Misplaced Pages

Zombie Nightmare

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GamerPro64 (talk | contribs) at 02:09, 2 April 2021 (→Reception: trying to figure out this section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 02:09, 2 April 2021 by GamerPro64 (talk | contribs) (→Reception: trying to figure out this section)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) 1986 Canadian horror film
Zombie Nightmare
Directed byJack Bravman
Screenplay byJohn Fasano
Produced byJack Bravman
Starring
CinematographyRoger Racine
Edited byDavid Wellington
Music byJon Mikl Thor
Production
company		Gold Gems
Distributed byNew World Pictures
Release date
  • 1987 (1987)
Running time89 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
Budget$180,000

Zombie Nightmare is a 1987 Canadian zombie film produced and directed by Jack Bravman, written by John Fasano, and stars Adam West, Tia Carrere and Jon Mikl Thor. The film centers around a baseball player who is killed by a group of teenagers and is resurrected into a zombie by a Haitian voodoo priestess. The zombie goes on to kill the teens and the murders are investigated by the police. Shot in the suburbs of Montreal, Canada, the film was originally intended to be a black-centric film before changing the characters to have whiter names to appease investors.

The film features a heavy metal soundtrack featuring Motörhead, Girlschool, and Jon Mikl Thor's band Thor. Originally planned for theatrical release, it was released direct-to-video by New World Pictures. The film was a commercial success but received negative reviews from critics while the heavy metal soundtrack received praise. Zombie Nightmare was shown in an episode of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1994 during a Thanksgiving marathon hosted by Adam West.

Plot

After baseball practice, William Washington stops two teenagers assaulting a young girl. The teens fatally stab him and flee. Years later, after disrupting an attempted robbery at a grocery store, William's son Tony, now a baseball player, is struck and killed by a car full of teenagers: Bob, Amy, Jim, Peter, and Susie. The teens flee the scene and Tony's body is carried to his home, where his mother Louise mourns for him. She contacts Molly Mekembe, the girl William saved, to repay the favor of her rescue. Now a voodoo priestess, Molly resurrects Tony as a zombie and uses her powers to aid him in his revenge by guiding him to the teenagers.

The next night, Tony tracks Peter and Susie to an academy gymnasium and fatally breaks Peter's neck, then kills Susie by crushing her skull with a baseball bat. Police detective Frank Sorrell investigates the case, with the medical examiner concluding that they are looking for a large-built man. Police captain Tom Churchman tells the press that the murders were a drug induced murder-suicide. The next night, Tony finds and kills Jim by impaling him with his bat before Jim can rape a waitress. Churchman tells Sorrell that they found a suspect responsible for the murders and closes the case. Believing that the case has not been truly solved, Sorrell investigates photos that place Molly at both incidents and suggests to Churchman that they bring her in for questioning. However, the captain dismisses her as a "batty, voodoo palm reader that follows ambulances around". Sending Sorrell back home to rest, Churchman contacts Jim's father Fred and informs him of Molly's involvement in his son's death, then tells him to come to the police station. As Fred tries to leave his home, he is killed by Tony.

Knowing that they will be next, Bob and Amy decide to leave town. While at Jim's uncle's garage to steal money, Tony finds them and kills them. Sorrell is attacked by the zombie, but survives. While monitoring Tony's actions, Churchman abducts Molly at gunpoint and forces her to show him where Tony is going. Sorrell follows the zombie to a cemetery. Molly and Churchman soon arrive, with both telling Sorrell that the priestess resurrected Tony to not only avenge himself, but also to avenge Molly, as Churchman and Fred were the two that attacked her years ago and Churchman was the one who had killed Tony's father. Churchman shoots Tony having learned that a revived zombie's power fades once it has achieved its goal. After destroying the zombie he shoots and kills Molly while she casts a spell. Before he is able to shoot Sorrell for being a witness, a second zombie rises out of a nearby grave and drags Churchman into the ground with him as Churchman pleads with Sorrell to kill him.

