Zombie Nightmare (1987)

Episode 85, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig. Sadly, recently, we lost another good person. Adam West died at the, ripe old age of how old was he, Craig? Oh, gosh. 

Craig:  I don’t know. He was 

Todd:  in his eighties, wasn’t he? In his eighties, he lived a long and happy life, probably never really escaped the shadow of the film role he was most famous for, which is playing Batman in the absolutely corny and still loads of fun 1960’s version of Batman, both the TV show and the movies that subsequently came after. And, you know, the guy didn’t even seem to care. 

Craig:  No. No. I think he embraced it. 

Todd:  He loved it, and he should. It was fun. It was it was all good fun. 

Craig:  You know? I watched that when I was a kid, and, it was cornball. I don’t know if I realized how corny it was as a kid. It was it was a lot of fun. It felt kinda like a comic book. It was silly. It was family friendly. I loved it. A lot of people did, and I I think that he embraced that throughout his life.   And and kudos to him for doing so because, he he should have. 

Todd:  I actually think the TV show is even better as an adult. Like, I think it plays better because it’s just got so many crazy in jokes, and it’s so over the top goofy. And then remember he always had that bit where he and Robin would be climbing up the side of the of the building, you know, where where you like, all they did was tip the camera to the side and, like Yeah. You know? But then, like, somebody would pop out of the window as they were going up, and it was always some, like, cameo, like, some brief 10 second cameo by some famous person at the time. You remember that? Yeah. Yeah. That was a move that was a TV show back when TV shows knew how to have fun. And now about half of them are just kinda depressing.   Serious. Serious and depressing. Well, speaking of serious and depressing. No. Speaking let’s say speaking of having fun, we decided that we were going to pay tribute to Adam West and the only way we know how on this show, and that is to watch one of his crappy movies. And this movie is indeed crappy. It is a zombie nightmare. He did a few horror film.   Now you looked up he did probably 3 or 4 horror films. Right? None of them are really Yeah. But you chose zombie nightmare, Craig. You kinda honed in on that one. Tell me why. 

Craig:  Because I scrolled through his IMDB page and that was the one that sounded most like a horror movie. That’s that’s that was my, extensive selection process. Yeah, I don’t know. He did a few. In fact, there’s another one that I was interested Todd, and maybe we should have gone with this one, I don’t know. But he did a movie, I have no idea when. I don’t have anything written down about it, but he did a movie with Corey Feldman, a horror movie with Corey Feldman that, never came out. Like, it was never released, but it’s, available on YouTube in 10 parts.   And and and now, having watched the masterpiece that is zombie nightmare, I’m thinking maybe we should have gone with that one, but we didn’t. So as a tribute to Adam West, we will talk about this terrible Craig movie. My favorite thing really and just to get it right out there is that Adam West is top billed in this movie. Like, when the credits come up, it is starring Adam West. And I’m like, yeah, Adam West. Let’s do it. And then the guy doesn’t even show up until 45 minutes into this hour and a half 

Todd:  movie. Of course. 

Craig:  And then when he does and when he does finally show up, I’d be willing to bet that he filmed his role in, like, an afternoon. Like like, most of most of his scenes take place in this office. They, like, I he he gets out of that office for, like, 5 minutes at the end, but, I swear I have no idea how they got Adam West on this. Like, in my notes, at about the 45 minute mark, I have, finally, Adam West. And then 2 seconds later, my next note is, oh my Todd, Adam West. 

Todd:  What were you thinking? 

Craig:  Like, I guess a check’s a check. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. So right? What what are you gonna do? You know? You’ve already cemented your legacy. You might as well start phoning it in. 

Craig:  Well, I mean Oh, man. 

Todd:  Even even with his admittedly, he’s always been a little corny. Like, in Sure. He he you know, I’ve always felt like Adam West. He has a great voice, but he he always feels like he’s in love with his voice. You know? He’s one of these guys that should be in radio. Like, if he would had been big, like, in the thirties, he would have been a kind of Orson Welles type figure on the radio. He’s got this great voice. He has this great delivery.   But then when he does it in in movies, it’s it’s always it’s it’s it’s a little Shatner esque, the way that he 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  Really, rolls over his continents and just delivers with that kind of baritone voice, the lines that he does with such relish. It feels like his scenes in this movie take about twice as long as they need to just because his delivery is so labored. And I don’t mean labored as in you know? Not labored as in, it’s it’s drags and drags noticeably, but, again, it’s like a guy who’s kind of in love with his voice. 

Clip:  Frank, this Winston boy ran with   a bad crowd. High school kids, running red lights, getting drunk, smoking marijuana, you know,   the usual bad stuff. Murders a whole new ballgame. Till we get a line on this killer, I want the press to get nothing but misinformation. Otherwise, they’ll make this guy a a serial killer or a goddamn vigilante savior. 

Craig:  I think one of the things that I like the most about Adam West is that, you know, especially later in his career, he he had a great sense of humor, and and he appeared as himself in tons of TV shows and movies, and and he was really down with self deprecating humor and I think that’s great. I think it’s fantastic when you can poke fun at yourself and have a good sense of humor about yourself, and I really have a lot of admiration for him in that regard. So I almost feel like if he were here with us today, he would laugh right along with us at how crappy this movie is. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s Yeah. What about the 

Clip:  public’s right to know?   Hey. We’re concerned with the public’s right to live. I’ve spoken with the parents. They’ve told me they’re gonna cooperate. The last thing I want is for this kid’s gang to go looking for revenge.   Yeah. Well, whatever you say, Cap. I’ve got an APB out on anyone big enough to snap a person’s neck, and that ought to clear out, half the health clubs and all the high school teams.   Okay, Frank. I think you’re big enough to handle this by yourself.   Well, I’m going out now and buying some anabolic steroids.   Frank, let’s not have any more high school kids turn up dead. Understand? 

