Dreadfully Boring

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Zombie Nightmare (1987) 1/2 (out of 4) As a young kid Tony saw his father murdered a couple punks after he tried to stop them from raping a girl. Flash forward several years and Tony breaks up a robbery but he's soon ran over by a group of five punks (including Tia Carrere). His mother can't believe she's lost a husband and now a son so she has a voodoo princess bring Tony back so he can seek revenge.ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE is yet another film from the 80's that was made for very little money and the results are pretty awful. There were countless zombies movies made during the decade and from what I've seen this here is the very worse. There really isn't anything good about this picture except for the Motorhead soundtrack and the brief appearance by Adam West, the original TV Batman.I watched this movie the same day news broke that West had passed away. As I was watching this movie it struck me that I had rented this on VHS as a kid but I remember turning it off half-way through because of how bad it was. I mean, you've got a sequence here where a horny couple get into a hot tub yet they both keep their clothes on including the woman pretty much being fully clothed! The death scenes are all extremely lame, pretty non-violent and there's certainly no gore.As far as the lead zombie goes, he's very non-threatening and there's certainly no drama or suspense to be found anywhere. THe performances are bad, the direction is bad and there's just not too much going on here entertainment wise. As I said, it's fascinating getting to see West in his brief role here but even he can't save this mess. The film's opening credits feature Motorhead's Ace of Spades and that's certainly the highlight of this watered-down and rather lame horror movie.

When "Tony Washington" (Jon Mikl Thor) is accidentally killed in an auto accident his mother goes to a voodoo priestess named "Molly Mokembe" (Manuska Rigaud) to avenge his death. Molly turns Tony into a zombie and he is given a mission to kill the five teenagers who were joy-riding in the car that night. So much for the plot. Now, initially I figured that with Adam West (as "Captain Tom Churchman") and Tia Carrere ("Amy") in this movie that they would lend some credibility to this picture. And while they did okay, the rest of the cast was awful. Additionally, the action scenes were terrible, the sets looked cheap and the special effects were just plain silly. Likewise, the music of "Motorhead" and the other bands featured in the soundtrack wasn't good enough to radically improve this film either. In short, this film is pretty bad. That said, I have rated it accordingly. Definitely below average.

"Zombie Nightmare" is appallingly bad. I've seen plenty of low-budget productions and few compare with the complete misuse of resources here. There's one scene where a zombie chases a girl through a recreational facility with embarrassing cuts back and forth between the girl who is 'leisurely jogging' as the MST3k bots put it and the slowest and least menacing zombie in the history of film.This is one of few movies which is actually just about unbearable without either teaming up with a bunch of people to rip it apart or watching the MST3k version (which is hilarious, by the way, one of the best). The only things remotely entertaining about the movie are the laughably bad sexual innuendo and the obvious: Adam West. Let's face it, Adam West is just entertaining in any setting. Other than the sexual innuendo which really is laughable, there's not much here to enjoy even on a 'so bad it's good' level- it's just BAD.The film boasts one of the funniest and weirdest title sequences I've ever seen, and one which leads to a hilarious conversation about "Ace of Spades" in the MST3k version.Watching the non-MST3k version just results in seeing more of the sexual violence and hilariously bad gore cut out of the MST3k version. I can't see why anyone that isn't obsessive like myself would want to watch the original version of this film. It's torture.1/10

And here we have yet another eighties 'zombie' movie, which despite a title that brings to mind illusions of Lucio Fulci-type walking-dead mayhem, it owes a damn site more to slasher flicks such as Friday the 13th and The Prowler et al. Inexplicably, there was a high number of horror attempts during the eighties that incorporated the living dead into their titles, but cinematically delivered stalk and slash plot lines that were prominent since Halloween categorised the genre. Fulci's House by the cemetery was a prime example of a slasher film cloaked under the guise of a Romero style zombie-thon, whilst Zombie Island Massacre, The Dead Pitt and Ruben Galindo's Cementerio del Terror and Ladrones De Tumbas all mixed re-animated corpses with the plot trappings of the slasher craze that swept the eighties.It opens on a high school baseball field sometime during the 1960s. An amicable coach named Bill Washington is watched playing catch with some youngsters by his wife and son. Also in the stands are a Haitian school girl and two troublesome youngsters who let their intentions be known by plotting a nasty surprise for the African spectator. As the young family head home across the streets of the idyllic neighbourhood, they come across the two hoodlums from earlier attempting to rape the passive Haitian. Bill Washington immediately intervenes, much to his downfall, because whilst his back is turned he is stabbed in the chest by one of the rampant thugs. The screen fades with a shot of the young boy watching his father struggle for life on the cold concrete sidewalk.Fast forward twenty years and Tony Washington - the child from the prologue - has grown into a helpful and polite young man. Whilst out shopping for his mum's groceries, he underlines his impressive community status by courageously battering two armed thugs that were attempting to rob the local shop keeper. Things takes a turn for the worse for the vigilante, when he is savagely run down and killed by a gang of drunken teenagers in a scene that pre-dates I know what you did last Summer by at least twelve years. The gang of drunkards speed off into the night, showing no remorse for their victim. Despite being visually devastated, Tony's mum decides not to inform the police of the murder and instead she calls upon the favour owed by the Haitian from the pre-credits sequence. Somewhat fortunately (albeit stereotypically) Molly Mokembe is now a voodoo priestess and so with a dust of black magic, Tony Washington rises from the dead to avenge his ruthless murder....If you were looking for a possible pre-cursor to Kevin Williamson's I know what you did last summer, then look no further than this inexcusably poor mid-eighties entry to the slasher cycle. The plot is familiar to each and all, as the victim of a horrendous accident returns to avenge his death, systematically slaughtering the culprits one by one in gruesome fashion. Although the film never reaches the heights of slasher-classic status, it does boast a few credible benefits that lift it from the irreversible depths of movie obscurity. The soundtrack is awesomely impressive, with songs provided by Motorhead, Girlschool and Thor and I must admit that I was pleasantly shocked as 'The Ace of Spades' confidently adorned the credit sequence. As is the case with so many eighties slasher entries, Zombie Nightmare plays host to one young and fresh-faced 'soon to be superstar'. Yep, you don't need to clean those spectacles; that chubby faced youngster unconvincingly warbling is none other than Tia Carrera, most memorable for her characteristic performances in Wayne's World and True Lies.Unfortunately, it seems the budget spent on the soundtrack pretty much drained the finances from the rest of the feature, because Zombie Nightmare seems to take an unprecedented slope into mediocrity very quickly. Despite an excellent debut performance from Frank Dietz as the protagonist, the dramatics are really scraping along the lines of putrid slop. Watch out for the hilarious Manuska Rigaud, who seems to believe that 'acting' amounts to squawking her voice like she's constantly suffering from an epileptic fit. Zombie Nightmare is famous for thrash legend Jon Mikl Thor's lengthy cameo in the opening half of the film. Despite proving that rock stars certainly shouldn't walk the path to Hollywood, he also manages to pull off the admirable feat of adjusting his body shape and height unrecognisably post death!There's no gore or suspense worth mentioning and the whole feature is weakly directed to the excess of point and shoot mediocrity. Originality is a wayward concept in the eyes of Jack Bravman, so basically, what you see is what you get - and you get very little. Zombie Nightmare is far from being the worst slasher movie released during the peak period, but I really could only find very little to recommend. The hulking lone killer proves that this is pure slasher trash and those searching for a dose of zombie gore will be thoroughly disappointed