When one looks at a movie titled Zombie High, one would be inclined in thinking they will have a merry occasion, but instead, the movie I watched was a flick that was far from merry. Full of bad attempts at humour, weird teacher/student sexual tensions, and a plot involving brain crystals, Zombie High (why High? It’s a University not a High School) is a disappointment, as it could have been so much better than it was, which was a grueling test of my patience. Read on to see if you agree with my useless assessment…
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 2 (1 Blu-ray, 1 DVD)
RUN-TIME: 91 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1
RESOLUTION: 1080p
AUDIO: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
REGION: A/1
RATING: R
PRODUCTION DATE: 1987
RELEASE DATE: Dec 15, 2015
PLOT SUMMARY
The incredible story of a hard-working student and the warped way of life that made her go wacky!
Virginia Madsen (Candyman, Sideways) and Richard Cox (Cruising) star in this humorous thriller about the bizarre happenings that occur in a prestigious boarding school. It seems to Andrea Miller (Madsen) that the upperclassmen act like robots. They’re the perfect students – dedicated, involved and loyal. Their clothes are perfectly pressed and their hair is perfectly styled. It seems that the teachers have something to do with this ingratiating behavior. And when Andrea, the new kid at school, sees her friends turning into clones, she starts to suspect the worst.
The film features a great supporting cast including Sherilyn Fenn (Twin Peaks, Ray Donovan), Scott Coffey (Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway) and Paul Feig, who would go on to create the TV series Freaks And Geeks and direct such films as Spy, Bridesmaids and the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters.
MOVIE
Andrea Miller (a beautiful looking Virginia Madsen) is going to a prestigious boarding school, which so happens to be the first year that girls are allowed to attend the school. Before you can say lawsuit, the English teacher, Philo (Richard Cox), falls in love with Andrea and tries wooing her and by wooing her, I mean him showing his righteous 80s apartment, which happens to have a full-size pinscreen to seduce the ladies with. Meanwhile, after Andrea has been supremely seduced by the pinscreen, she starts to notice that most of the students at the school are acting very weird, even weirder than being seduced by a pinscreen. They study hard, don’t party and hardly say anything (way different from your average University student). Could they be zombies? Actually no. Instead, it involves some mumble jumble about never wanting to age, brain crystals and unplanned surgery. It’s complete nonsense and frankly, rather boring.
The problem with Zombie High is nothing happens. Andrea meanders around the school a bit, talks with some people and stumbles on the mystery of the school pretty early on, but there is no tension and no mystery. You never once feel like Andrea is in harm’s way and the way she acts with everything around her, it seems like this is something she sees all the time, brain crystal vampires (yep, the movie actually has Andrea referring to them as vampires, not zombies. Lame.) Zombie High could have worked if it tried harder at being a dark comedy horror flick, but instead, it’s a lame PSA message about sleeping with your teacher after he shows you his “pinscreen”. (I think that was the message behind the movie. I could be wrong, but frankly, who cares.)
BLU-RAY
The Zombie High Blu-ray from Scream Factory comes at you with a video presentation that is all over the place. Some scenes look great while others are slathered with an overabundance of grain. It’s quite distracting at times, but overall, the video is okay. The audio is a bit on the low side, but there are no other issues present, which is great, as you’ll want to be cranking the sound when you hear that lovely ‘Kiss My Butt‘ song.
Special Features for this sadly disappointing movie is also sadly disappointing, as the only option is a trailer, which makes the movie seem way cooler than it is.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- Trailer
VERDICT
Zombie High gets an overall F. The movie is boring, with a lackluster story about brain dead students (maybe the flick was ahead of its time and predicting the future?). The Scream Factory Blu-ray is also a disappointment, with some wonky video issues and a measly trailer for a special feature. I think you would be wise to attend another school instead, one that has no pinscreen in sight.
RATING
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| Disappointment all around for this Blu-ray release. |