Todd:  I recognize this movie from the cover looking at the shelves. It was made 1987, And I actually bought this movie at some close out VHS sale at some movie rental place, and it sat on my shelves forever. And I never put it in, so I’m glad that we put it in this time. And, you know, the the the other thing about this film that’s really quite nice that that made it worth the watch for me was it’s Tiette Carrera’s first film. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I was that’s funny, you know, because now I I I’m sure at the time, nobody knew who she was. But now, you know, she’s 2nd gorgeous. I mean, she’s just stunningly beautiful. And, and in this, you know, she’s super young. She, I don’t know. She’s probably a teenager, maybe early twenties and it’s unmistakably her. But it’s nice to see that she evolved.   Beyond that. Right. You know, she of Beyonce. Right. You know, she of course, she did Wayne’s World and and she was really funny in that and and and the sequel Todd. And, then, I think my favorite role of hers, it was in True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, nigger, which I’m not a huge, you know, Arnold Schwartz nigger type movie type of fan. But that’s a funny movie and, she’s funny in it. So, yeah, it it is cool to see her in this too even though she’s awful.   She is awful. Hello. 

Clip:  Bob, this is apes. I just heard it on the Craig. What are we gonna do?   Baby, calm down. What’s wrong?   What’s wrong? Jim’s dead, Bob. Didn’t you hear it on the radio? They found his body behind the drive in. He’s dead.   Hey, baby.   Just try   and relax.   Relax? Don’t you understand? We’re next. He’s killed Peter and Susie and Jim. We’re next. 

Todd:  But she’s Tia Carrera. I could watch her all day. Let’s just put it down. Cherry. And, oh, boy. So, let’s just dive in, shall we? This is gonna be fun. Let’s do it. 

Craig:  You start it because I’ll be interested to see because I feel like we could knock this one out in 20 minutes if 

Todd:  we really wanted to. I actually thought this is the one of the sad things that we live so far apart now because this would have been the perfect movie to see together, and that is that is, it it seems like a film best enjoyed with others than watching by yourself. 

Craig:  And that’s the thing. When when I first started watching it, you know okay. So it opens up with this scene of this, like, voodoo lady, like, resurrecting this guy in a coffin, it it and then these cheap, awful looking opening credits, which most of the opening credits are dedicated to telling what bands contributed music to the movie, Like, Motorhead is in it and, like, some other big, rock names or whatever. 

Todd:  Well, I don’t know how big they are. 

Craig:  Well, yeah, Motorhead was pretty big. Yes. Big. 

Todd:  And I was I was excited when Motorhead came up, and Motorhead contributed the song that played over the credits, and that sadly was it. Right. 

Craig:  And then it starts, and it’s like this this shot of, like, some kinda, like, baseball practice or something. And it looks like it was filmed on my dad’s giant camcorder from the eighties. And I was like, oh, no. This is this is gonna be just, absolutely awful. But the saddest part of it was that I realized not too far in that I had seen this movie before. And I was like, really? Like, how have I seen this movie before? I watched the whole thing, and I kept thinking, oh, my gosh. I remember this. I remember this.   And it’s because Mystery Science Theater 3000 did an episode on this movie. And I love that show. And of course they did because it’s a terrible movie. At first I was really thinking, Oh Craig, man, we’ve really gotten ourselves into something bad. I didn’t I thought, I don’t want to sit here and watch this. By the second half, it really became one of those movies that is so bad that it’s funny. And not because and not because it’s trying to be funny, but instead because it takes itself so seriously and it’s so bad that you just laugh and laugh because, oh my Todd, like It it’s hard to believe that they could have taken themselves seriously, but they clearly did. Like, they were clearly going for it.   Oh, and it’s just awful. 

Todd:  Yeah. Actually, everything about it is awful. It actually took me back to my college days. The first movie that I ever made, I shot with a bunch of friends at college. And about 10 minutes into this movie, I thought, if we had made a movie called zombie nightmare, I think it would’ve turned out like this Todd. 

Craig:  Yeah. Because, like, I I actually thought about that. I because I know you have made movies in the past. I’ve never had the privilege of working with you on 1, but I I really thought, like, I bet we could get a few of our friends together and make a movie of this quality in, like, a couple of days. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. And this is it it it’s so funny because they only have, like, maybe 5 locations tops. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And the framing and everything, like, the framing on this baseball ball game. It it it I don’t know what it takes a good 3 minutes showing us this baseball game, and it’s so boring. There’s 2 guys who look like they stepped out of Greece. Yeah. They’ve got, 

Craig:  like, the slick Oh, they’re so funny. Yeah. They get the the the greased hair. They’ve got the greased hair, and, like, they’re wearing, like, the skinny jeans and white t shirts. And, like, one of the guys okay. So they’re totally just 50 thugs. Like, I just called them thug 1 and thug 2 because I didn’t know who they were. And I have no idea.   It looked like it was set in the eighties, but then ever these 2 guys are, like, in fifties Craig. And one of them you you know how, like, in the fifties or at least in the the movies about the fifties, the thugs would like roll their cigarette packs up in their 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Their shirt sleeves? Well, this this guy, it’s like they just stuck something somewhat square shaped up his sleeve. Like, they didn’t even roll it up in there. And I’m like, is that his mic pack? Like, what’s happening? Oh, god. It was so dumb. Like, they were just trying so hard. And I but I didn’t really understand what they were going for. And like, the timeline doesn’t even these guys come back up again later. Thank God.   But like, it, like the timeline doesn’t even match up. Like, I don’t know. Like, these guys were just living in the fifties until the seventies or something. I don’t know. Oh, god. But but anyway, okay. So so these thug guys at the baseball practice, who knows why they’re there watching these little boys practice baseball, but they are, and and they see this random black girl, and they’re like, what’s she doing here? And so she leaves, and, they they follow her off like, let’s go start some trouble or something. 

