The sweet smell they adore, I'd rather smother: Ron Link's Zombie High (1987)

While its title suggests a cheesy Grade-Z horror film, Zombie High (1987) is in reality an extremely smart and savvy look at the disturbing conservative-streak that swept through much of America's youth in the Reagan-ruled eighties. Featuring a wonderful cast, including the always dazzling Virgina Madsen and a pre-Twin Peeks Sherilyn Fenn, Zombie High is one of most surprisingly topical and resonate horror-satires from the eighties in existence and has always been deserving of a much larger audience.

Young Middle-class liberal Andrea has been given the seemingly golden-opportunity of being one of the first female attendees at a posh up-state boarding school, Ettinger Academy, previously only filled by upper-class males. Andrea's initial excitement turns more and more to dread when she begins to notice a robotic conformity sweeping over her fellow students, including the once free-thinking and free-wheeling friends she had made upon her arrival.

Zombie High was the first, and final, film from Ron Link, an artist who worked for most of his life in the theater. The late Link (who passed away in 1999) was in his mid-forties when he shot his low-budget, but ambitious, film, which has much more in common with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives rather than Night of the Living Dead or Zombie. Link's direction is hampered by his budgetary limitations but Zombie High still stands as an impressive first-feature and it's a shame he didn't direct for film again.

Zombie High was the brainchild of troubled USC film school graduate Aziz Ghazal, an aspiring filmmaker who committed suicide in 1993 after murdering his wife and daughter. Ghazal wrote the savvy script for Zombie High while he was a student at USC and would end up producing the film along with several others including Elliot Kastner. Even though Ghazal's life ended with a horrific tragedy, his script (which featured some additional pre-production input from television writer Tim Doyle and relative novice Elizabeth Passarelli) has a real spark to it and shows him as a talented man with a real flair for topical humor and clever dialogue.

While it is so incredibly clear today that Virginia Madsen was one of the great American actors to come out of the eighties, when she shot Zombie High she still had almost two decades to go before her skills were properly recognized (via a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Sideways). It was mostly Madsen's stunning looks that were focused on in 1987, but she was always much more than a pretty face with a luscious figure and she actually gives one of her best performances as the young liberal looking to keep her spirit and sanity in Zombie High. Her work as Andrea is incredibly strong and stands among the best genre performances of the period and is certainly the equal to her more popular performance in Bernard Rose' Candyman about five years down the road.

The entire cast of Zombie High is quite notable with special mention going to the equally charming and creepy Richard Cox (who had been so memorable in Friedkin's Cruising earlier in the eighties) and, of course, young Sherilyn Fenn (sporting a huge eighties hair-style) seen here a year before he break-out role in Zalman King's Two Moon Junction. Fenn is granted some of the film's wittiest dialogue and it's clear that really special things are just around the corner for her.

Zombie High is far from a perfect production but most of the problem's on hand can be correlated back to ambition exceeding its budget. The film's final act, which features a few too many chase sequences, doesn't measure up to the sly first-hour and the film's soundtrack by Daniel May dates it much more than the clothes or Fenn's enormous hair. Regardless of its shortcomings, there is a lot to love about Zombie High and anyone who felt disheartened by the creepy conservatism that affected so many youths in the mid-to-late eighties will probably feel more than a little affinity with the film.

Zombie High has a had a troubled release history to say the least. Very briefly released in a few theaters in 1987, where it would gross less than $25,000 the film would appear on VHS in 1988 where it would gather dust on the shelves of many mom and pop stores for years after. Never released on disc Zombie High is now available thankfully for rediscovery streaming on Netflix. I must admit, despite the fact that Virginia Madsen is one of my favorite actors, I only recently saw the film for the first time due to my mistaken belief that it was just going to be a schlocky cheese-fest. The title Zombie High might have been the film's undoing as it's misleading on a number of levels. Title be damned though, Zombie High is a really perceptive film and still stands as a great message for young people to embrace individuality and open mindedness, and to not become just another one of America's conservative douche bags whose only motivating factor is the almighty dollar.

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Vintage Viewings

How do you keep track of what you’ve watched? You’d think that a person like myself that is so obviously in love with film would have figured out a good system by now, but I must admit to still using mostly my memory to catalogue the films I have seen. About the most advanced arrangement I have come up with is a notepad with a listing of discs I have burned with check marks next to the titles I have watched.

Lately, I have noticed that my memory (like everything else) isn’t anywhere near as together as it used to be, and I find more and more mostly minor titles kind of interchanging around in my head. I have decided to combat it a bit I would begin a new occasional series here focusing on short lists of older films I have recently revisited or watched for the first time. I hope these don’t prove boring as they are admittedly for my own benefit, and that a title in this post or a future one of these might even inspire a comment or two.

So onto some films (some of which might warrant their own posts here eventually) that I’ve recently watched starting with the best…



The Initiation of Sarah (1978): Out of sight TV movie from director Robert Day with a tremendous cast including Kay Lenz, Morgan Brittany, Tony Bill, Shelly Winters, Morgan Fairchild and, the best of the bunch, Tisa Farrow. A nice score by Johnny Harris and a terrifically tense atmosphere add greatly to the Carrie inspired tale and Farrow, seen here a year before appearing in Fulci’s Zombie, is really lovely and extremely memorable.



