header

header

Sunday, June 26, 2011

HARD ROCK ZOMBIES






Hard Rock Zombies is a movie that features a nonagenarian Adolph Hitler banging  a werewolf Eva Braun while his grandchildren, played by midgets, watch  at the behest of the lycanthrope that der Fuhrer be burying his bone in. One of the midgets wears a horrible mask that makes him look like a pink Toxic Avenger. The other looks like a tiny Nazi Nick Fury, complete with eyepatch.

...

Thank you and good night.

Nah, I'm just kidding. That isn't even the craziest thing that happens in this movie. I mean, it's in the top five, but there is just so much more. Let's explore, shall we?

It's...hard to describe just what exactly happens in Hard Rock Zombies. This is in no way a bad thing, mind you, it is just that the movie consistently gives up on following through with any plot line it introduces. I like to think of the script as that scene from The Simpsons, where Homer continuously falls down Springfield Gorge. It just keeps tumbling and tumbling and eventually it ends, only to have the hospital chopper pick him up and drop him again. It's quite the experience, and the movie is all the better for it.

So, the movie opens up with two  80's dinguses cruising around in their sweet ride, listening to generic hard rock. They pick up a leggy blonde who is dancing in the middle of the road. She kills the two dorks, while the aforementioned midgets and a dead-ringer for a bloated Ted Bundy watch. Bloated Ted Bundy even takes pictures.

But those guys are just dorks, and we don't care about them. All we get from this scene is some butt from leggy lady and midgets playing leapfrog. Under normal circumstances, this would be completely radical. However, in the world of Hard Rock Zombies, that shit ain't even cut the mustard; the tangy, insane mustard.

We then find ourselves smack dab in the middle of a pretty bitchin' rock show. And by pretty bitchin', I mean downright abysmal. There's like twelve people there, and they don't seem too interested. Then again, the music is pretty lame, so who can really blame them? We are introduced to Jessie and his band. They are not given names until they die, which is kind of a bum rap for an actor trying to make his big break. Then again, if you think your big break would come via a movie where zombies fight Hitler and your sole duty is to hit on ladies and pretend to know how to play the drums, clearly you need your head checked out.

After the show, we get to see all our rock and rollers in their skivvies. I swear there is one dude in the back wearing a sumo thong. Everyone else has undies tailored exclusively to enhance the package. Anyway, the band is apparently a huge hit, according to their manager. So much so, they got a gig in a shit town who's name I can never remember even after seeing this movie about a thousand times. At said gig, a record company bigwig will be scoping them out. In order to impress said executive, Jessie and the band need to take pictures with foxy groupies. Unfortunately, those are unavailable, so about seven haggard street-walkers and ex-porn stars will substitute.

Their manager lets the ladies of ill repute come swarming in and the band swiftly starts signing their womanly features. Jessie takes a break from the nonsense and runs into our heroine, Cassie. Cassie can't be any older than fifteen and has eyebrows that just don't quit. She warns Jessie not to come to her shit town, but Jessie pays no mind. He is smitten with this girl, and it's totally not creepy at all. It worked for Roman Polanski after all, right? Right? 

Fun fact - I originally said Jerry Lee Lewis but, man, even Jessie wouldn't marry his cousin. At least I hope not.

Completely ignoring Cassie's warning, because there would be no movie if he listened, Jessie and company, in their sweet van, make the trip to wherever it is that Cassie lives. Jessie hangs out in the back of the van playing a sweet bass-line that he found in a book. He explains to Incredibly Idiotic Band Member Number One that a book is a thing. After the wittiest of verbal sparrings, we learn that the book said the bass-line brings things back to life. Because, back in olden times, everyone played the bass. We also know it works because he keeps resurrecting a fly that lands on their dingus manager's neck. I can't imagine this becoming a plot point later.

During their journey to wherever, they run into none other than leggy blonde. She is not dancing this time, only hitchhiking. Incredibly Idiotic Band Member Number Two demands that they stop for our damsel in distress, so they do. She's all up in they junk and they drop her off at her mansion. We meet the midgets again, and bloated Ted Bundy makes his triumphant return. We are also introduced to a beefy dude who kills chickens, and a werewolf in a wheelchair with two switchblades. The werewolf doesn't get to meet the band, but man does she like showing off her sweet knives to the camera.

This is immediately followed by the first of about a billion montages. I'm not describing it. Not because I am lazy but because words don't do it justice. It is set to the hardest, rockingest song of all time.

Here it is:


See, you can tell that these dudes are cool because there is a skateboard involved. Skateboarding in the 80's instantly made you cool. Also, for a small town in the middle of nowhere in California, it is ridiculously diverse. More of how hilariously and impractically diversified this town is will follow later.

So, the montage ends, and our sweet band is taken to barn jail. Well, I guess it is supposed to be actual jail, but is very clearly a barn with bars on the windows. There is hay on the floor and pitchfork and everything. Thinking about it, this barn jail set-up does not seem wise for incarcerating prisoners. Especially if you leave deadly weapons just lying around.

We learn something important from barn jail, however. This town hates Rock and Roll more than the town in Footloose hated dancing. Also they love making ridiculous sex jokes for no good reason. Seriously, this town's population is equivalent to a giant walking erection at times - a giant walking erection complete with villagers from Hammer movies.