Todd:  They literally say that. Yeah. That’s that’s one thing you see in this whole film is everybody is stating the obvious the entire time. They state exactly what they’re going to do, exactly what they’re thinking. All of their intentions, they completely lay them bare for everyone to hear. Okay. Okay. Cut it out right now.   Hey. The knight is young and so are we. So let’s get totally tanked up, go down to the dance at Lincoln, and we’ll pick up some sleazy chicks. 

Craig:  Yeah. Alright. 

Todd:  It’s great writing. It’s fantastic. 

Craig:  So oh, Todd. It’s so good. They follow this black girl off. Meanwhile, the baseball practice ends in this very nice guy who’s been leading the baseball practice, he’s this giant guy, turns out his name is Bill, I think. He and his family, his wife and his young son, they’re walking along and they see these 2 thugs attacking this girl in broad daylight. Like like in the middle of a neighborhood. 

Todd:  Like a suburban 

Craig:  Yeah. Like they’re just gonna rape this girl on the street corner in the middle of the day. Like, okay. So Bill, the friendly baseball coach, intercedes and, like, oh Todd. That’s the I I think this is my favorite thing about this movie is that any time there’s a fight scene, it is the most horrible, horrible fight scene you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s so it’s so choreographed and badly choreographed and you can see every fake punch. And, like, it’s like people are just kind of standing around waiting until it’s their turn to get punched. Like, 

Todd:  oh, god. 

Craig:  It’s so dumb. 

Todd:  My favorite part is when Bill picks up one of these guys in, like, a wrestling move. It’s like he’s gonna body slam them. He lifts them up, and he spins them around. 

Craig:  He spins him around so his feet hit the other guy. 

Todd:  That guy goes down. He throws him down, and then he just completely ignores them and turns his back on them completely and starts tending to the girl. Are you okay? And his wife and son are there watching. They’re like, is she okay? Is she okay? And of course, one of them jumps up and runs at Bill with a knife and stabs him as they both run away. It’s, you know, supposed to be this really dramatic moment, but it’s really hard to take it seriously at this point. 

Craig:  Right. Another thing, and and the reason that I bring this up is because it happens not once but twice in this movie. A girl gets attacked and somebody comes to her rescue and while the rescuer is dealing with the attacker, the girl who has been being attacked just lays there on the ground. Like, she doesn’t get up. She doesn’t help. She doesn’t run away. She’s just, like, laying there, like, oh, are you fighting? I I’ll 

Todd:  be here when you’re done. Later 

Craig:  and if it’ll if it had only happened once, it would have been hilarious. But it happens twice twice in the movie. The the girl just lays there. 

Todd:  She just 

Craig:  made it. Oh, boy. Alright. Oh my gosh. We gotta keep moving. We gotta keep moving. Otherwise, it’s gonna 

Todd:  be a long episode after all. So Yeah. It zooms in on the kid who’s staring at his dad who just got killed, and we do the dissolve to where, the kid is now an adult. And it’s we’re back at that baseball field, and now he is this massive, like, bulky bodybuilder looking guy named Todd. 

Craig:  Like a stand in for the Incredible Hulk or something. He’s huge. 

Todd:  Yeah. And this guy, did you look this guy up? John Riegle Thor. 

Craig:  Just a little bit. He’d only been in a few movies. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. He had a like a heavy metal band and if you go to Wikipedia, John Thor better known as Thor is a bodybuilding champion, actor, songwriter, screenwriter, historian, vocalist, and musician. This guy. Wow. He was actually the 1st Canadian to win both mister Canada and mister USA titles in bodybuilding. Major. And and For him. The front runner for a heavy metal band called, wait for it, Thor.   And fun fact, he, at the same time was they were filming zombie nightmare, he was also apparently filming rock and roll nightmare, which is something on my list that we need to do sometime. It was another one of those covers that I was kinda curious about. Not the best actor in the world, though, but not terrible. Not the worst in the movie, by far. 

Craig:  Oh, well, I don’t know. 

Todd:  I mean He doesn’t have a lot to do. Let’s put it that way. I guess we never really get to see him flex his muscles as it were. 

Craig:  No. No. So now now he is like the neighborhood nice kid, and everybody likes him. And, he goes well, for he’s playing baseball with kids or whatever, and then he goes home, and the mom’s like 

Todd:  Hey, Ma. We won. 

Clip:  That’s nice, son.   You forgot the groceries.   Look. 

Todd:  You’re sorry, Ma. 

Clip:  I’ll go get 

Craig:  him right now. 

Clip:  Take a jacket. It looks like rain. 

Todd:  Okay. Thanks, man. 

Clip:  I’ll be back soon. Okay? 

Craig:  You say he’s not the worst in this movie. Come on. Give the guy a little credit. He’s pretty darned off. Oh, I will 

Todd:  give him credit for being awful. He’s not the worst. He’s not the best. I didn’t say he was the best. But also the the right the dialogue is absolutely crappy. Like, nobody could make any of this dialogue work. Nobody nobody in the Midwest makes this dialogue work, unfortunately. Yeah.   You’re right. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, god. It’s great. 

Todd:  It’s so bad. 

Craig:  Well well, we well, we also see then okay. They cut to this scene of, like, these eighties punks then they’re driving around drunk. And then we see, Tom, the big guy, is getting groceries for his mom and he forgets, like, his wheat germ or something. So he has to go back to the back of the store. 

Todd:  I’m sorry. You can’t you can’t brush over that. We’re at a gro we’re at what is supposed to be the grocery store, which is really more like a corner convenience store. And the guy 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Behind the counter is doing the worst Italian accent ever. He sounds like Mario from Super Mario 64. He’s like 

Clip:  That’d be all, Tony.   Have you got the provolone? Todd, when   I forget how much of my life provolone. Yeah? 

Todd:  How 

Clip:  is your new job working out?   Well, it’s not bad, sir. Except they want me to cut my hair.   Hey, Tony, you you 

Todd:  cut the 

Clip:  hair, you lose the strength. No? 

Todd:  Anything else? 

Clip:  Wait a minute. I forgot my wheelchair.   I’m in the back. Run the ladder. 

Todd:  Okay. Thanks, man. Mama Mia. Tom. Yeah. Tell me how your mother is doing. 

Craig:  Did you remember the provolone? 

Todd:  Oh, but could I forget the provolone? I know how much of your mama likes it. 

Craig:  We germ? Well, he’s a big guy. I mean, he I don’t know. I mean, I Yes. Bodybuilders. Yep. Something, I guess. 

Todd:  Bodybuilding thing. Yeah. Well, anyways Yeah. So he he goes 

Craig:  in the back. He goes in the back, and a couple of thugs come in to rob the store. And one of the thugs puts the gun in the owner’s face. And he’s like, 

Todd:  all your money sucker. You want Todd. My mind. Oh. 

Craig:  But And then, and then and then Tony saves the day. And again, one of the worst fight scenes you’ve ever, ever seen. And then, Todd just kicks the guys out of the store, like, get out of here, you dirty hoodlums. Like, I don’t ever wanna see your face around here again. And then and then Tony, the the nice guy that everybody loves, who carries a baseball bat with him everywhere he goes, walks out into the street and gets run down by the drunken eighties punks, and he’s dead. And, the shop owner runs out and literally, like, there are so many things that I have written down. Like, I would pause the movie to write it down because the the lines were so good. Like, he runs out and this kid’s dead in the street and he goes, Tony, who could have done this terrible thing? 

Clip:  Oh, just 

Craig:  And then they don’t they don’t call the ambulance or the police or anything. No. They don’t call anybody. They just 

Todd:  they just pick up his dead body 

Craig:  and carry it to his mom’s house. Yes. And, the mom’s like, oh no. And and there’s some guy there and and she says, do you know Molly McKimbe? And he’s like, you mean that crazy lady who lives down the street? She’s like, Yeah, go get her. And the shop owner’s like, What do you want with that crazy Haitian? And she’s like, She owes me a favor. And it took me a second to realize that the crazy Haitian was the black girl from the beginning. Yeah. And that’s why she owes this lady a favor.   But when this lady shows up Oh my gosh. It it it was it’s it’s it’s genius. Like like 

Todd:  That’s one way to find it. I 

Craig:  if you were trying to make a terrible movie, like, this is what you would do. They bring in this lady, this black lady, and I can’t even begin to describe how she talks. 

Todd:  Quiet. 

Clip:  Believer. She knows that whole body walk and begin deeper. What your body’s skin on. Vengeance for us wants this. You go to mister Cabrietti’s house. 

Todd:  Well, she’s she’s got that, like, warbly accent, but then it changes depending on the scene. Like, sometimes, like, it’s not even consistent all across the board. Terrible acting. I her premature graying too was kinda weird. I just like you said, I couldn’t get a beat on the timeline of any of these people because Tony seems fairly young, and she would have been just a little bit older than him, but she’s got gray hair and seems like an older woman. And and then it turns out there’s another one of these kids as an adult, and he doesn’t he seems even older. It just none of that really works. None of that really works as far as the timeline goes. 

Craig:  We jump back to the beginning scene scene that we saw before, with her resurrecting the zombie, and it turns out that the zombie is Tom. But, like, this whole ritual takes place. I have no idea where. 

Todd:  I’m like They’re candles. Just like lots. The candle 

Craig:  shop. I don’t think 

Todd:  it was a candle shop. 

Craig:  It had to have been. That must have been her day job. And there must have, like, in her day job store, there must be, like, a coffin. I I swear, I’m like, where did this fucking coffin come from? Like, why is all of it she just has a coffin overlooking the hills? 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Okay. So she brings him to life and then, like, it it’s it’s horrible. Like, he sits up like, like, this stupid, stupid zombie sound, and she hands him the baseball bat. And then I’m like, yes. Zombie with a baseball bat. Like, now we’re talking. Here we go. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  And then that okay. And so then the rest of the movie is a revenge plot where this reanimated zombie is, going after all these kids that that killed him and he ends up, we can talk about the specifics if you want, I don’t know, but he picks them off, 1 by 1. Yeah, and like over the course of several days, and something that I also didn’t understand was did the zombie lady have to do this ritual every night? Because it appears that she does it several times Well, it appears throughout the course of the movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. Or she’s just holding down the fort or something, like she’s gotta guard her candles during the day? Because you’re right. It always cuts back to back to her, and it’s apparently night, and we still got all these candles, and nothing has changed. And the guy is either back, or he’s coming back out of the coffin again. It is it like he has to return to the coffin every night? It’s it’s kind of unclear. But as inept as this movie is, just to give you an idea, like, they don’t even really follow through on some of the basics, such as they show us these these these punk kids. Right? These punk kids who ran him over. And shortly after he’s run over, it does cut back to a scene of them where they’ve pulled over and they get out of the car, and they’re kinda fretting about what they did.   And everyone is is kind of upset about it, except for the the leader guy, Jimbo. Jim Jim. Jim, man. Who’s this over the top, completely over the top punk kid. There’s a dumb scene with him and his mom where he just, like, basically Throws coal slaughter. That’s right. Insults her to the her face, like, calls her names, and then walks out. She just kinda shrugs her shoulders.   I guess they meet at the at the ice cream shop. It’s local. 

