Hard Rock Zombies

Spoilers = Red 

What’s it about? Hard Rock Zombies is one of those movies that you really have to see to believe, because the description is so bizarre it just doesn’t seem real. So, you start with the music video style intro, with two guys, driving a fast car, who pass a hot girl on the road, and stop to pick her up. And then, for no particular reason, they stop to go skinny dipping in this broadly visible lake where a man in a suit and two midget butlers are watching them. The hot girl promptly murders both guys while the man erotically takes pictures. She then cuts off the hand of one of them while making a poorly written pun. Cut to a bar where the band, Holy Moses, is doing a floor show with a bunch of screaming girls. The gentlemen at the bar, however, are obviously not fans of the genre. After the show, Holy Moses is walking around in their underwear, or just buck naked, but their manager lets a bunch of girls in anyway to let the guys sign autographs, and they don’t seem to mind. The lead singer, Jesse, goes to the next room where a young girl warns him not to go into town the next day for fear of her father and some other men. They then put a music video into the movie. A poorly made music video. And then the sheriff arrests them for owning a van, it seems like. I don’t think that’s a crime. But in this movie, you have to move the plot along somehow. And that’s how we’re going to do it. Next, an old couple are having sex in what appears to be an attic and we find out that they let not only their children, but their grandchildren watch them sometimes. The girl that Jessie is flirting with is literally like 15 years old, if that. And the song that he’s writing for her are quite possibly some of the worst lyrics ever written. If he was trying to impress her with it, he’s lucky it was 1985. Move on to a town meeting where they are trying to get a law passed to prevent Holy Moses from playing their rock concert. The law passes, but mistakenly outlaws ALL rock music in the town, including music on the radio and records, and even singing in the streets. After Holy Moses makes it out of jail, the family that they’re staying with kills all of them and they get buried. And then, while their manager is eating dinner with the family, it turns out that the grandfather is Hitler, and it’s time for him to reveal himself and make his big comeback. Unfortunately, the underage girl that Jessie was flirting with, Cassie, was playing a tape that Jessie gave her at his grave, and it ended up bringing Holy Moses back to life. It also brought a lot of other things back to life with them. They get revenge on the family that killed them, inadvertently stopping Hitler, but making zombies of the whole Hitler house in the process. For mindless zombies, the band seems pretty cogent. They can drive a van. They perform their own sound check. They play their own instruments. They sound just fine singing. They don’t even sound like zombies. It’s actually really impressive. One of the townsfolk comes up with the idea to find a “live virgin” to tie up so the zombies can have sex with her, and then devour her. And then they’ll go to sleep for 100 years. And thus, the town is saved. Unfortunately for her, Cassie shows up at just that moment. Wrong place, wrong time. They take Cassie to the top of a mountain, where they tie her up, waiting for the rest of the zombies to come, where she’s saved at the last minute, by Holy Moses, who play a song written by Jessie with lyrics from a book he found about raising the dead. The zombies then follow them into a cave, where they’re suffocated (somehow) and Cassie and the band’s manager escape all the zombies who were trying to eat Cassie. Then, at Jessie’s grave again, as Cassie mourns Jessie one last time, Jessie’s hand comes up through the dirt and grabs Cassie’s hand.  

What’s good? It’s funny to watch because of how bad it is, but this is quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made. Even for 1985 this is poor quality. Like, this is low-rent on the below-average scale… 

What’s bad? Everything. From the lighting to the writing there’s literally nothing done right in this movie. The sound was particularly bad as it didn’t sync up with people’s lips. And it wasn’t even dubbed in a foreign language or anything. It just wasn’t synched up right.  

The effects? When you want to get something done, but you can’t spend a lot of money, improvise. That’s how movies have been doing it for a long time. That’s how this movie did it. You’re not gonna look at any of these effects and go “wow…” You’re gonna look at these effects and go “well, I could’ve done that better…” 

The acting? Sometimes, there’s acting so bad you think there should be a category called “C movies”. Where “B movies” just doesn’t get the point across how bad the movie really was.  

The music video intro. Start the movie with a typical 80s music video intro. Two guys in a fast car with a hot girl. This must be going somewhere. This movie’s about rock and roll, right? Hot chicks and fast cars. Nothing could go wrong there. 

Evil midget butlers. But then, wait! What’s with these evil midget butlers? And who’s this guy with the camera? This got really creepy, really fast. Nobody was expecting any of this to happen. Nobody ever sees the evil midget butlers coming.  