Cast

  • Adam West as Capt. Tom Churchman
  • Jon Mikl Thor as Tony Washington
  • Tia Carrere as Amy
  • Manuska Rigaud as Molly Mekembe
  • Frank Dietz as Frank Sorrell
  • Shawn Levy as Jim Batten
  • Linda Singer as Maggie
  • Alan Fisler as Bob
  • Hamish McEwan as Peter
  • Manon E. Turbide as Susie
  • Walter Massey as Mr. Peters

Production

Adam West was on the Zombie Nightmare set for two days.

Wanting to direct a horror film, Jack Bravman, who had worked in the adult entertainment industry, contacted John Fasano after hearing about his work on the horror film Blood Sisters. Bravman asked Fasano to write the script and take an uncredited co-directing role. Fasano accepted and wrote the original script to have the teens be black with black-sounding names, setting the film in his home town of Port Washington, New York, and offering local actors roles for the film. The script was later changed to give the teens more white sounding names after investors were worried that a black-centric cast would not sell in the foreign market. Having written the script on an IBM Selectric II, Fasano wrote up the white sounding names, cut them out with a knife, and glued them to their appropriate places in the script. After the name changes, they received a budget of $180,000 from investors. Unions in New York did not give the production a permit to film in the state, causing filming to move to Montreal.

Zombie Nightmare was produced by Montreal-based company Gold-Gems Productions. Adam West, who was Batman in the 1960s television series, played the crooked cop Tom Churchman. West was on the set for two days and glanced at his script during his scenes. It was the film debut of American actress Tia Carrere. Childhood friend of Fasano, Frank Dietz, played fellow cop Frank Sorrell. Manuska Rigaud, who played voodoo priestess Molly Mokembe, was a professional Tina Turner impersonator. The role of Tony was originally given to bodybuilder Peewee Piemonte. Days into production, Piemonte was fired due to eating all the craft services and the meals of crew members. Replacing Piemonte was Jon Mikl Thor, singer for the Canadian rock band Thor. Wrestler Superstar Billy Graham was originally casted to play as Tony's father. However, on the day he arrived in Montreal, no one came to pick him up at the airport and Graham left after waiting ten hours. Fasano took up the role. Direction under Bravman was done with only the Adam West and Tia Carrere scenes while Fasano shot the majority of the film. Problems occurred between Fasano and the Canadian crew, believing him to be assistant director and not co-director. This resulted in the crew ignoring his directions, including cinematographer Roger Racine.

Tony Bua and Andy Clement, college friends of Fasano, made the zombie masks and provided the makeup for the film. It took five hours to apply Jon Mikal Thor's makeup, applying glue and latex on him. American cast and crew members were housed in an airport hotel with pornography being played on every television channel. The cast and crew during this time noticed that Bravman's name appeared in the credits for many of the films. David Wellington received the writing credit for the film due to Canadian tax credit regulations and was the films editor.

Music

Thor wrote much of the incidental music. This includes heavy metal riffs by his band, and synthesizer music played by the band Thorkestra. Several other heavy metal bands contribute to the soundtrack. The Motörhead hit "Ace of Spades" plays during the opening credits. Other bands heard on the soundtrack include Virgin Steele, Girlschool, Fist, and Death Mask, as well as a track by Thor's then wife and back up singer "Pantera" (not the band).

Release and legacy

The film was originally planned for a theatrical release by Filmworld Distributors but it ended up getting released direct-to-video by New World Pictures. It was released in the United States on VHS in October 1987. Worldwide, The film grossed $1.5 million. The film was released on special edition DVD by Scorpion Releasing in 2010.

Reception

Reception to Zombie Nightmare were generally negative. Ian Jane of DVD Talk wrote, "Zombie Nightmare is a horrible film by any standards but it's so deliciously goofy that you can't help but have fun with it." Brett Cullum of DVD Verdict called it "a charmingly cheap z-grade zombie thriller". Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle calls it "painful and toilsome". Steve Bissette for Deep Red Magazine criticized the story for being predictable and derivative. Bissette thought the makeup and production values to be competent and described Manuska Rigaud's performance as "absurd over-the-top". Fangoria was positive on the performances of the teen leads and the heavy metal soundtrack. While recommending the movie for the soundtrack, the reviewer overall considered it boring, criticizing the lack of special effects and predictable plot. From his 1998 book "Drums of Terror: Voodoo in the Cinema", Bryan Senn found its use of voodoo to be a "simplistic device" that set an up old, tired plot.

