Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies Directed By Krishna Shah, Starring "The Usual Gang of Idiots" (1985).

Perhaps you fancy yourself a metal movie maniac and think you've seen it all. Maybe you've read the book Heavy Metal Movies by Mike "McBeardo" Mcpadden and consider yourself a scholar in metallurgy or metalology. There are all kinds of rad heavy metal films out there, you've got the so shitty, they're good ones like Rock n Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare (starring Thor)! And the barely watchable ones like Terror on Tour, Slaughterhouse Rock, Rocktober Blood and even higher grade trash like Trick or Treat (with Ozzy and Gene Simmons as a dumbass Wolfman Jack impersonator named Nuke). So what's left at the bottom of the Showbiz Pizza ballpit, but Hard Rock Zombies, which according to Chas is the Plan 9 or zombiedom! 

   John Carl Buechler completists should have this on their bucket list as well because he was the Assistant Director and chipped in a few special effects here and there. Plus it's got all the Charles Band kind of garbage any self respecting gore hound should run away from in terror! 

   I recently watched this over at Sharky's (Hollywood High's #1 fan) pad and maybe it was the booze, the Chex mix or the double feature pairing with Shock 'Em Dead; but I didn't want to immediately slit my wrists like I imagined I would and even stayed awake throughout the entire film! 

I'm warning you though, this is a special case, so act accordingly when you view Hard Rock Zombies (you'll notice it's not called Heavy Metal Zombies--that should scare you already)! Watch this sufficiently baked, drunk out of your mind or dump 1000 cups over your head or you'll never make it out alive!

Not Enough Beer!

   We start off in the desert with a blonde skinny dipper, who kills two of the wimpiest kids on the road as midgets in tuxedos frolic with delight across the pond. She hacks off an arm and does a Beatles joke and we're off!!

Coke party at Jeff Dunham's house!

   At this point in time, I must stress that we've got at least an hour and 20 minutes left, so start boozin' early!

   Then we're thrust face first into a concert where a dude with hockey hair and a peach fuzz mustache plays what I can only describe as "New Wave Bob Seeger". Their solo guitarist holds a rose in his teeth (reminding me of another awesome metal movie Black Roses with rocking Howard the Duck looking demons). The room tone is extremely loud for some reason and when you hear the rocknroll, it sounds like its blaring from a busted transistor radio. A droopy eyed girl with french fried hair named Cassie (Jennifer Coe) shows up in a sea of groupies and warns them not to go to their next gig. Later on she becomes the object of Jessie (E.J. Curse) the lead singer's affections; He's 40, she looks like she's 12 and you thought Winger's "She's Only 17 was scandalous!"  

Ride away on my back, I'm a pedophile unicorn!

   The country bumpkin locations remind me a little bit of Please Don't Eat The Babies (man I thought I blocked that one out of my mind forever)! 

   They pick up the same blonde from the beginning out hitchhiking and she leads them into a trap. Oh yeah and her mother is a werewolf, howling up in the attic. She makes more "hilariously unfunny" hand jokes and the band ditches them to act like The Monkees. They spray beer at people over at a Bank of America line, bust out a giant cardboard cut out of themselves and do some mime-- I mean these guys know how to party!

Peter Frampton in Kiss makeup

   It turns out the midgets aren't just regular little people, but the inbred offspring of an elderly Adolf Hitler (in a Rip Taylor wig no less, perfect disguise if you ask me). This was the true story of the Ratt "Round and Round" video, it turns out Hitler's master race plan was to have butlers and sexy rodent hybrid girls painted silver look like new wave dicks and rock out with Milton Berle!     

Ratt and Roll, more like Reich N Roll

    Jessie (played by E.J. Curse), the leader of the miscellaneous band (they don't bother to mention their name) starts to fall in love with Cassie, who's criminally underage. I'm guessing she's the Tory Spelling of this film and got the job because her father is the producer or something.     