Immediately go skinny dipping. And then, for no reason, they decide to go skinny dipping in this obviously visible pond. That’s probably in view of like, a supermarket or something. Who knows with these folks. They don’t make the best of decisions. 

The girl kills both guys. And then, the girl promptly kills both of the guys who picked her up to give her a ride while the guy with the camera and his evil midget butler friends excitedly takes pictures of it. Not a very nice way to show your gratitude. 

The drummer kicks his drums over. When they go to the scene in the bar with the band playing their somehow not ironic version of ass-metal, the drummer kicks over his drums BEFORE they start playing in a seeming fit of aggressive passion. And then, throughout the song, when they show the drummer, you can hear drums, but he’s not beating on anything, because he knocked them over.  

The sound isn’t synched up. The audio isn’t synched up with the video for some reason. It’s like watching an old Godzilla movie, except it isn’t dubbed over in a foreign language. You can tell it’s still the people talking. It’s just a half a second behind. It’s almost infuriating.  

The guys at the bar aren’t fans. The guys at the bar are clearly not fans of the genre of music that they’re sitting there listening to. So then, why are they still sitting there listening to it? They don’t have to be at that concert. They can just get up and leave if they want. Instead, they just sit there and bitch.  

Why is he just buck-ass naked? Is there any particular reason the drummer is just walking around naked in the dressing room? Was this some sort of directorial decision? And then, their manager is all like, “well fine, I’m just gonna let all these screaming young girls in with you naked young men…” Like it was some sort of threat against them or something.  

That girl sounds serious. The girl, Cassie, tells Jessie not to go into town the next day because her father is going to do something terrible to him and his bandmates. I don’t know about you, but I would take that warning at face value and not go into town the next day… 

They just stuck a music video in the middle of the movie. For no reason, they turned one of the scenes into a full-on music video. But not only that, it was a weird and poorly made music video full of recycled shots and out of context footage that was probably shot and thrown in to fill in time.  

What are they arresting the band for? The sheriff doesn’t really seem to arrest them for anything in particular. He just arrests them. He arrests them for being there. And I’m not sure that’s a crime. I guess it is if you’re in a “rock n’ roll” band… 

The old couple lets their children and grandchildren watch them have sex? Throughout that conversation with the old couple and the midgets, we not only learn that they are the grandchildren of the old couple, but that the old couple routinely lets the children and the grandchildren watch them have sex. This town in getting weirder and weirder… 

The girl’s like 15 at most. The girl that warned Jessie not to go into town, and that he’s falling in love with, and flirting with, can’t be more than 15 years old. And he’s at least like 25. I mean, I know it’s the 80s, but, come on… 

The worst lyrics ever. The song Jessie writes for Cassie is quite possibly one of the worst love songs ever written in the history of love songs. If he’s supposed to be a musician, he should be lucky he died in a zombie massacre. Because his career as a songwriter was certainly not going anywhere… 

Did that old guy have sex with a goat? When the old man at the town meeting has to be explained what “self-abuse” is, he recollects something about another person at the meeting and a goat. It’s unclear what he’s talking about in the context of the story, but from an outsider’s viewpoint, it certainly looks like he’s describing having sex with that goat… 

Elsa didn’t seem to care somebody was getting into the shower with her. Elsa seemed completely fine with some random person getting into the shower with her. She wasn’t spooked at all by some random, naked guy just showing up out of nowhere and hopping into the hot shower with her. 

She killed him anyway. Probably because she was planning on killing him immediately after he got in anyway. Which took all of 30 seconds. I hope that was an erotic half-minute, because it didn’t long for her to stab you to death afterward. 

The old lady turns into a werewolf. The old German lady is a werewolf now? When did this happen? There’s no backstory there whatsoever. It’s just “oh, by the way, she’s a werewolf…” 

That chick just spends her time dancing in the street. There are numerous cut-scenes of Elsa just dancing in the streets for extended periods of time. And they’re not even short scenes. Like, minute long scenes of her dancing. What are these scenes about? 

Why did that guy start chasing them with a weedwhacker? Why is this guy chasing Jessie and Cassie with a weedwhacker? Why are they running away from him in the first place? Why did they start running? When did this chase begin? Where did he get the weedwhacker? What the hell is going on?!?! 

She’s dancing at various locations. Elsa is dancing on a highway, and on a mountainside, and in a forest in front of some trees. There’s just no rhyme or reason as to what or why she’s doing what she’s doing. She’s just doing it.  