Bloody Disgusting called the film one of the "cheesiest" films of all time. Kerrang! ranked it as one of the best horror soundtracks for Halloween. Jim Craddock, author of VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever, summarized the film as "cheap and stupid".

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Zombie Nightmare was featured in a season six episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), a comedy television series in which the character Mike Nelson and his two robot friends Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo are forced to watch bad films as part of an ongoing scientific experiment. The episode was first showcased during Comedy Central's "Fresh Cheese" fall 1994 tour around college campuses in the United States. It made its television debut on Comedy Central on November 24, 1994. The episode premiered during the channel's annual Turkey Day marathon, of which Adam West hosted.

In The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, a series guide written by MST3K members, Mary Jo Pehl described the movie as "painful" and that the members of the show "thoroughly, intensely, and unequivocally hated this movie." In 2009, Shout! Factory released the episode as part of the "Volume XV" box set, along with The Girl in Lovers Lane, The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, and Racket Girls, and in 2017, the episode was added to Netflix.

References

Citations

  1. ^ Jane, Ian (2010-10-25). "Zombie Nightmare". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  2. Vatnsdal 2004, pp. 192–193.
  3. ^ Vatnsdal 2004, pp. 193.
  4. Abramovitch, Ingrid (1988-08-30). "Film market is buzzing with 600 buyers, sellers". Montreal Gazette. p. D10 – via Newspapes.com.
  5. ^ Cullum, Brett (2010-12-03). "Zombie Nightmare". DVD Verdict. Archived from the original on 2010-12-04. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  6. ^ Vatnsdal 2004, pp. 193–194.
  7. Schnurmacher, Thomas (1986-07-04). "Liberty: Enough, already". Montreal Gazette. p. C1 – via ProQuest.
  8. ^ Vatnsdal 2004, pp. 194.
  9. Zekas, Rita (1986-11-29). "Thunder rocker flexing muscles on the big screen". Toronto Star. p. F1 – via ProQuest.
  10. Vatnsdal 2004, pp. 196–197.
  11. ^ "10 of the Cheesiest Heavy Metal Horror Flicks of All Time!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  12. "Film Reviews: Zombie Nightmare". Variety. 1987-11-18. p. 14 – via ProQuest.
  13. "1987 U.S. Film ReleasesBy Company". Variety. 1988-01-20. p. 71 – via ProQuest.
  14. Breitman, Joel (1990-08-11). "Producer goes for zombies - not quality; Low-budget, high- gore videos help Montrealer carve out big profits". Montreal Gazette. p. H5 – via ProQuest.
  15. Dendle 2001, pp. 208.
  16. Bissette, Steve (June 1988). "Gore Scoreboard". Deep Red Magazine. No. 3. p. 69.
  17. Dr. Cyclops (August 1988). "The Video Eye of Dr. Cyclops". Fangoria. No. 76. p. 24.
  18. Senn 1998, p. 228.
  19. Krovatin, Chris (2020-10-12). "13 Kickass Horror Soundtracks To Amplify Your Halloween". Kerrang!. Retrieved 2021-03-15.
  20. Craddock 1994, p. 921.
  21. Takiff, Jonathan (1994-11-10). "MiSTies, listen up". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 43 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. "Season 6, Episode 15 Zombie Nightmare". TV Guide. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  23. Jasper, Gavin (2020-11-25). "MST3K Turkey Day: The Long History of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Thanksgiving". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  24. Pehl 1996, pp. 119.
  25. Gibron, Bill (2009-07-05). "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XV". Popmatters. Retrieved 2017-03-27.
  26. Adams, Erik (2017-03-14). "20 fan-favorite MST3K episodes will hit Netflix tomorrow". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved 2017-03-26.

Bibliography

External links

Categories:
Zombie Nightmare Add topic