Thursday, June 10, 2010

ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE (1986) - when Jon Mikl-Thor sets his mind to something (dead or alive), watch the fuck out

Frank Dietz, future teenage star of Black Roses, shows his range by playing a sensible adult cop who remains emotionless and stiff despite his immediate surroundings.


An opening song can be a good indication of the cinematic quality therein, and here we kick things off with Ace of Spades, chugging along over the opening credits. I wonder how they convinced Lemmy to let them use this song (after all, it’s a really low budget movie). Maybe the filmmakers were buddies with Satan, who was buddies with Lemmy. That must be it. Either way, the song grabs your attention, and we are promised more songs by Fist, Girlschool, Virgin Steele, and some band called "Deathmask" (which, incredibly, I have never heard of). Of course, Thor will provide some tunes, as he also acts in the movie (he’s a multi-dimensional talent who can also bend steel rods and smash bricks on his chest).

So, two punks watching a little league baseball game get bored and, naturally, decide to rape some girl walking by. Ballplayer and director extraordinaire John Fasano (see Black Roses) tries to intervene on behalf of the rapee, pulling an airplane maneuver on one of the assailants. Unfortunately, he is stabbed, all in the presence of his mother and younger brother Thor. That’s what you get for messing with a rapist.

We cut to modern day, and a grown up Thor (his flowing locks cascading out of the back of his cap, his bulging muscles…oh, sorry) is playing baseball when not being a total mama’s boy. He’s minding his own business, beating up a couple of hooligans robbing a convenience store (one has a mullethawk, btw), when he gets unceremoniously run over by a group of drunk ruffians in a car, including some skunk haired dude and Tia Carrere (co-star of Wayne’s World and naked in Showdown in Little Tokyo). The kids drive off, rather than face the cold arm of the law, or to risk being caught in a patented Mikl-Thor Thorplex.

Our heavy metal hero ends up deceased and stuff, and skunk boy admits that he enjoyed participating in vehicular manslaughter, that it was like "snuffin’ out a big candle". However, the plot takes a turn when the voodoo priestess from the beginning happens upon Thor's body and starts doing some voodoo shit (I’m not a doctor, mind you).


Meanwhile, skunk boy is feeling a bit disenfranchised. His mother is perpetually ragging on him, even calling him a "disrespectful punk". He does what any troubled young man would do when confronted with the obvious, hurling cold spaghetti noodles in her fucking hag face. He then drowns his sorrows by cruising the neighborhood in his hot red compact, blasting some Girlschool (who fucking rock). He meets up with Tia and friends at Twist and Crème,as this is pre-Stan Mikita’s Donuts. They check the local paper for an obituary notice, but don't find anything, forgetting that HEAVY METAL NEVER FUCKING DIES EVER.

Two of the clique members, a couple, decide to play tennis at the local YMCA, followed by a whirlpool make out session (that’s how the gays meet). Zombie Thor happily shows up to snap the guy’s neck, and then crushes the girl’s face with a baseball bat. The oink patrol shows up, along with a coroner with a Bogart accent, and they conclude that the perpetrator is a "large angry person".

Our Thor killers start to get nervous, except for skunk boy, who can't wait to get his hands on the rampaging zombie. Me thinks skunk is getting too big for his britches. He continues on, hitting on a girl who refuses his advances with razor sharp logic, stating "I'm old enough to be your older sister!". He later tries again by repeatedly telling her that he has a large penis. She refuses yet again, so he rapes her at knifepoint. This doesn't sit well with resident feminist and resolute zombie Thor, so he impales this douche with a baseball bat.

No problem. Adam West is on the case, he of a precinct that encourages surly cigar chomping. They plant a double suicide story for the dead couple, and try to pin the murders on the mullethawk guy from earlier, assuming they can wrestle him to the ground, as he flips out at the station as if on a PCP binge (which might be the case, lest I jump to conclusions). In a wonderful touch, Adam, while strolling out for a drink with the other badged piggie, kicks the innocent suspect for no reason (not that the oink patrol needs a reason). One of the bacon boys brings up a reasonable explanation for this whole killing business, but West won't have any of it. He mentions that their suspect couldn't have impaled someone with a baseball bat, but West retorts with "maybe he has a high batting average". After all, snark trumps logic.

The whole things ends in a fitting twist that lays out the bacon enforcement’s true loyalties in this matter. In the end, Thor is our hero, despite the questionable legalities of his process. He is the free thinking, partially deceased arm of justice, completely independent of the bureaucratic shame these uniformed pork chops stuff deep in their psyches. The true villain is this system of immoral order, but skunk boy runs a close second. After all, snuffing out poseurs is a joy second to none (or, in this case, second), and Thor is entitled to enjoy himself after a lifetime and beyond of helping others.

No comments:

Post a Comment