   They try to play a song for the Nazis in their courtyard that sounds like fake "Hysteria" era Def Lepard and wind up getting electrocuted. 

Working on a SEX FARM! 

   The repressed authority has a council meeting to try and stop the band from playing and giggle a lot about various types of sex that's are forbidden in town. Hard rock Zombies has got some real gusto, I mean they even decide to throw in a reverse Psycho shower scene, where one of the males in the band is stabbed by a woman. I've noticed a pattern with terrible directors who think they're doing us a favor by tossing in an Alfred Hitchcock homage, just stop right now! Birdemic is another wretched example I can think of.

Do I hear Hitchcock spinning in his grave again?

   Cassie plays a shitty song over the bands gravesite (they are all buried in about 3 inches of dirt, right next to each other). The beat makes the dead band pop out of the ground and march around like Thriller extras. 

Why the hell is Hitler so chipper?

   I think Jack Bliesener, is not an actor at all, but a genuine Hitler impersonator, because he's uncomfortably gleeful in his role and wears out the welcome mat really fast. The contrast between Holocaust humor and unfunny comedy is very unsettling--I also have to mention that I'm watching this again sober! The zombies strut around like undead mimes and start killing all the Nazis that murdered them. They play this awful fake Peter Gabriel song during the montage of them slaughtering their killers. 

Not a Kids in the Hall sketch

   A scuzzy promoter who looks like Dennis Miller or Rich Hall shows up to watch them play that Hysteria "Ode to Cassie" song on stage. Now here's a relationship too forbidden-- I mean he's a walking worm feast in his 40's who should be arrested for statutory.

  After awhile, I know it's hard to believe, but they run out of script and it turns into a wacky comedy, complete with Benny Hill music and too many severed head gags!

Man, I love Der Wienerschnitzel!

   One Nazi dwarf sits at a table and eats himself to death in different meal courses. Phil Fondacaro, the famous dwarf actor from Troll and Willow tries to eat a giant cow, I mean these are some cheap gags folks! The promoter freaks out over the zombie band and has a "Back to the Future" Chuck Berry's cousin moment.

I CAME UP WITH THE BEST SNIGLET EVER!

   I know its crazy to apply logic to this film, but that's my job here over at the TOG headquarters. I wonder why they keep the blonde who helped kill the band in the first place around and don't kill her. If anything she's more crucial to the plot then killing Hitler, they even encourage her to dance on stage!

   Toward the end, it gets so dark that it looks like they sent the lighting guy home! This movie is even worse the second time! I like how they took the slogan from Return of the Living Dead and paraphrased it to the effect of "They came back from the grave to misbehave"! Your patience may just completely run out as you watch this film and degenerate into a puddle of goop. 

ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER! MAKE SURE YOU ARE SMASHED BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION BEFORE WATCHING! 

WATCH HERE IF MUST

I came back from the grave to get some RC Cola!

Groupies!

Nothing scarier then an elderly dog with a switchblade

    

Kris Gilpin's Unearthed Works Dept: Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Part 2.

Here we go again with Part 2 from the files of Kris Gilpin's Unearthed Works! Remember it's the early to mid 80s and The Bates Motel series doesn't exist yet! R.I.P. Tony Perkins (1932-92). 

At that point GOREZONE co-publisher Kerry O'Quinn (formerly of FANGO) interrupted to present publicist Holton with a birthday cake (the frosting was a cut and bleeding skull). All of this, of course, just cut into the precious minutes the crowd of paying fans had with George Romero and company. (Holton says he's 48 though he could pass for 10 to 20 years younger) Holton did, however, press on and continued the questions from the crowd.

ROMERO: [something about relating to his zombies] "I guess I'd settle for being Bub."

HI FIVE Good buddy!

HOOPER: [on the budget for the first CHAINSAW] "The overall budget was 155,000; we started with 60 and the budget was projected at 90 [before deferments]. We had a real tragedy of sorts happen when we cut the negative on the picture; the original was in 16mm and after A&B rolling [early negative cutting] they had it all ass-backwards; on every cut you could see a line run up the screen. And this was after the film was [sound] mixed. They had to remix it and take out two frames from every cut in the movie and pull up all the sound FX [to match the picture], and that ran up the budget. We [basic cast and crew] all got screwed on the profits from the picture. There's no way to tell how much its made over the years." (Bryanston Productions, which was a mafia ran organization headed by "Butchie" Peraino, he basically kept all the profits and ripped off the cast and crew of TCM, ed). 

HANG UP GILPIN, I'd recognize that heavy panting anywhere!

   After the panel was asked to step down for Anthony Perkins' talk (he took Chris Lee's spot in the con, since he couldn't show), I spotted a familiar face sitting in the front row. I ran up to her just in time to accost actress Caroline [Chainsaw 2] Williams and get her to autograph my notepad. She was smiling and just as pretty as she was in that film. I then followed the crowd out to the small table where Romero was signing autographs; he's still signing them "Stay scared!"

   By the time I got back inside, Tony Perkins was smiling warmly, walking all over the stage and speaking at a very quick pace, fielding questions from the packed crowd.

I picked the right week to start sniffin' glue

   ANTHONY PERKINS: [On the awful TV movie, BATES MOTEL]; "I said, "I'm gonna sit down and watch every minute of it and not make any phone calls. This might be my only chance to see it. They don't rent that thing out, do they? [Someone answers, "No."] That's good! I thought it was just terrible, a desecration of Hitchcock and the Bates Motel [crowd applauds]. 

   

   Bud Cort called me and asked me, "What'll I do?!" I sympathized with him; I'd read the script previously. I said, "This is big exposure for you; really be good in it."  

I didn't think the story was good; I couldn't follow it.

   [On Hitch]: "He loved to play pranks on chicks; in the sandwich scene from PSYCHO, Janet Leigh was asking Hitchcock, seriously, about the making of the sandwich---should she put butter or mayonnaise on it, should she put the ham on before the cheese? Hitchcock who, like Ken Russell, knew how to make a decision quickly, had her do it a number of different ways; behind his back he summoned the crowd to stand around and gawk at Janet.

That's the end of the story--I'll have to work on that story.

Mmmm.. buttery mayonaisey ham

   [On William Richert's offbeat WINTER KILLS, "I have never seen that picture; another picture I have never seen is PLAY IT AS IT LAYS with Tuesday Weld, because I don't want to [think], What is it they see in this performance? I don't want to be disappointed. I was only on the set of WINTER KILLS for a couple of days but I had long speeches to make. Bill Richert's one of those multi-enthusiastic guys: "Ooh yeah, look at that great salt shaker!" "He gets off on movie-making in general". (By his garb and lingo, you can tell Perkins is a pretty hip guy, and the crowd loved him.)

   ["You think you have a rep. as a genre actor?"]: "I guess so, but I don't think about that; people used to call me Norman Bates.

Makin' speeches in Winter Kills

   When I dropped my resistance to that, people started calling me Tony. People associate me with my career; it doesn't bother me anymore although it really used to.

   ["Can you show us some Norman Bates?"]: "I cant do that, but it's amazing how quickly things come back to you. When I was doing PSYCHO 2, I was sitting in [director] Richard Franklin's office and he was auditioning some girls for the part of…what was her character's name? Oh, come on! ["Mary! someone yells] Mary? Yah! So I had to summon up Norman from one second to next; I said, "Norman, show up!" There is a point to this story, believe it or not. There was a moment in that rehearsal where I stumbled on the word "cuh-utlery" [cutlery] when I was reading with Meg Tilly. Richard said, "When we get to that scene in the filming, I want you to do the very same thing." And I said, "What am I, a performing dog?" But that was Norman coming down from where ever he-peacefully I hope-lives.

SURPRISE BITCHES!