We also get to see Jessie take his love for Cassie to even more unclean levels. See, Cassie loves the rock and roll, or maybe just Jessie, but whatever, she totally gives him bail money. I am guessing this is money she made selling girl scout cookies. Jessie takes this opportunity to use the greatest pick-up line of all time on her:  "You're neat." He also begins to write a love ballad to her  on the spot and gaze longingly into her eyes. Still not creepy, though.

The band finds themselves bailed outta jail by the leggy blonde. While the rest of his band mates are suckin' in that sweet freedom air, Jessie takes the opportunity to once again hit on Cassie. We learn that her name is Cassie finally, so he can stop saying "hey girl" to get her attention, and he gives her a ring because, well, it is totally not creepy.

Leggy blonde takes the band back to her creepy mansion, we see another cutaway to wheelchair werewolf, and the band practices the totally not creepy love ballad to Cassie. An old German man with a Hussein mustache, along with his wheelchair-bound wife, and a beefy dude beheading chickens  watch the performance, and the band is electrocuted. That doesn't kill them though, because, the power of rocking cannot be stopped so easily.

We then get the creepy sex scene.

Meanwhile, Jessie is totally recording his sweet bass-line of the undead. We get further proof it works because he keeps killing and resurrecting a tarantula - the deadliest of spiders. After that is finished, we are given the pleasure of hilariously poorly done homages to such death scenes as the ones in Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and that one movie where a werewolf with switchblades kills two dudes. In short,  the band is murdered hard. But at least we gets to see leggy blonde completely nude. All of this, of course, is done in the form of a montage.

Fortunately, Jessie slipped Cassie the recording of the zombie making bass-line. This will be important later. But first, dork manager sits at dinner with the German dude and his family, where he reveals he is Hitler. He does this by taking off his mask to show that he is not an old German man with a full mustache, but instead an inexplicably middle-aged Adolph Hitler. Apparently, he was hiding out in California all this time, waiting for his time to strike. Hitler gives a huge speech and tries to hire the dingus manager, and even shows him his gas chamber. Yes, you read that correctly.

Cassie uses the recording of the bass-line, which is now, unexplainedly, a complete song to resurrect Jessie and company. They come back as angry, rejected members of Kiss and straight up murder Hitler and his backwards family, creating a zombie epidemic. But they ain't give a shit about that. That zombie band has a concert to put on.

Zombies wreak havoc on the shit town, and we get a bunch of side-plots including:

- a woman carrying around the severed head of her boyfriend, telling it how much she loves it
- a nazi midget zombie riding a cow
- several old, Eastern European men describing awful ways to fight zombies and changing their "V"s to "W"s
- the other midget eating himself. This is actually a plot-line. They cut-away numerous times to see the progress he is making in devouring himself.

While that is going on, we see the second performance of Jessie's creepy love song to Cassie, complete with a video that takes the pedophilia to all new heights. We also get to see them perform every song we've heard in the move thus far.

You know what? I think I am going to stop with the plot now. The movie goes so completely absurd that describing anything further would ruin the quizzical looks and belly-laughs that would follow afterwards. There is a specific point, and I am not telling you which one it is, where the movie just straight up shrugs it shoulders and proceed to stop giving an iota of a fuck. And believe me, it is glorious.

At this point, I kind of pick out specific technical or plot-related problems and tear into them like a vulture into carrion. I just can't do it with this movie, because not a single thing makes sense. Not a single thing is done adequately. And, man, there is an entire sub-plot based on pedophilia.  I just can't pick and choose a single thing that stands out as being exceptionally ridiculous, as everything is exceptionally ridiculous. There can be no nitpicking, as this is a movie comprised entirely of nits.

What makes this one of my favorite movies is that you can barely breathe through the laughter. When it tries to be serious, poorly, you laugh. When it tries to be horrifying, you laugh. When it crosses way over the line with pedophilia, you feel guilty, but you laugh. It even dabbles in comedy, poorly, and you still laugh. It is "I'm laughing at you, not with you" in movie form. It is funny sober. It is funny drunk. It is funny alone, with a crowd, or when you are only half-paying attention. There is not a single portion of the movie where you can't find something so ludicrous that a guffaw is the only response. It's as magic as the resurrection bass-line.

I love this movie. It is unashamedly, unabashedly, and unflinchingly stupid, inept, and downright hilarious on every conceivable level, and even on some levels you could never even dream of. If half the things in this movie were intentional, than everyone involved is a downright genius. Of course, that is highly doubtful. None of the glorious chaos and creepy pedophilia could have been planned. I just can't accept that.

Oh and that ballad I mentioned? You know, the love ballad to the girl that can't be older than fourteen?

Yeah, here it is.



Skeeved out yet?

Just remember that is the second performance. Good ol' Jessie really wanted to hammer it into your head how much he wants to hammer that under-aged 'tang.

And you thought 95 year-old Hitler was a deviant.

2 comments:

  1. Hi, I'm one of the "ten people" that frequents your website. Personally, I love your reviews and wanted to step up and make my praise heard. You have selflessly assisted me in doing absolutely no work while at work for many weeks now. I salute you. You have my undying thanks, please keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, trust me, guy. Nothin' I do is selfless.I need all the glory and honor.

    All of it.

    ReplyDelete