Craig:  It’s like one of those, yeah, like one of those drive in ice cream places and I like, I love this because most of the scenes with them, with this group of young people take place at this, outdoor ice cream parlor where they loudly, openly discuss the fact that they killed somebody. Todd like, they’re virtually shouting about how 

Todd:  they murdered someone. 

Craig:  And not just once, but several times. 

Todd:  That’s right. I love it that after he’s done throwing the coleslaw Todd his mom’s face and stuff, she says, oh, did you wreck another one of your dad’s cars? You know, he gets them on lease from the company. You can’t just keep wrecking them. He hops in his car, and he goes down the road. And this is, like, the second of, like, 4 of these scenes where all we see is a car driving and some music playing for, like, 3 or 4 minutes. It’s excruciatingly long, and I guess it’s supposed to get you hyped up with the music and stuff, but nothing is happening. It’s just this car driving down the road. Like, they can’t even make an awesome looking car driving down the road with hopped up music behind it exciting.   And then he, like, pulls his red Ferrari into the twist and cream ice cream drive in shop Yeah. Uh-huh. To meet his buddies. This is it’s a serious gang. You know? That’s why I said, like, if my buddies and I had made this movie back when we were in college, this would have been, like, the 5 locations we could have gone Todd, you know. This was the owner 

Craig:  Sure. 

Todd:  That said, yeah. You could film at our ice cream shop. We’re closed on Saturdays. You get you get all day. And that’s why these guys are there. 

Craig:  Oh, well, it’s good enough for me. I can’t think of any better reason they’d be shouting about murdering somebody in Nice Cream Place. But, yeah, he’s funny. The main guy like, we’re supposed to care about these people. I they’re they’re awful. I mean, he right after they run over the kid, like, they pull over to the side of the Todd, and everybody else is kinda freaking out, like you said, except Jim. And, one of the other guys, I don’t even know what his name is, the blonde one 

Todd:  Bobby. 

Craig:  Like, looks at him and is like, are you okay? And he’s like, 

Todd:  I kinda liked it. You know, just taking his life like that, snuffing out that big candle, 

Craig:  it’s flat. Who wrote this? Who wrote this movie? 

Todd:  It’s terrible. Oh my god. 

Craig:  Oh, it’s so bad. Oh. Oh, man. Yeah. I would just, like like, if one of my high school kids, like, turned this into me, like, as a creative project, I would be, like, well, you were ambitious. 

Todd:  You can tell the film thinks it’s clever, though. Because then at the ice cream shop, there’s this there’s this ongoing thing where Jim is trying to pick up this waitress, and he gets more and more aggressive and really pretty nasty, but they’re always, like, there’s this supposedly witty, witty repartee going back and forth between the 2 of them, and it always ends in some kind of joke about his dick. 

Clip:  Can’t you get it through your head? I don’t wanna see you. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, you’re not gonna do any better in this town, baby. 

Clip:  I’m really sorry, but my religion forgives into species mating. 

Craig:  You’re smart, aren’t you? But you’ll have it, and you will love it. So what? 

Todd:  Like, every single time. 

Craig:  Oh my god. The guy cannot stop talking about his dick. Like, he just like, that’s how he leads the conversation. Like, you’ve never seen one this big. Like, who does that? And then I I I in my notes, I’m like, dude, quit talking about your dick. She doesn’t wanna hear about your dick anymore. God. 

Todd:  But it doesn’t help that her her one liners back at him are so labored 

Clip:  as well.   Look, Jim. I prefer men with ones that be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. 

Craig:  Oh, and my favorite I think my favorite line of the movie is when he’s hitting on her at some point, and he’s just nasty, but, like, the the kid’s not even a good enough actor to really be threatening or imposing anyway. He’s just totally a douchebag. At one point, she’s like How old are you? 20 one. 

Clip:  17 is more like it. Right? Look, you may be tough, but I ain’t got to create it. I’m old enough to be your older sister. 

Craig:  That’s not a that’s not a thing. That’s not a line. I’m old enough to be your mom or I’m old enough to if you’re 9 months older than the kid, you’re old enough to be his older sister. Like, so bad. Like, I almost I almost feel like the line was supposed to be I’m old enough to be your mom, but the actress wasn’t really old enough. They’re like, we’ll just change it. Yeah. 

Todd:  I feel like Nobody would know. Yep. Right then and there, it had to be because, truly, this writer would not have written that line. I mean, come on. 

Craig:  Oh, god. I I can’t imagine. Okay. Alright. Okay. So this zombie Tom who who was, you know, this big body builder guy with this beautiful long hair, now all of a sudden he’s this zombie with short hair because I think that the mask had short hair because it looks like he’s just wearing a mask. It’s a terrible mask. It doesn’t move.   Like, if it’s makeup, it’s bad makeup because or he’s just that bad of an actor that he never moved his face at all. In some scenes, they bothered to give him kind of zombie hands, but not very often. Usually, it’s just his stupid zombie mask and his normal hands. And he’s walking around in like these cut off sweatpants through the whole movie like, oh, it’s so dumb. Okay. So then he starts killing off the kids, and the first ones he kills off are the the the tennis ones. It doesn’t matter what their names are. I don’t know.   But they’re the there’s a tennis couple, and, like, they play some erotic tennis and then like make out over the net and then go like Into 

Todd:  And 

Craig:  then and then they’re they’re gonna go have sex, like, in a hot tub, with all their clothes on. 