   [On SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR (1969) with Charles Bronson]: "He was doll. It was a more psychological picture and we liked the director [Nicolas Gessner] very much. Charles and I got along very well; he was sensational. I'd talk to him about HOUSE OF WAX and he was happy I remembered it.

   ["You played a different kind of psycho in WUSA," I asked, "Was it fun to make?"]; Yeah, I walked on and did a couple of days' work on that. I enjoyed it because I knew the lines so well and didn't have to worry about what I didn't know.

   [A young boy told him, "At the end of PSYCHO 3 they didn't read you your rights, so you have the beginning of a story for PART 4!"]: "I like that! [crowd applauds; I understand they are prepping PSYCHO IV right now].

   ["Which movie did you enjoy making the most?"]: "I guess the first really big one I made, FRIENDLY PERSUASION, because I was able to sit back and watch Gary Cooper and I didn't have to carry the picture myself; they don't make them like that anymore: the message was good and William Wyler was a genius. They had the greatest lunches; the lunch table stretched the length of this room and guys with white hats carved your food; it was far out. I like the writing in that and the fact that I didn't know anything about movie acting so I didn't have to be technical.

Perkins begrudgingly in a Kafka-esque situation 

   [On Orson Welles version of Kafka's THE TRIAL]: "I didn't think it was very good, to tell you the truth; I thought he got that one all wrong. Welles thought the lead character should be guilty and culpable of all the [unstated] crimes he's accused of, and Kafka's whole idea was that he was innocent. Welles had to do it the tough way; talk about disagreeing with the director; I thought his ideas for the movie were crazy and I couldn't emotionally be in accordance with what he was asking me to do but, never the less, I did it. My character was too cocky.

HAR HAR, and you thought he was in the shower scene!

   [On the infamous show scene from you-know-what]: "I'll bet there's a whole bunch of people who know that I wasn't even there for the shower scene; I was in New York doing a musical-comedy and the entire shower scene's shot with a double playing Norman. In fact, Hitchcock didn't even want to have me do that, because he thought the silhouette of my broad shoulders would give it away, so the outline of the mother's very unlike my own; it's one of the very few cheats in the film.

   ["You feel bad about not being nominated for an Oscar for PSYCHO?]: "I guess I did, but the role of a psycho murderer is not typically a nominated one. [Someone said, "How about Fredric March in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE?] Yes, but he was essentially a good guy who sacrificed himself at the end.

I get invited to swanky coke parties and you don't Perkins!

  ["FATAL ATTRACTION?"] FATAL…uh, sure; so that's one; O.K. But after this I could hardly be expected to be too uptight about it, because I shot my wad on this one: I was in a cafe in Rome listening to my nominations for Best Supporting Actor [the year he was up for FRIENDLY PERSUASION] and they said, "And the winner is, Anthony…….Quinn."
And you know, in that split second your whole life…it was like, What else can happen to me now? That was tough.

   [On the rumor that Universal's housing a color version of PSYCHO]: "Boy I don't think so because it's not really founded in logic [especially economical]; to have a separate color negative…the one we had was clearly a B&W negative.

YOU HEAR THAT VAN SANT, FUCKING ILLOGICAL!

   [On THE LAST OF SHEILA, written by Perkins and Stephen Sondheim (!)]: "I thought it was a good idea and a very fine script--I really did--but, as a movie, I thought it had some slow spots in it; we had something a bit zippier in mind. We visualized something almost comedic. I thought [director] Herbert Ross did a beautiful job of style with it.

   [On new stuff]: "Was anyone there for the screening of MR. X-MAS DINNER (it was retitled Lucky Stiff ed.) the other night? [Which Perkins directed] [Mumbles] I'd like a word with you later! We're now back in the editing room with it; you make the things that work more predominant and try to figure out why the things that didn't work, didn't work. It's strictly a comedy, not about cannibalism, which is one thing we're gonna have to fight about this movie, because it seems to be about cannibalism.

