishment or if you want to mercilessly kill off your brain cells without a hangover in the morning you can get it from Amazon or your usual online outlets for anywhere from $5.00 – $20.00 ($20? You’re kidding, right, Amazon?) as well as for rent or streaming through Netflix. Even for my fellow 80’s-philes, I would suggest streaming or renting this thing before buying.
Well, that’s enough out of me for now. Make sure you’re keeping up with Root Rot, Misfit Boy, Creepy Kyle, Keelie and all the rest of the cast of characters around here. Mr. Rot’s been a busy boy, and The Witch’s Hat has something for everybody. Oh, and make sure you stop by The Witch’s Hat forum over at Killer Reviews for more info, chat and tons more goodness than can be contained on this site alone. So with a tip of my imaginary hat to Mr. Rot, this has been biguglyhairyscary sayin’, see ya, kids. Oh, yeah, and… SHENANIGANS!
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Yikes. What did you do? Lose a bet and have to review this pile of feces? Great review as always. The thing that does baffle me about this movie is that it had 3 writers that said to each other, “yeah, this is an awesome script.” Never knew that it had 3 writers attached to it, so I never thought about it, but it makes you wonder what is wrong with people. LOL
Somedays you’re on the Satellite of Love and some days you’re Pearl. I don’t think there were three real, living writers on this thing. I thnk it was one guy that said, “this thing is so horrible I need to deflect some of the crap that’s about to roll down the hill” so he created some co-writers. Virginia Madsen was a hotty though, and she’s aged surprisingly well.