A random (but welcome!) pick up from the last ‘Vinegar Syndrome’ sale. Hard Rock Zombies is a WILD little horror comedy movie that’ll more than scratch your Troma-esq itch despite being a Cannon production.

The film follows a heavy rock group called Holy Moses, they’re in the middle of a tour across the US. But while winding down after a long gig, they’re visited by a mysterious girl called Cassie, who warns them to skip the next town on their tour, but wont say way.

Departing as quickly as she arrived the bands leader Jessie, is both dismissive of what Cassie says, but also captivated by her looks and nonchalant attitude to the band. So you better guarentee they’re going to that mysterious town. On the outskirts they’re met by a mysterious attractive hitchhiker, who offers to save the band and crew some cash and let them stay at her mansion abode, rather than pay for hotels.

The band basically go ‘…sexy lady?…yes.’ and before you know it we’re at a gated estate, and its clear almost immediately that something isnt right. The family that own the house are essentially ‘the family’ from ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part 2’ with disfigured twisted dwarves, an elderly demented german couple and a mysterious Kojack looking so and so who constantly carries an axe with them…The band are concerned…but not enough to leave because…sexy lady.

So! they unpack and head into town. Where almost immediately one of the local residents tells them to leave IMMEDIATELY and the towns police force all but tell them that, one way or another, they wont be playing their concert tomorrow…Jessie also manages to catch up with Cassie, he tells her they’re still going ahead with the gig and they hope to debut a new song in her name. She continues to warn them to leave, but is very flattered all the same.

This of course leads us to the namesake of this film! as the family reveal themselves to not be what they seem! they are in fact, THE HITLERS! as in, the elderly old german man who owns the house is LITERALLY Adolf Hitler in hiding and the rest of the family are either ex-nazi’s that escaped the war, or offspring of the fuhrer.

They butcher the band slowly, one by one. Before revealing their plan to essentially ‘Gas’ the town…But it’s hard to keep a good rock band down, and if the band wanna rock, you better believe they’re going to rock, ressurecting themselves as Kiss based members of the undead, Holy Moses WILL perform their show…But they have some revenge to get in the mean time…

And, while I dont think this one was the ‘GREATEST’ thing on earth. I did have a lot of fun with it. the plots daft, it shoots off in several different directions. I could see this one pairing up very nicely with something like ‘Return of the Living Dead’ as a kind of ‘Comedy, Zombies and music’ double header.

While it lacks the aggression of ‘Return’, ‘Hard Rock Zombies’ does have a certain sense of mania about it, and isnt afraid to get gory if the need requires. The script is a little loose, but never really feels out of control. Its stiff to start, taking a good 20 minutes to really get going, but when it does finally put rubber to road, its an enjoyable ride that maintains a solid pace from that point onwards, delivering a finale that feels grand, even for a tiny budget and low resource.

Is it the most coherent script in the world? No. That’s kind of where the ‘Troma’ element comes in, as we have a TON of random nazi comedy bits, blood, gore, guts…nudity is actually one of the few things this film DOESNT do…and was kind of notable by its absence, given this is a film about 80s rockers…

Tonally it not quite as goofy as to be full on loony tunes, but its very light hearted in how it handles its subject, it seems to thrive on one liners and quick throwaway gags. While contrasting that with comedy gorey moments such as silly or over the top kills or dark humoured sarastic moments.

The cast are all a little under developed too, it would have been nice to get to better know the members of Holy Moses before their demise, as it might have actually made me care when they were bumped off. the surrounding town dont really get much in the way of character development either…Largely being relegated to a kind of…amalgous ‘we’re weird and dont like rock music’ grouping…it would have been nice to have had a bit more variety.

The act structurings a bit wobbly on this one in terms of signally an act change and actually implementing it, but around the start of the second act (around the time the band members start to slowly get picked off) it kind of finds its voice on how it wants to present itself, and from there if your willing to lower your IQ a little bit, its just a really silly little zombie movie.

The direction is fine enough, im not 100% sold on the directors choice to shoot everything overly dark in terms of exposure, it does mean quite a lot of the film is a bit low detail in terms of picture quality…which is a shame. But on the whole, there was clear thought put into how the tone of the humour should be shown on screen, and this vibe was clearly communicated to the cast as well, who arnt afraid to fully utilize the set space, or any props that happen to be to hand.

The cine is a little hit and miss for me personally, when it hits its well composed, utilizes clean lighting and rich and vivid colours and feels dynamic with plenty of micro-movement within the frame. When it misses, it looks drained of colour, flat profiled and felt pretty much lifeless.

The edit is a bit of a patchwork, in part because only the R-rated cut survived on film, with several gore shots (which DEFINITELY enhance the film) only being available from VHS…which does make some of the cuts within the film look a little uneven, as we transition from crisp, heavy grain 35mm film to upscaled 1080p VHS quality. beyond that, I also feel that B-roll is a little underutilized as well leading to long and slightly unweildy sequences that I think could have stood to have been beefed up just a little bit more.

The performances are almost all aiming for eccentric and overly camp. I cant say theres any particular standout performers here…Everyone seemingly understood the brief and chose to either play their characters as zany crazy manic people, or ‘the straight guy’ to the zany crazy manic people. They do a fine enough job with a good animation range…was their scope to go bigger with the performances more broadly? Absolutely. Will I chastise them for not? No. I think whats here is fine enough…I just think it could have been better.

And wrapping all this together we have a pretty solid score, it largely incidentl music and tracks from Holy Moses, and they really have a pretty decent sound with ‘Cassies song’ being a particualar highlight. It all works pretty well with the film and really helps bring it up tot he next level for me.

All in all? ‘Hard Rock Zombies’ has its flaws. But its also a lot of fun. I think it would thrive best as a double feature pairing with another movie (Its bundled together with ‘Slaughterhouse Rock’, but I could see this also pairing with something like ‘Hack O’lantern’, ‘Slumber Party Massacre 2’ or maybe even something like ‘Black Roses’) I think its a pretty solid B-movie choice.

On its own though? I think it would struggle to muster the enthusiasm required to carry it with a broad audience. But if your into cult cinema, Troma and the likes, or you just appreciate a silly low budget horror movie. and your with a few friends. I think you could do worse on a movie night than this. Its a solid choice in my opinion.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hard-rock-zombies/