Ivan & The Terribles, the punk band featured in Motel Hell

  That's the subject I don't think people want to see. I'm not talking about MOTEL HELL--always one of the greats! I'll see that every time. [crowd claps] I ran those films, like EATING RAOUL; I didn't like the subject. Our film doesn't have cannibalism scenes or grossness; that might disappoint someone who's sitting here and would prefer that it did. The next thing I'm about to do starting a week from today is to make yet another version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE--I mean, wild [crowd applauds] I don't know if you saw the huge pictures of me in the trades, promoting the shoot, but even my Jekyll looked a little crazy! [crowd laughs] I think it's more fair if even Jekyll has his problems.

Perkins plays J&H in Edge of Sanity

   ["You turn down any scripts you were sorry for later, etc?"]: "You can't think about that. Anybody can have a short career but to still be up here, after 35 years later…I'm still here…[ crowd claps ] You have to be able to bounce back and there's so much that can get you. Forget failure; how 'bout success? Success can shipwreck you worse. To have any regrets is stupid. You've just gotta…cool out on a daily basis.

Lyle is THE SHADOW OF DEATH?

   [On THE DESTROYER]: "Did I make a film called THE DESTROYER? Oh, is that what they're calling it now? Oh, yeah-- I have a new horror film! It used to be SHADOW OF DEATH. The story is that they're making a girl's prison movie in an abandoned prison--it's not a bad idea--and there's a guy killing everyone one by one. You take your chances with a film like that. I was impressed by the literacy of the script; it has some humor in it, and I didn't do it! I'm totally innocent. When DESTROYER comes for me, I'm like everyone else: "No, No!" It was a good role. I haven't seen the whole thing yet; we made that one in Denver.

   [Which PSYCHO do you like the best?"] "The first one's got to be the best. It was the originality of the plot; you can tell the story around a campfire and it'll work. That's marvelous, and it was missing from the second and third PSYCHOs. With the sequels, we were trying to keep up to date with the characters; we weren't trying to outdo the original, which could never be improved upon.

NORMAN, it's not nice to talk shit about the sequels!

   Perkins had been waved at from off-stage for some time now; he'd kept saying, "Just two more questions!" for about the last 25 minutes, not wanting to leave his fans. As to where DR. JEKYLL was to be filmed, he said "For some reason, in Budapest, so if you're in Hungary next month, look me up! I'm sure I'll have some free time! Thank you very much for having me."

   Anthony Perkins does not sign autographs; perhaps this was one reason he spoke so long and quickly. When he was gone, at 6:30, there was the "World's Most Disgusting Slide Show", featuring shots of bloody FX from films made over the last few years.

   On the following day (Sunday April 10th), the films set to be shown included FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS ('60), TV'S THE NIGHTSTALKER, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and PIRANHA. Since there was no one I was dying to see that day, and since I didn't wish to spring for another $18 admission, I didn't attend the second half of the horror con, although the scheduled events included: a makeup demonstration from Richard (PRINCE OF DARKNESS) Miranda and Catiana McCoy (SPFX make-up instructor at UCLA); film previews from Shaprio Entertainment, which included A HAZING FROM HELL (which looks to pour on the skin and blood) and MOONTRAP (w/ Walter Koenig); another horror-item auction, a costume contest, a presentation on FRIGHT NIGHT 2, including appearances by director Tommy Lee (HALLOWEEN 3) Wallace and some makeup FX men/supervisors; and talks by super-cuties Linnea Quigley, John Carl(FRIDAY VII) Buechler, Clive Barker, Mick (CRITTERS 2) Garris, Tony Perkins, Robert (Freddy) England--who also refuses to give autographs--and the event's surprise guest Roddy McDowall. Judith O'Dea, Barbara from NOTLD, was slated to appear at one time, but as far as I know, was not at the convention. Now, if I only hit one day of the con, why was this so incredibly long?

   Simple: Jeff pays by the word (Kris is referring to Jeff Smith head honcho of the famed zine WET PAINT, where this was originally printed in. Theater of guts pays in pocket lint and good intentions)!