For no reason, it turns out the old man is Hitler. Because we need something to do with the plot, we’ll take this short period where the band is dead to turn the old man into Hitler. Why? Because Hitler was a villain. And the old man is going to be the villain in this movie. So, to make things easier, we’ll just make them one and the same… 

They walk like robots learning to be robots. When Holy Moses comes back from the dead as zombies, their walking is almost satirical. They’re the only zombies that walk like that. The rest of the zombies just walk like regular zombies. But the band walks like Frankenstein if he was trying to keep a beat.  

The revenge montage. Holy Moses goes back and kills the entire Hitler family in a revenge montage that shows them getting everyone back. Ending with the four band members surrounding and supposedly killing Hitler. 

Was that guy going to have sex with that dead body? Was that guy about to take his clothes off to have sex with the old lady before she woke up and killed him? You can’t really feel bad for the guy. He was about to have sex with that dead body. 

That other guy is robbing Hitler’s corpse. The other guy is robbing Hitler’s corpse when Hitler wakes up as a zombie and eats him. I mean, I know it’s Hitler and everything, but that guy just saw a dead body and started rifling through its pockets. He was like “hey! Cash and cigarettes! Awesome!”  

How can zombies drive a van? Isn’t the definition of a zombie supposed to be someone who’s literally non-functioning? The band seems to be able to do an awful lot for zombies. Driving a van seems like it would take more cognition than a zombie would have.  

Everybody in this town is a horrible person. Everybody in this town is just an awful person. They’re all going around robbing corpses and having sex with dead bodies. This is just a terrible place to live. I would want to get the hell of there as quickly as possible.

By the end, the one guy is technically a “one-eyed evil zombie midget butler”. With adjectives going as they are, a full description of the one midget from the beginning of the movie, by the end of the movie, he’s been turned into a zombie, and is missing an eye. Making him a “one-eyed evil zombie midget butler”. 

The zombie band is doing its own sound check? How are zombies doing their own sound check? Aren’t they supposed to be brain-dead anyway? Who’s coordinating with them? “Mic check, one-two one-two…” “Brrraaaiiiinnnnsss” 

This entire movie is about the lead singer falling in love with an underage girl. This entire movie is about the lead singer of a heavy metal band falling in love with an underage girl, breaking out of jail, turning into a zombie, killing Hitler, re-RE-turning from the grave, saving his underage girl from being eaten by other zombies, sacrificing himself to kill the other zombies, (which doesn’t make any sense in the least), and then finally reuniting with his underage girl from beyond the grave. I mean, you want to talk about movies not aging well? Did anybody see this and just go “eh, that’s fine…” 

People seem fine handling Arnold’s head. People seem a lot less freaked out than you think they would be with a severed head in their hands. That little girl really didn’t seem to mind it at all. Arnold must be a really charming fella… 

Does she just spend all her time dancing? Does Elsa just spend all her time dancing? What else is she doing? They have all this footage of her in various places at various times just dancing for extended periods. Why was she doing it? Who knows. Did it take up some time? Yes. Was it necessary? Absolutely not… 

If Cassie would stop screaming, they wouldn’t all be coming towards her. Cassie wants all these zombies to stop coming for her, but she won’t stop screaming at the top of her lungs. Did you ever think it’s all that screaming that’s attracting the zombies? Why don’t you try shutting up for once? 

Midnight zombie rock concert. Who’s idea was this? “We have to save the girl!” “But how?” “With the power of rock!” Except they had it in a zombie conversation, so it was just “uuuhhh”. “uuuuhhhh”. “uuuhh”. 

Are they re-killing the undead? How did they suffocate or poison a bunch of zombies? They’re already dead. That literally goes against everything you know about zombies. You can’t kill zombies, because they’re already dead. They ended the movie by killing the undead. And then, it turns out that Jessie wasn’t even dead, after he died after being undead anyway. It’s just full of plot-holes… 

The other midget literally ate his own head. Throughout the movie, the second midget butler is continuously eating himself. He starts by putting mustard on his hand and then goes to work on his stomach and puts sugar on his guts and continues on. By the end, he literally pulls his own face down into his mouth while his head is sitting on the table at which he was sitting. And, if nothing else, you have to just say BRAVO! Because that’s one hell of a feat. I mean, it took him the whole movie, but if you can eat yourself, that’s nothing short of incredible… 

So, yeah. Go and see Hard Rock Zombies. Not because it’s a quality movie, but because you NEED to see it. It’s something that you have to see with your own two eyes to fully be able to grasp. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile…