ZOMBIE HIGH (1987) * ½

Andrea (Virginia Madsen) gets a scholarship to a fancy prep school.  Her boyfriend Barry (James Wilder) thinks the place is creepy and tries to get her to come home.  She ignores his warnings, but soon learns things aren’t what they seem.  Problem students suddenly turn into boring preppies overnight.  Andrea eventually discovers her professor (Richard Cox) is centuries old and has been performing lobotomies on the students and using their brain tissue to keep himself and the faculty eternally young.  Andrea and Barry then team up to take down the sinister staff and the brainless student body once and for all.

Zombie High plays like a horror comedy with all comedy cut out.  It tonally feels like a comedy, but with no real gags or jokes to speak of.  There are lines like, “You two need a chaperone!” that seem they should be a punchline, and yet it’s not funny at all.  It’s almost like one of the zombies from the movie wrote the script.  The closest the film comes to an actual laugh is the shot of the zombie students shuffling in unison at the school dance.  Even then, there’s no set-up or payoff.  It’s just a little throwaway shot.

It’s also really tame.  In fact, only a couple of F-Bombs separate it from a PG-13 rating.  The horror elements are weak too.  It would’ve been better with the gut-munching variety of zombies instead of the boring mind-control zombies we’re stuck with.  Because of that, Zombie High is more like a dull preppie version of The Stepford Wives than the Ghoul School fun the title suggests.  (Disturbing Behavior did the same concept much better a decade or so later.) 

Madsen is good, even if she looks way too old to be a teenager.  Her energetic performance makes it watchable.  I also enjoyed seeing Sherilyn Fenn as her bubbly roommate.  The most fun comes from seeing future Ghostbusters director Paul Feig in his movie debut playing an easygoing, likeable nerd character.  He has chemistry with Madsen but stands around most of the time eagerly looking for something to do.  Sadly, the movie never obliges him.

The best part is the funny end song, “Kiss My Butt”.  It sounds like the producers wanted to use “You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party” but couldn’t afford the rights.  Instead, they just used the same beat and wrote their own lyrics.  I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s certainly more straight-up cheesy (and fun) than the rest of the movie.

AKA:  The School That Ate My Brain.