Todd:  He’s got his Todd whities on, at least 

Craig:  he’s got his tie and she is like fully dressed. Like she’s like, I think it’s supposed to be lingerie, but I feel like it’s like got a skirt. Like, I I don’t know. This this actress was clearly not getting paid enough to show her Todd because we were not gonna see anything from her and she was awful. Oh Todd, like I swear that she was Okay, she beats Tia Carrere in this one. I felt like it was all she could do to not look directly in the camera. And like I felt like they’re they probably had to really carefully select their shots when she wasn’t looking directly in the camera because she was so bad. The zombie shows up, kills the guy by breaking his neck, and then throws him into the hot tub.   And we get to see him like floating around in the hot tub with blood and and the office, like when the police eventually show up, they’re like, Yeah. They’re pulling that guy out of a pool filled with blood. Why? There wouldn’t be any blood? Like, 

Todd:  there was no 

Craig:  flesh wound. He just broke his neck. And when you see him floating around in the hot tub, like, he’s clearly moving. Like, this guy is not dead. Like, he’s like bobbing around in the hot tub. And then the zombie chases the girl literally around the gymnasium for like 2 minutes. Like, she doesn’t go out a door. She doesn’t go anywhere.   Like, literally, they just run around the gymnasium for like 2 minutes until he finally catches her and kills her with the baseball bat. And it’s just these lumbering shots. 

Todd:  This guy is not moving quickly. No. He’s your classic kind of lumbering zombie, and she’s running like crazy. And at some point, she just like rests, like, around the corner is how Yeah. It’s so poor. Like, she stays. It’s like she’s oh, she just rests, and then he comes around and grabs her and hits her with the baseball bat. Now this movie is also not good enough to show you anything, like, gore wise or whatever.   The best you’re gonna see is after the fact, some blood on the ground. That’s that’s all that that you really see, which really made this, I’m sure, perfect for Mystery Science Theater, like, oh my gosh. 

Craig:  Oh, god. Yeah. I I I would actually enjoy watching that episode a gig because I think it would be funny to watch them goof on it. But, yeah, I mean, as far as, like, the gore goes, I don’t know. Again, I don’t know how much we wanna get into it, but later, the last guy that gets killed, the blonde guy, the way that he gets killed is the zombie grabs his head and smashes it against this car in, like, an auto shop, like, in a garage. And you see the shot he grabs the guy’s head and pushes it towards the car and the effect was obviously that this guy had fake blood in his mouth. So he spits it out and it splashes all over the car before his head hits the car. 

Todd:  That’s right. Well, to be fair, in the world of this movie, blood comes out of your mouth whenever you die, no matter how you die. It’s just what happens. Okay. 

Craig:  I just loved I just loved seeing the blood hit the car before his head hit it. I thought that was so funny. Okay. I feel like we should get back to Adam West. So I’m just gonna say, alright. The the super punky guy, the one that ever you hate because he’s painted that way, he tries to rape that waitress and he gets, impaled with the baseball bat. Okay. So that gets most of the kids out of the way except Tia Carrera who gets killed after the blonde guy in a totally non exciting way.   But what’s going on in the background that we haven’t really mentioned yet is that there’s this young cop, I don’t know what his name is, but he’s investigating these murders. 

Todd:  It’s Frank, man. I know they’re always named Frank. 

Craig:  Well, all of them all of the names in this, like Tom, Till, Bob, Frank, Susie, Amy. 

Clip:  Jim’s dead, Bob. He’s killed Peter and Susie, and Jim went next. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Clip:  Pete. 

Todd:  Jim, but he’s Jimbo. So Yeah. That’s edgy. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Mike. 

Craig:  Okay. So so explain the whole deal with with the cops and Adam West because we gotta get Adam West back in here and some 

Clip:  Hey, dude. 

Todd:  It just occurred to me. Even the Haitian woman is named Molly. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I called her Magic Molly because she just shows up and kinda does some hoodoo every once in a while. At one point, she’s show at one point at the in the finale when they’re at the garage, she, like, leads Frank to the zombie, which is another thing that I never really understood. Like, at the end, it almost makes it appear like she follows the zombie around Todd to see what it does or whatever. And and when she’s at the garage, she does, like, some tantric weird motions with her hands and, like, makes the garage door go down. I love Magic Molly. She made my favorite part of the movie. Magic Molly.   But anyway, Adam West. 

Todd:  Adam West. Well, we get this tacked on kind of, investigation. Frank. Oh, my gosh. Is it terrible? Frank goes to the to the, tennis club or whatever and, you know, finds the bodies and has this very typical dialogue just lifted from any cop TV show, but delivered in the absolutely poorest way. And we’re basically following him around as he tries to figure out who’s doing these murders, and it makes no sense. And it’s it’s so cliche. Every time he shows up actually, every time he shows up at a place, there’s a doctor there who it seems like is maybe trying to do a Columbo impression or something.   This doctor 

Craig:  I don’t know. I don’t know, but please play a clip because I was dying. 

Todd:  Craig, nice to see you can make it to the clambake. 

Clip:  Oh, what the hell else would I be doing at 3 o’clock in the morning? See your boys in white are moving right along? 

Todd:  Well, you probably noticed the lovely lady on her way out. Now the boys are trying to fish lover boy out of a swimming pool full of blood. What’s great is every time he shows up at the at the scene, there’s always a cop there and this guy there, so it’s always the same scene. He asks the doctor something. The doctor has something to say. They have some witty banter back and forth. They chuckle, and they go on. He ends up, back at the station and comes in, and it turns out that the chief, I suppose, the chief is Adam West.   And again, none of this makes any sense. 

