In short: I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987)

Somewhere in Brooklyn. After having been sold bad weed by a muscleman with the less than trust-inspiring name of Mussolini (Steve McCoy), a gaggle of high school kids really rather want their money back. Alas, when they go about their customer relations business in a somewhat violent manner, Mussolini accidentally gets killed, or so they believe. It’s the usual business where the victim of an accident who is believed dead wakes up just before their killers want to throw them into a body of water or bury them and really gets killed in the ensuing struggle, of course. Though Mussolini doesn’t stay dead then, either, for the kids have dumped him in a radioactive body of water that turns him into a vengeful undead. Since he’s talking and fully conscious, I wouldn’t call him a zombie but rather an undead super asshole.

Anyway, he starts killing his way through the kids and some random victims until the survivors dump one of their dead in the radioactive waters too. Before he gets to fight Mussolini, the poor teen will learn that zombiefication is not terribly great for one’s romantic life.

John Elias Michalakis’s I Was a Teenage Zombie is another ultra low budget 80s horror comedy that is in turns anarchic, goofy, annoying and charming, driven by what feels a lot like the same spirit that gave us punk rock, similarly replacing slickness with nervous energy and the willingness to just make art even if one’s abilities or lack of experience would usually keep one away from being allowed to make it. It’s a filmmaking ethos I’m unable to dislike, even if I’m not always excited about the resulting films.

Like most movies made in this spirit, IWaTZ is all over the place in tone and style, sometimes feeling like a low rent version of Porky’s and the like, sometimes becoming the kind of movie that believes a zombie rape scene is ever a good idea, sometimes making fun of all kinds of teen movie tropes of its time, sometimes going for that awesome home-made gore. More often than not, the undisciplined tone and the rawness of the filmmaking do work wonders for the film, turning its theoretical flaws into charming virtues, suggesting that the you’re watching the result of a bunch of young gals and guys having a hell of a time and wanting you to share in it, too.


Somehow, the film also managed to acquire a pretty nice soundtrack featuring music from the likes of the Violent Femmes, Los Lobos and Alex Chilton, which perfectly fits the tone of proceedings. What’s not to like?