The October Zombie-Thon 2009 - Day 4: Zombie Cop
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.04.2009
You have the right to remain utterly bored.
ZOMBIE COP (1991)
Directed by: J.R. Bookwalter
Written by: Matthew Jason Walsh
Country: USA
Back in 1985, a young horror buff named J.R. Bookwalter decided to write and direct his very own zombie film, which he then dedicated the next four years of his life to completing. The end result was The Dead Next Door (reviewed way back in the first Zombie-Thon). Shot on Super 8 with a budget of $750,000 (some of which was supplied by none other than Sam Raimi), the film was by no means a very good movie, but still managed to entertain thanks to inventive F/X work and the evident-on-screen enthusiasm of Bookwalter.
The film was a modest success, and one could argue that the cult following it built up was a big factor in the future wave of independent zombie films made by genre fans. It's not out of line, then, to consider Bookwalter one of the important pioneers of the amateur zombie movie craze. And despite its flaws, The Dead Next Door's success at the time could have been seen as the beginning of the next great horror career. Perhaps Bookwalter was going to grow and improve as a director, and eventually unleash a stronger, more professional zombie movie upon the world.
Instead, he made Zombie Cop.
The "zombie cop" in question is Joshua (male model turned "actor" Michael Kemper), who – along with his partner Stevens – reports to the scene of a domestic disturbance only to find out it's actually a trap set by his arch-enemy, the drug-dealing Ohio voodoo lord Dr. Death (played by James Black, who tackles the role by dressing like Bobby McFerrin in the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" video and speaking in one of the worst Jamaican accents you will ever encounter). Joshua manages to take out Dr. Death, but not before being fatally wounded himself. And to make matters worse, Death also places a spell on Joshua, cursing him to return from the grave and forever walk the earth as a zombie.
But, wait a minute, does that really make matters worse? Now, I'm no voodoo priest/criminal mastermind, so far be it for me to tell Dr. Death how to conduct his business, but isn't turning your nemesis into some sort of indestructible superman kind of counter-productive? Sure enough, soon the resurrected Joshua is back from the grave and hunting down the similarly undead Dr. Death. Wouldn't things have been a hell of a lot easier for Death if he had just let Joshua die for good?
Oh well. Anyway, Joshua's first stop after crawling out of the grave is to visit his old partner. All things considered, Stevens accepts the idea of his best friend coming back from the dead pretty quickly. He then suggests that if Joshua is going to walk around without being noticed, they should try to make him look inconspicuous. They accomplish this by dressing Joshua in a full Policeman's uniform and wrapping his face up like a mummy. Yeah, that won't get any second looks on the streets.
The rest of the movie's 69-minute running time consists almost entirely of one long chase and shoot-out scene between our heroes and the villainous Dr. Death. For the climax, we end up with Joshua and Death beating each other with tree branches in a forest. Believe it or not, it's far less epic than it sounds.
Like the rest of Bookwalter's post-Dead Next Door work, Zombie Cop is a movie that amplifies all of the problems of his debut film (the terrible acting, the clear lack of technical know-how), but without the benefit of any of its strengths. The undeniably impressive F/X of Dead Next Door are completely absent here, as is just the general ballsy attitude. When you watched Dead Next Door, you felt the filmmakers' ambition to make a wildly entertaining movie no matter what the budget or circumstances. Watching Zombie Cop is a whole different kind of experience. There is no passion for the genre on display here, no evident desire to actually make a good movie. At best, it feels like a shoddily made student film. And not film students, mind you – this is more like a group of middle-school students borrowed one of their dad's video camera and spent the weekend making a movie for shits and giggles.
Now, to be fair, there is something of a reason for this. Unlike Dead Next Door, this movie was not exactly a labor of love for Bookwalter. In the early ‘90s, Bookwalter was approached by a California company looking to make a quick buck in the newly emerging straight-to-video market. The deal consisted of the company giving Bookwalter the miniscule budgets and the movie titles they wanted used (other gems included Kingdom of the Vampires, Chickboxer, and Humanoids from Atlantis). It was then up to Bookwalter and his pals to hurriedly write and produce the actual films.
So, sure, it's not like any of these efforts had much chance at actually being decent in the first place. But still, I don't want to let them off the hook that easy. Just because you willingly agree to make a crap sandwich doesn't mean anyone else has to willingly agree to eat and enjoy it.
And besides, that excuse only carries you so far, especially considering the man behind the camera. The Dead Next Door was no masterpiece, but it certainly hinted at better things to come than this. It at least suggested a true love of the zombie genre, which makes Zombie Cop's bored treatment of the genre so much harder to fathom.
Perhaps more of the blame for that goes to writer Matthew Jason Walsh than it does to Bookwalter. But they're both to blame for the final product. Walsh's lifeless script was a dud from the get-go. Bookwalter – who just a few years prior had written a far more exciting zombie tale – should have realized that. You can say that they were both under the pressure of making the movie quickly, but c'mon. Wouldn't it have benefited everyone a little more to make a movie called Zombie Cop that would actually be enjoyed by zombie fans?
Instead, this is another film – like Day 2's Johnny Sunshine – that barely even needs to be a zombie movie. In fact, this is even worse than Sunshine. That film unnecessarily included zombies just to draw in genre fans. Zombie Cop's entire premise is built off of the living dead, but it seemingly goes out of its way to avoid any elements that zombie fans want to see. There is no gore, no scares, and the title character looks more like a mummy than a zombie. Why did anyone think this was a good idea? How exactly is one even supposed to make a quick buck off a movie when the film itself seems designed to piss off its target audience?
Really, the best you could hope for if you decide to watch Zombie Cop is that you will accidentally rent Maniac Cop (a far better zombie cop movie) instead. The Dead Next Door will always ensure Bookwalter a nice little footnote in zombie film history, but his second foray into the genre is one best left forgotten.
