Zombie Nightmare

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Zombie Nightmare is a 1987 Canadian film starring Adam West and Jon-Mikl Thor.

Our film opens in a time supposedly in the 1960s or so, showing us a softball game led by a beefy guy named Bill (played by director John Fasano). Bill's the center of activity in the community, and he's even brought his family (wife and young son Tony) to the game. Unfortunately, a couple ne'er do wells are also in attendance and decide to stalk and assault Molly Mokembe, a young Haitian woman (played by Manoushka). Bill stops the crime in progress, saving her, but the two thugs fatally stab him and flee, all in front of his son.

Flash forward to the present day, and Tony is all grown up (now played by Jon-Mikl Thor), playing softball on the same field. That evening, he becomes a hero in his own right, foiling a convenience store holdup. Unfortunately, as he walks outside, he's the victim of a hit and run courtesy of a bunch of idiot kids, one of whom is the son of the thugs that killed his father.

Aggrieved, his mother decides to go for extrajudicial justice, calling upon Mokembe to do some form of voodoo to catch the (presumably unknown to her) culprits. This results in the animation of a zombie whom gradually hunts down not only the kids but the two thugs in the movie...one of whom is actually an upstanding pillar of the community!

Like The Horror of Party Beach and The Incredibly Strange Creatures, this is another movie gadding about calling itself a horror musical, but unlike those two, it's got even less on which to stake the claim; there is plenty of incidental metal music on the soundtrack, but no actual musical numbers. Oh, and Adam West is in it, too. Neat, huh?

For tropes and details relating to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please check out the episode recap page.

Tropes used in Zombie Nightmare include:

• Asshole Victim: Nobody mourns when Jim Batten is killed. That includes his parents, according to the cop (an old friend) that told them.
• Brother-Sister Incest

Waitress: I'm old enough to be your big sister. Jim: Hey, that's cool, I always wanted to make it with my older sister!

• Canada, Eh?: Park Harpell is in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec.
• Delinquents
• Dirty Cop: Captain Churchman, and maybe most of his police department.
• Downer Ending: There's probably four surviving named characters.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Churchman
• For the Evulz: The apparent motivation for Molly being attacked in the first place, and the later hit-and-run.
• Groin Attack: Subverted. Tony attacks a thief with his groin.
• Hollywood Voodoo
• Idiot Ball: The incredibly violent suspect at the police station somehow fails to be restrained by three or four officers. Captain Churchman exacerbates the situation by kicking the perp, enraging him.
• Improbable Weapon User: One of the kids is not beaten by a metal baseball bat, but impaled by it. Huh?
• Jerkass: Jim Batten, and Capt. Churchman to an extent.
• Kill'Em All
• Large Ham: Shawn Levy as Jim Batten. Adam West.
• Neutral Female: The lead's mother in the opening segment.
  • The blond chick from Jim's gang, too. She's the only one who seems to have a conscience by feeling even the tiniest bit guilty about running down Tony. Yet for some reason, she receives the most brutal death out of any of the gang.
  • Neutral Male: Frank.
• Playing Against Type: Adam West, Batman himself, playing a racist thug turned Dirty Cop.
• Rape as Drama: And the abuse heaped on the victim by the police.

Frank: "But you went into the alley with him."

• Too Dumb to Live: Being rock-stupid makes it laughably easy to get killed by a zombie. Here are good ways, demonstrated by three particular brain donors:
  • Pass by the exit sign when being pursued by a zombie. Also make sure to stop while still in the same room as said zombie.
  • Sit in your car, and don't turn it on. Also be sure to leave the door wide open.
  • Hide behind a window.
• Useless Protagonist: Presumably, Frank ends up being the hero, through no extraordinary effort of his own. He was at least correct that the murders weren't caused by a common street thug.
  • The Complainer Is Always Wrong