Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies is a rare jewel among movies - its like two (if not three) movies in one. And this greatness is only muliplied by its extremely low price of seventy-seven cents. However, its placement in the discount bin at Pathmark is beyond all comprehension because this film is pure genius, intertwining various different plots and subplots with other subplots even more complex than Lost.

Ok, so it starts out with a kick-ass rock concert at the local bar with THE BAND. The name of the band isn't mentioned and therefore isn't important. They're too hard rock for band names! Fittingly, the members of the band are also basically nameless except for the lead singer/bassist Jesse:


He's on the right. And oh yea, he's a pedophile but we'll touch on that later.

 So anyway, they're like the most rocking-est band ever, kicking over drums and jumping around stage and what have you and then have a super rad backstage autograph session with their tween fans (Hey, its the Eighties, kids could go to bars!)

After the gig they head to Grand Guignol, where their next event is scheduled to take place. En route, Jesse plays a few notes on the bass and remarks "This song is supposed to bring people back from the dead." (Hopefully if you're watching, you didn't sneeze or shift positions on a squeaky couch or you missed it and you'll be totally lost later on in the movie.) The only problem is that the townspeople HATE rock and roll music. Why? Because its a well -known fact that all adults hate glam rock and roll and everything related to this music is both evil and satanic. Just look at these hooligans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-scmdpfp8

Look at them! Dancing! Drinking Soda! Skateboarding! Panto-miming at the bus stop!! It's no wonder those adults are so displeased, their town can do without such deviance! The Band end up in jail and a young girl named Cassie tries to free them.

Notice how she's like 14?

She warns them about how the townspeople hate them, and how the people who bailed them out of jail are bad people, but Jesse is too busy falling in love with the minor. And to worsen the deal he even admits to his pedophilia by writing and singing a song entitled "I'm so in love but you're so young"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsGLuIEe2s&feature=related

(sure this is a lot of videos, but hey - its a musical movie isnt it?! BTW the song doesn't start until about 2:30 into the vid)

OK so now we have The Band in Grand Guignol staying with a mysterious family that bailed them out of jail. And the band is struggling to practice for this gig and fighting against the town to have their concert. Sounds like your typical Rock and Roll movie right? Well this is where you're WRONG, because during practice, the family electrocutes them! Begin movie #2 - The Horror!

Turns out they're all freaks: two midgets, one with an eye patch and one with a melted face, a guy with a camera, a temptress with a knife, a creepy groundskeeper, and a werewolf grandma in the attic. I know what you're thinking: "Wait, did you just say a WEREWOLF? I thought it was Hard Rock Zombies?!" Well keep your pants on I'm getting to that!
The Band survives the electrocution and ends up being killed one-by-one by the freak family. Luckily Cassie shows up just in time to take the tape of Jesse's revival bass track just before he gets weedwackered to death.

At this point we learn that the freak family is led by none other than Adolph Hitler, and he has been in disguise since the end of World War II.

Begin Movie #3 - The Historical What-If! It's almost as if Hitler was actually taking over the movie with his new plot to begin taking over America with his mountain cave gas chamber, and he just had to get rid of the Band cast members to do it.

Meanwhile, the townspeople have just outlawed Rock and Roll to stop their concert. But that's not important because Movie #1 has been over for a long time now. Now its a movie about Hitler's secret plan! Except Cassie played the tape and now the band is re-animated as the Hard Rock Zombies! Actually they look more like Kiss than Zombies but thats just cuz their HARD ROCK Zombies. Begin Movie #4 - the Zombie Film!

And this is where the chaos begins, because all 4 of these movies are happeneing simultaneously and interacting like its the Great Movie Ride. The band gets their revenge on the freak family by murdering them all before heading to town to perform their concert. That's right, the zombie band from movie #4 is now acting out the plots from the first movie as well.

Back at the freak mansion, the dead freaks are now zombies and have begun to kill townspeople and turn them into zombies. And a chain reaction commences until only a handful of survivors, the band manager, and Cassie remain human. With their concert complete, the band has no more movie plots to follow and disappears from the film while the survivors try to figure out what the f--- happened to Movie #1 and cope with Movie #4 (The Zombies). Eventually they devise a plan to tie Cassie to a tree and let the zombies rape her, which will somehow solve everything.

Luckily, The Band comes to her rescue and plays one final Kick Ass Rock Show to lure the zombies into Hitler's Secret Mountain Gas Chamber - they played the bass-eriffic tune of course, with some death metal chanting to go along with it. With the zombies trapped inside, they turn on the mustard gas and kill the undead.

At this point its not really clear which movie we finished watching, all we know is that it was a real epic of a love story if ever there was one. Lying at Jesse's grave, Cassie confesses her love for him (so what if they met a day ago?) and a hand bursts through the dirt with a ring clenched in it. Thats True Love right there folks.