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HARD ROCK ZOMBIES
1985, The Cannon Group
DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY: Krishna Shah
STARRING: E.J. Curcio, Geno Andrews, Sam Mann,
Mick Manz, Lisa Toothman, Jennifer Coe, Ted Wells,
Jack Buesener, Crystal Shaw. | |
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HARD ROCK ZOMBIES doesn't make an effort to be a serious horror movie.
That's obvious from the beginning of the film, where a couple of guys pick up a sexy blond hitchhiker
and go with her to a lake to skinny dip. At the edge of the
lake, unseen by the swimmers, is a very tall guy with a camera taking pictures of the hijinks, and two dwarves
who are cavorting around the tall guy's legs. I mean, come on -- dwarves? But it
becomes obvious when you see the mask on one of the dwarves that this is going for a joke. I mean, it
has to be..., right?
So blond girl lures guy #1 into the water, then pushes his head under and cuts his throat.
Somehow, guy #2 has managed to miss this, because he swims
right over to blond girl and begins cuddling, only to meet the same fate as guy #1. Then
we see the bodies of both guys lying on the bank, while tall guy (who is necking with blond girl)
and the two dwarves hold guy #2's arm up to blond girl. Blond girl whacks off (dead)
guy #2's hand, then sings "I wanna hold your hand!" Yuk-yuk.
The scene changes to a club where rock band "Holy Moses" is playing to a sparse but very enthusiastic
audience; the crowd is screaming and dancing (NOTE: Headbangers should NOT dance!) and the females
in the audience are handing roses to the band. But not everyone is happy: four guys
at the bar are complaining that the band's music is "cows dying in shit". Apparently, these
four are upset because Holy Moses is scheduled to play a show in thier little one-horse town, called
"Grand Guignol" (if you had any lingering doubts that this is a joke.)
After the show, the band's manager, Ron, is begging "the guys" to pose with some groupies for some
pictures. Apparently, Ron needs these pictures to submit to a record company executive that
is supposed to come see the band play (and presumably sign Holy Moses to a record contract) in Grand
Guignol. Apparently the band thinks the pictures are silly (since they are "serious musicians",
y'know) and finally Jesse, Holy Moses bass player/singer and "leader" leaves in disgust. He
meets a very young woman named Cassie (whose eyebrows may be the scariest thing in this movie), who
warns him not to come to Grand Guignol because "they don't want you." When Jesse tries to
find out who "they" are, she will only say, "just don't come." Then she runs away, leaving
Jesse confused and enamoured.
And the band does NOT take Cassie's advice, because the next day they're on their way to Grand Guignol.
Jesse is playing a spooky little tune accompanied by weird words, and when one of his band mates
asks where he got the words Jesse replies he got them out of a book. He
goes on to say that it was a medieval chant to "raise the dead". And apparently the chant works, since a fly that Ron kills comes back
to life repeatedly.
Eventually the van picks up the same sexy blond hitchhiker (Ilsa) as we saw at the beginning of the movie, who "kindly"
extends an invitation for the band to stay at her home. The band asks her why Cassie would have told them not to come to Grand Guignol, and she says she has no
idea, that there is nothing weird "around here". But that is obviously not true, since the first thing that
happens when they reach her home is they hear howling. Ilsa tells him that it's just her Mom's primal scream
therapy, although we the viewer see that Mom is a werewolf with a fetish for switchblades. They also
make the aquaintance of dwarf Micky (who, along with the other dwarf, appear to be Ilsa's children with her brother, Christian, who we know as the "tall guy")
and some bald guy who likes to chop off chicken's heads. Sound confusing? It is!
And it gets even more so later, when we find that Ilsa and Christian's father is none other than Adolph Hitler, and their
mother (the werewolf) is Eva Braun! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
So the band goes into town to have a photo session, and manages to get arrested on some trumped up charge
by the close-minded bigots that run the town. Ilsa bails them out, and Cassie warns Jesse that
Ilsa is "not their friend", but she doesn't say WHY, so Jesse discounts her warning, although he has fallen in
love with Cassie. The band returns to Ilsa's family manor, where the family proceeds to kill each of
the band members, but not before Jesse gives Cassie a tape to play "in case they get him." Naturally,
the tape is a musical recording of the weird song that reanimated the fly, and when Cassie plays it at the guys'
graveside, they come back to life.
The band returns and kills the family, who in turn come back to life and set upon the townspeople. In
the meantime the record executive, Don Mattson, comes to town for Holy Moses show, unaware that the band is dead.
But the band doesn't disappoint, and the (dead) band plays the show. They then disappear, and Mr. Mattson is
eaten by zombies.
So now the town is overrun by zombies, and the few remaining townspeople don't know what
to do. They learn that sacrificing a virgin to the zombies will send them back to their grave for
one hundred years, and they just happen to have a virgin handy -- Cassie. Ron (who has also
escaped the carnage) runs and tells the zombie band what is going on, and they play a final show, luring
all the zombies away from Cassie and into a gas chamber, where Ron turns on the gas and all the zombies finally
die for good.
In the final scene, Ron and Cassie are standing over Jesse's grave, and Cassie is pledging her eternal love
to Jesse's memory. In a final act of love, Jesse's hand comes out of the grave and gives Cassie a
ring to remember him by.
HARD ROCK ZOMBIES is a send-up of horror movies, with little scariness and NO gore, but it
IS funny as hell. Having undead Hitler as your main villian is a great move, and
lines like: "Oh, this seems like a bad horror movie!" and "This whole day is like a bad horror movie!" are
typical, but my favorite exchange comes when Cassie asks Ron "They won't hurt Jesse, will they?" and Ron replies:
"Jesse is a big boy, he can take care of himself. Besides, he's dead." Plus, the zombie eating
himself into oblivion was hilarious!
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A shower love/murder scene where
the guys get to see Ilsa's breasts and the girls get to see Sam's butt. |
SCENES THAT MAKE ME GO "HMMM...,":
| 1. |
Jesse utilizes the medieval chant for
his song, but he never indicates why he would be interested in reanimating dead folks.
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| 2. |
The band picks up Ilsa to take her home, and
automatically accepts her invitation to "stay with her family" as if it's the most normal thing in the world.
These guys must not be too picky about where they sleep!
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| 3. |
Why would a record executive come to
a one-horse town like Grand Guignol to see a band? I've always known of a band going
to the executive!
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| 4. |
What is UP with zombie Ilsa's interpretive
dance sequences?
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| 5. |
Cassie pledges her love to Jesse
only, eternally. But I guess, now that I've seen E.J.'s Playgirl layout (see below), I understand.(!)
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DID YOU KNOW...,:
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E.J. Curcio ("Jesse") now goes by the
name E.J. Curse. He's a model and actor, as well as playing bass and singing for Los Angeles-based
band SILENT RAGE. He's appeared in some television shows, and has done a layout
for Playgirl. To find out more about what E.J. is up to these days, go to
Silent Rage Online.
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Sam Mann was a regular on the L.A. scene in
the late 80's/early 90's, and is still an active member of
The Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo.
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