Sweet Hostage (1975): Another entertaining TV movie bolstered by a terrific cast, this time the powerhouse teaming of Linda Blair and Martin Sheen. This Lee Philip’s production isn’t perfect but it’s a more than a notch above your average TV production, and both Blair (just two years after The Exorcist) and Sheen are outstanding.



Curtains (1983): An odd and at times quite haunting slasher film from Canada starring Samantha Eggar, John Vernon and Linda Thorson. Uneven, but it has some seriously mesmerizing moments and a widescreen DVD is way overdue.



Freebie and the Bean (1974): I have some friends that swear by this strange 1974 Richard Rush buddy cop picture starring Alan Arkin and James Caan, but it’s going to take me a viewing or two more to really get captured by it. I did enjoy the frantic energy of the film and the photography by Laszlo Kovacs is terrific. I suspect I will appreciate the film much more when I revisit it down the road.



The Deliberate Stranger (1986): This two-part TV movie left a big impact on me when I saw it as a teenager when it first aired. I must admit that I was disappointed with the first half watching it again recently, but the second half was quite effective and chilling. Mark Harmon’s performance as Ted Bundy is disturbing stuff, especially when the cracks start to show on his all American façade.



Trip with the Teacher (1975): Earl Barton’s low budget revenge thriller has gotten a lot of attention in the past year or so as it is a clear precursor to Tarantino’s Death Proof (if memory serves me correctly this was mentioned in Video Watchdog’s Grindhouse Round-Table discussion), but it is ultimately a pretty disjointed affair. The cast, featuring a menacing young Zalman King, is solid for the most part but it never completely held together for me. Still, I admired how different it felt from most of its counterparts and it was never less than compulsively watchable.



Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976): The fact that it works best as a snapshot of mid-seventies Los Angeles in all its seedy glory shouldn’t take away from how good Eve Plumb is in the role of the title character. It has a bit of that old Afternoon Special feel but, again, Plumb is really very good as is co-star Leigh McCloskey, who would appear as the title character in the film’s follow up a year later.



Fire With Fire (1986): Well, it wasn’t very good in the mid-eighties and it still isn’t but damn it, it’s Virginia Madsen in her prime and that fact alone warrants this title some attention. Duncan Gibbin’s film is overblown and never comes together but Madsen, much like the title, just burns…



Death Ship (1980): Alvin Rakoff’s chiller from 1980 is credited to a Jack Hill story, and you can believe it would have been a better film had the great Hill been behind the camera. It’s effective in spots and you can’t fault a film with George Kennedy in full melt-down mode but it’s often a bit flat.



My Tutor (1983): George Bower’s early eighties exploitation comedy is as delightfully politically incorrect as you would hope it would be, but it finally just isn’t very funny. Look for Crispin Glover in one of his earliest roles, and one of the goofiest final shots I have ever seen.



The Godsend (1980): Atmospheric but very flawed Omen rip-off is at its most memorable in the few scenes Symptoms star Angela Pleasence appears in, but otherwise it never comes close to the transcendent creepiness of the film it’s aping. Morman Warwick’s photography is quite entrancing though and I would love to see a better quality copy of it.



Malibu High (1979): I typically love these kind of unapologetic exploitation offerings but I found this unappealing film from Irvin Berwick nearly unwatchable. An irritating cast and poor direction bring the film down at every turn, and this is truly one of the longest 90 minute films I have ever seen.

Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004)

Into the Restricted Zone

Ah, that first R-Rated film in a theater. It’s kind of a defining moment in every kids life…sort of like some early introduction to adulthood or, at the very least, something to brag about to the other kids at school. My memories of my first venture into the restricted zone have been on mind after a conversation I had with my mom recently, so I thought I would share a few memories here.

It’s always been my memory that my first R on the big screen was none other than John Carpenter’s Escape from New York back in 81. Yep, I was kicking it with Snake Plissken just a month after my eighth birthday. The memory is forever cemented in my brain, as is the bragging I did to any kid I could get to listen to me for months after.

My mom alerted me to the fact recently that I actually saw The Exorcist as an infant with her and my father, so technically my first R in a theater was Friedkin’s classic shocker. The Exorcist, can you imagine? The news thrilled me, but I just wish I had known it sooner. Imagine the bragging I could have been doing all these years…



A few other early R memories are seeing Sudden Impact with my Aunt Kathy just past the age of ten in 83. Outside of being my introduction to Dirty Harry, the trip also marked the first time I had ever had what would eventually become my movie candy of choice, the mighty Milk Dud.

The first R rated film I ever snuck into alone was 1985’s terrific Creator, a film that remains among my all time favorites. My parents had dropped me off to see something else (a dreaded PG film no doubt) and while I can’t recall what that was, I can most definitely recall the impact Virginia Madsen had on my twelve year old eyes that day…I have still yet to fully recover from it.



Growing up in a very liberal house had its benefits, so by 13 or so there wasn’t much off limits (although I do remember getting in trouble for a late night viewing of De Palma’s Body Double in 86 or so). I always get a kick out of hearing recollections from folks about their first ventures into R rated features on the big screen, and still never tire of bragging of my time with Snake and The Duke back in the day.

***Partially inspired by Roger Ebert's reprinting of a moving article he wrote on Virgina Madsen and her family a year or so after Creator came out***