Clip:  The cap, where did the newspapers get the, drug and suicide story?   I gave it to them.   You gave it to them? I don’t understand.   Frank, this Winston boy ran with 

Todd:  a bad crowd. High school kids, running red lights, getting drunk, smoking marijuana, 

Clip:  you know, the usual bad stuff. Murder’s a whole new ballgame. Till we get a line on this killer, I want the press to get 

Todd:  nothing but 

Clip:  misinformation. Otherwise, they’ll make this guy a a serial killer or a goddamn vigilante savior. 

Todd:  I mean 

Craig:  and that’s the thing. Like, Adam West, what can you say about his performance in this movie? Like, you there’s nothing you can do with this terrible dialogue, and I I feel like I don’t wanna say he’s not trying because he’s not a bad actor. And like you said, he’s got a great voice and he’s got a great look. But the best he could do is just deliver these lines. Like that’s it. Like you can’t do any more than that. It’s it’s just it’s it’s crap. I mean, he and he he knew it.   Like, I I feel like I could see in his face, in his performance that he knew that this was Craig, and he was just phoning it in. Like, seriously, sign the check. Like, come on. I’ve got other things to do today. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  Oh, god. 

Todd:  I don’t it can have been a bit very big check. That’s for sure. No. I just didn’t somehow the somehow the the chief is skeptical of everything that Frank is doing and everything that Frank is saying, including the investigation and basically just telling him to wrap it up all the time. One of the it was one of the punks who had tried to rob the man in the grocery store gets brought into the police station, and he’s going ape. Like, he’s on PCP or something, and he’s, again at another terribly staged fight scene. Awful. Yeah.   Where there anyway, the the police have to subdue him, and for no good reason at this point, Adam West, the policeman, are the Kicks him in the face. Kicks him in the face. That’s right. And and is just convinced that because he’s a violent criminal and all these people died in violent ways, that he must be the killer, and so I’ve just wrapped up your case for you. How do you like them apples? 

Clip:  James is a terrifyingly strong dude.   Then why did he kill the kids? Then why did he kill the kids? You know none of them were robbed. 

Todd:  I don’t know. Maybe he 

Clip:  was working for somebody. Maybe he’s got a new hobby. But we’ve got him now, and we’ll find out just as soon as he talks. What’s the matter, Frank? A little flesh wound because you couldn’t solve this case yourself. What? The object is to clear these cases as soon as possible.   Maybe too soon. And then 

Craig:  they go on a date. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. They’re sipping what’s clearly, like, just, like, iced tea or something, and when it’s supposed to be whiskey, there’s no oh my they’re not even in the right glasses. Everything about this movie everything about this movie 

Craig:  is terrible. And and then so, like right. He’s trying to convince him, oh, it’s nothing. It’s nothing. So then the young cop, Frank, I’ll take your word for it, goes home and sits down to a nice ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. You’re not kidding. 

Todd:  You’re not. 

Craig:  And then decides that he needs no. I’m not kidding. It’s totally real. But then decides that he needs to do more investigation. And, he he real he looks at all these crime scene photos, and he realizes that Magic Molly has been at all these places. So he goes back to the captain and he’s like, Oh, look, Magic Molly was at all these places. And then we get this lazy ass, like, audio flashback where it’s not even a flashback to the beginning where the thugs were were hurting this girl. But we just like hear the audio play over the scene and Adam West does that thing in movies where it’s like, Oh, I’m remembering something.   He’s looking around at nothing. And as it turns out, Adam West was one of the fifties thugs, who harassed this girl. And so as soon as he dismisses Frank, he calls somebody else who we figure out is the other fifties thug who turns out to have been Jim’s, the horrible 80s thug’s dad. Yeah. So he’s like, get over here. We have to take care of something. And that other guy’s like, okay. And he runs outside and the zombie’s out there waiting for him and he shoots him, I think.   And then the zombie wakes up and then this guy, the fifties thug who’s now, old eighties thug, I guess, gets killed because he’s the slowest mother I’ve ever seen in my life. Like like he fumbles with the keys in the car for like 30 minutes, and then he gets in the car and doesn’t close the door and, like, fumbles with the keys in there for another 30 minutes until the zombie finally gets to him and just kills him. Oh. And, then it again, the yeah. The the zombie follows the last 2 kids who are remaining, Amy, 

Todd:  to your career. At least she gets saved till the end. 

Craig:  She gets saved till the end, and she calls the last guy. And she’s like, 

Clip:  he’s killed Peter and Susie and Jim. Where’s that? 

Craig:  Next? And so then they get together and, like, they’re, like, we don’t have any money. What should we do? Oh, well, let’s knock over a garage. And those were 

Todd:  okay. 

Craig:  So they go to the garage and they’re like 

Clip:  This is a big garage.   Yeah. A little too big.   I wonder where they keep their money.   Yeah. Good question. A little too good. 

Todd:  Oh my god. 

Craig:  These these are real lines. And so then they get slowly chased around in the garage, and they get killed. And then Frank, like, follows the zombie to a graveyard. And this is all so it’s so weird and contrived and stupid. I don’t even know. You talk 

Todd:  about it. Well, the thing is somehow the zombie knew that they were at the garage, because the zombie goes to the garage to kill them. The voodoo lady who we found out by now, is following the zombie around, apparently, I guess Todd make sure that he does it? I don’t know. She was at the garage too. So after the guy kills the guy and the girl, the zombie lumbers off, and the woman lumbers off after him, and then Frank follows the woman. And they he follows them her to a graveyard. And they’re at the graveyard, and I guess the idea is now that the zombie is done with his his revenge, But then Right. Adam West shows up with a gun, a weird gun.   It looks like a Star Wars blaster. Yeah. Actually, I 

Clip:  do not 

Craig:  Right. With, like, with it’s like a handgun with a scope and a silencer. Like, it’s weird. Yeah. 

