The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 20: I Was a Teenage Zombie
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.20.2006
Remember, kids, don't do drugs!
I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE (1987)
Directed by: John Elias Michalakis Written by: James Martin, Steve McKoy, & George Seminara Country: USA
A couple weeks ago, in this very column, I gave high praise to the underrated 1993 teen-zombie-comedy My Boyfriend's Back, a hilarious satire of both teen-romance movies and the zombie genre. While I can't guarantee, I think it's a pretty safe bet that the brains behind My Boyfriend's Back may have been at least slightly influenced by 1987's I Was a Teenage Zombie, which plumbs similar territory, albeit in a more lewd, and less successful, fashion.
Like My Boyfriend's Back, I Was a Teenage Zombie parodies the Americana feel of ‘50s era television and teen-horror films, but it also mixes in a little bit more of the modern world, thereby creating its own twisted, incongruous reality. So while the film's teenage main characters hang out in a malt shop and pine after girls with names like Cindy Faithful, they're also on a desperate quest to score some weed before the school dance. It's this desire for drugs that brings them to local thug Mussolini, who sells them a batch of bad weed. The guys decide not to take this laying down, and along with their Fonz-like friend The Bird, they confront Mussolini and demand their money back.
Needless to say, Mussolini is not about to be pushed around by this bunch, but before things can escalate too much Mussolini slips on a banana peel (no, seriously, that's really what happens) and cracks his head on the pavement. Unsure of what to do, the guys decide to throw Mussolini's body in the local river. Because this is a horror movie, you just know their plan will not go well (well, it's a horror-comedy, but the same rules regarding karma apply). It turns out the river is polluted with toxic waste, and if there's one thing I've learned from zombie movies, it's that despite its bad rep, toxic waste actually has some killer regenerative powers. Sure enough, a pissed-off and green-skinned Mussolini rises from the river, now super-strong and hell-bent on revenge.
When The Bird ends up dead, the other guys worry that their recent escapade is coming back to haunt them (oh, sure, the police say The Bird died in a motorcycle accident, but the fact that his bike was unscratched and his body was torn to pieces and covered in radiation makes the others just a tad suspicious). And their worst fears are confirmed when Mussolini kills Dan, the group's de facto leader.
Now, personally, every time an undead drug dealer has brutally murdered one of my friends, I've been a wreck for days. That's what separates me from these teen heroes, I guess – they quickly come together and hatch a pretty forward-thinking plan: they snatch Dan's body from his funeral and toss it into the river, thus creating their own good zombie. The only problem is, Dan isn't exactly happy about being brought back from the dead, especially since before his death he had just begun making time with the aforementioned Cindy Faithful, and his new green appearance and lack of pulse sort of puts a damper on his plan to escort her to the dance. But when Mussolini kills another of the friends, Dan accepts his fate, and the two zombies are soon are on a collision course that just so happens to culminate at the school dance. Funny how it always works out that way, isn't it?
This is all mildly amusing, if a little on the amateur side. Well, OK, a lot on the amateur side. I Was a Teenage Zombie's biggest flaw is just how damn cheap it looks. It's pitifully directed, horribly edited (there a few occasions where characters' dialogue seems to be referring to earlier scenes that were either cut out or just not filmed), and has some of the worst sound quality you will ever hear – I don't care how loud you turn your TV up, there are some scenes where you are not going to make out what the characters are saying – did they stash the boom mike a mile away from the set or what? Have you ever wondered if it's possible for even a simple thing like someone slipping on a banana peel to be terribly represented onscreen? Oh, it is, and this movie proves it. And if the director had a hard time conveying a banana peel slip, you can probably figure out what that says for the rest of the movie.
What saves I Was a Teenage Zombie from its own incompetence, however, is its genuinely funny sense of humor. Not every joke is a winner, but there are quite a few more real laughs than one would expect from a movie that looks so poor – most of them provided by the tremendously over-the-top performance of actor Steve McCoy, as the evil Mussolini. Looking like a bulked-up Cheech Marin dressed as a ‘70s pimp, McCoy's sheer exuberance while taunting a victim with their own severed tongue or breaking a girl's legs clean off, in one of the strangest rape scenes you will ever see, is so contagious that you can't help but kinda root for the guy (and it doesn't hurt that Michael Rubin, as the heroic Dan Wake, is about as boring a lead character as you can get).
And speaking of the violence, I Was a Teenage Zombie features its share fair of bloody fun. Most of the effects are predictably cheap-looking, which in the case actually adds to their charm. There is one notable exception, however – a legitimately impressive, and unique, sequence in which Mussolini tears off a screaming teen's face and feeds it to him. It's a hell of a lot better looking than most low-budget effects, and is perhaps the film's best moment.
No, strike that. For pure outrageousness, you really can't top the great surreal moment early on, when Dan's outfit suddenly changes into a baseball uniform just so he can hit Mussolini with a baseball bat, and then changes back into normal clothes in the very next shot. It's a shame this scene occurs so early in the movie, as the rest of the film's humor can't help but seem like a letdown, since it never really reaches that level of absurdity again (well, except for the fact that it's about two superhuman zombies fighting each other, which I suppose, now that I think about it, is somewhat absurd in the first place).
If nothing else, I Was a Teenage Zombie could always be used by parents and teachers as a sort of morality-tale to keep kids off of drugs. Sure, it's no Requiem for a Dream, but the idea that "if you buy weed a crazy, green-skinned zombie will kill you and your friends" might just be enough to make impressionable youths think twice before sampling that wacky tobaccky. Unless, of course, they decide the movie would be a lot funnier if watched while high. Huh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea, after all.
The 411:I Was a Teenage Zombie isn't going to be stealing the crown of greatest zombie-comedy anytime soon, but it is better than you would expect given the (obviously) incredibly low-budget. My Boyfriend's Back may have covered the zombie/teen-movie parody ground much more effectively, but the awesomely over-the-top performance of Steve McCoy as the film's villainous undead drug dealer, and some amusingly cartoony death scenes, make this one worth a casual look for zombie fans.
