Written by James Aviles Martin and George Seminara
Directed by John Elias Michalakis
Starring Michael Rubin, Steve McCoy, George Seminara and Robert C. Sabin
USA, 1987
Here’s a fun little low budget indie horror… I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE. This is the kind of movie where I’d like to see a documentary about the making of it. Who made it? Why? How? It certainly seems like everyone was having fun. At one point someone namedrops Lloyd Kaufman but it doesn’t seem be a Troma movie… just a Troma-inspired movie.
I guess I bagged on the sound quality of THE WIZARD OF GORE earlier and I’m about to excuse the same here. Turns out, if the movie’s working, I can look the other way. Sure, TEENAGE ZOMBIE is clumsy and cheap and weird but it is charming in its own way. In a way something like THE WIZARD OF GORE isn’t.
Perhaps it’s the likable cast. They’re also seemingly amateurs, just like the GORE troupe, but they seem more ernest, more fun, like they’re having a good time, excited to be there. And that’s infectious.
The story concerns a drug deal gone wrong that results in a drug dealer (Steve McCoy) being dumped in a radioactive lake and returning as a zombie to seek his revenge. If there’s any flaw in this movie it’s that this set up takes too long and we don’t get to the teenage zombie of the title (Michael Rubin) until a little too late in the film. Once we get there, though, it’s gold.
Would you believe me if I tell you this movie actually has some legit pathos in it? You wouldn’t think so, would you? But there’s a sequence, perhaps bolstered by the great soundtrack, that features the titular teenage zombie pining after his lost love (Cassie Madden) that actually gets the feelings going. Of course it’s punctuated by a crude joke, but that almost makes it even more endearing.
It’s even kind of bittersweet and heartwarming at the end when the teenage zombie’s pals have to say goodbye to him. At that point I kind of didn’t want to say goodbye to him, either.
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