Todd:  He just belts out everything that’s going on. Also, while giving the fun fact 

Clip:  But you see, some bees lose their energy after they revenge themselves. 

Todd:  Oh, that was my 

Craig:  that was my favorite thing. As soon as he shows up and Frank is there at the graveyard, he’s like, The voodoo lady explained everything to me on the way here. And then he explains it all. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, god. Yeah. We we had a chat on the way over. I now I know what’s going on. No big. 

Todd:  So then he’s got a gun trained on Frank and the voodoo lady, and he turns, and he shoots the zombie. I have no idea why he shoots the zombie, but he shoots the zombie a couple times, and then he turns and he shoots her to kill her. 

Craig:  Frank’s like, I guess you have to kill me now, and he’s like, yep. 

Todd:  Yeah. But just so happened that they were by the Craig, and I put this together about a minute after the fact, but it looks like they happen to be near the grave of Tony’s dad. 

Craig:  Mom, the zombie. 

Todd:  Yeah. The zombie’s dad. And so this is our big twist ending is that the zombie’s dad, you know, it’s one of these burst out of the grounds. It looks like some green carpet was thrown over a hole. Yep. And, he grabs Adam West, and he pulls him down into, you know, a glowing red abyss. And then Frank turns around and walks away dramatically. 

Craig:  Through the mist. Yes. Through the fog machine. 

Todd:  For a long time, like, this just letting all this sink in for us. You know? I I just you know, of course, it’s dumb. Of course, it raises so many questions, like, why did Frank need to kill anybody? The zombie’s gone. Now the zombie’s finished. Right. He wasn’t even targeting Frank or his buddy Todd. So that was an issue. Maybe they thought after all these years that this voodoo lady would get some idea and try to hold them accountable, but she didn’t f r. 

Craig:  Even though she right. Even though she’s known all along, like Yeah. It’s not like any new information has been revealed or anything. Right. Yeah. And and why why is why is Billy, the nice baseball coach, rotting in hell to pull somebody down there. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, the other thing that I didn’t get too, like okay. So this mother, right, it was the mother’s idea once her son was killed Uh-huh. To take him to the voodoo lady Todd have revenge. The mother was hell bent on revenge. And I’m thinking Yeah. If the mother was so hell bent on revenge, why through all these years did she just not have the voodoo lady bring her husband back from the dead to kill the people who killed him? Good point. You know? Good talking.   You know, sadly, the movie doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, believe it or not. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s really bad. But honest to Todd, like seriously, the first 20 minutes, I’m like, Oh, this is torture. I can’t believe I’m gonna have to sit here and watch the whole thing. And then by, like in the second half, I was like hysterically laughing because it was so bad. Like I was laughing out loud at how bad it was And I feel like if and I’m being redundant, I’ve already said this, but if they were going for cheesy and stupid, it wouldn’t have been as funny. They’re not.   Like, they they treat this like it’s a serious horror movie. And just the fact that it is so awful ends up being hilarious. I’m I’m not at all surprised, you know, whoever whoever picks the movies for Mystery Science Theater 3000, they did an excellent job in choosing this one because this is a great movie to to sit around and and poke fun at because it’s it’s just it’s terrible. But ultimately, ultimately, I enjoyed watching it because it was so bad it was funny. 

Todd:  Yeah. I would have enjoyed watching it more with other people, but you’re right. It is the quintessential so bad it’s good movie. No question about it. And I guess right now, here in 2017, the, episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where they do this movie is on Netflix right now. 

Craig:  Oh, man. And let’s check it out because it was it was really funny. 

Todd:  I would actually sit through this movie again to hear them riffing on it a 100%. It was 

Clip:  Me too. 

Todd:  Then watch a a young Tia Carrera one more time. Right. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, god. Yeah. Can’t can’t say that enough. If you’re a fan of hers, she is gorgeous. Terrible, terrible acting, but, stunningly beautiful. She’s Todd, what would you guess? Would you guess she’s probably, like, in her teens in this movie? 

Clip:  I guess. 

Craig:  Maybe early twenties? 

Todd:  I think even in Wayne’s world famously, she was only, like, 19 or or something like that. 

Craig:  Well, she had to be really yeah. 

Todd:  But, yeah, she’s she’s got it. She still does Todd, anyway. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. She’s she’s great. Love her. 

Todd:  Tia Carrera, if you’re out there. Yeah. We love you. We love you. We love you, Tia Carrera. 

Craig:  Glad you mentioned that. Adam West and Adam West. I almost, like, we’re I was watching this, and I was thinking, Todd. He deserves better than this. Like, if we’re gonna do a tribute, he deserves better than this. But again, you know, he he really had a great sense of humor about himself and about his career. So, if, if he, if he, And that he knows that it’s in all sincerity. He was a good guy.   He was a good actor and he left, a legacy, and not many people can say that. So, cheers to you, Adam West. Good life, good career, good guy. 

Todd:  And please don’t jump out of the grave and drag us down. 

Craig:  Please. 

Todd:  Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher. You can also find us on our Facebook page. Like us there. Let us know what you think of this episode, and also let us know what movies you’d like us to do in the future. Until that future time, my name is Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig with 

Todd:  2 Guys and a Chainsaw.