I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) User Reviews

Cheap, Troma-style zombie comedy antics

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 24 February 2017]

I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE is a no-budget comedy horror film made in New York. It tells of a teenage gang who run afoul of some violent drug pushers and accidentally kill one of them, dumping his body in a polluted river. Before long the villain returns from the dead and begins to kill the teens one by one, until they come up with a unique plan to fight back.

This film has a cheap and cheerful feel to it which makes it an easy watch for B-movie lovers. It's very much in the spirit of a Troma flick like CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH while the heavy metal soundtrack, which is one of the best things about the movie, recalls RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. The acting is generally weak and exaggerated, as you'd expect, but the cheap makeup is amusing and there's a string of low budget gore effects for horror fans to enjoy. The ending is bizarre in that it becomes more of a tragic romance than anything else although it is a big anticlimax.

The score at the end

[mastonthrust-1 · 3/10 · 5 September 2022]

Yes, the musical score where the zombie picks up his dream girl and carries her into the water is the best part of this movie.

A few interesting bits of gore, but this wasn't an easy watch, mostly due to the audio and video quality ... along with the plot and acting.

The 2 girls were cute, but that's about it.

Some reviews say this is a memorable film, but I honestly didn't remember one thing about it until I heard the Violent Femmes song.

Glad I stayed for the end to record the score, because the 2 composer's did a nice job creating a somber yet hopeful atmosphere as the 2 characters drifted into the river.

I Was a Teenage Zombie is only worth watching if you enjoy films that are so bad they're almost good, but still bad

[kevin_robbins · 4/10 · 16 March 2024]

I recently watched I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) on Tubi. The plot centers around a group of friends who accidentally kill a drug pusher while attempting to clean the streets. They dispose of the body in the local river, unaware that a toxin in the water brings him back to life with a thirst for revenge.

Directed by John Elias Michalakis in his first directorial project, the film stars Allen Rickman (A Serious Man), Cindy Keiter (Law & Order), Jim Martin (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey), and Michael Rubin (Paradise Motel).

Despite not being a Troma film, I Was a Teenage Zombie feels reminiscent of their style, capturing the essence of low-budget 80s New Jersey horror. The acting has a raw, amateurish quality, reminiscent of a group of high school friends making a movie together. While there are some entertaining characters, particularly the drug dealer, the zombie itself is poorly executed, and a zombie sex scene fails to deliver.

Overall, I Was a Teenage Zombie is only worth watching if you enjoy films that are so bad they're almost good, but still bad. I'd give it a 4/10, but it's worth a viewing for its campy charm.

This should be a cult classic

[one4now4 · 24 October 2003]

I am saying that in a schlock sense, though. I have to say I like this movie a lot. It's a horror-comedy with an in-joke reference to Lloyd Kaufman, and is a good, goofy, nasty movie. It has more intentional laughs than unintentional, I think. Take the jerk cop for example, wearing a badge that looks like it was made by a little kid with paper and scissors for Halloween. They had to know what they were doing there! The low-budget gore FX are pretty cool, and one scene in particular (where the guy's face is ripped off) actually shocked me when I first saw it. The various artists soundtrack is great (and harder than hell to find). As far as the "plot" goes, we have some misfitly losers (my kinda people!) who go out to buy some pot for a spring dance celebration. What they end up with is some toxin-sprayed weed that makes them feel under the weather. (One drug cartel henchman says, "I wouldn't give that sh*t to my mother-in-law.") Nobody becomes a zombie from this, though. Still, what we do end up with is a very cranky (no pun intended) zombie drug pusher killing off hapless victims left and right. The only person who can stop him is another zombie (which I thought was a cool idea). Everything here is so matter-of-fact, like somebody took a slacker movie like "River's Edge" and mixed it with "The Toxic Avenger". I love this, a classic cheezball splatter-comedy that's just fun.

Troma quality low-budget horror/comedy minus decent comedy

[a_chinn · 1/10 · 14 July 2019]

This was a cheesy 80s horror comedy I hand't seen, but I have to say I wasn't missing much. The film is Troma quality (meaning incredibly low budget, with a strong emphasis on low-brow humor, blood, and naked bodies), but unlike Troma films, this one won't make you laugh. The story follow a group of high school friends who accidentally kill a drug dealer who then comes back for revenge as a zombie. Maybe the pitch on this one is that it's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" meets "Night of the Living Dead" meets "TheToxic Avenger." Most films that set out to be intentionally bad in a so-bad-it's-good sort of way rarely work (i.e. "Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf"), but Troma films or movies like like "Hobo with a Shotgun" or "Grindhouse" are able to find that sweet spot balancing camp and keeping a straight face. On the plus side for "I Was a Teenage Zombie," the soundtrack features many rising bands of the time, Del Feuegos, The Violent Femmes, Los Lobos, The Smithereens and others, but that's hardly enough to make you want to suffer though the film. Watch Troma, Grindhouse or Hobo instead.

This Sucks

[InvasionofPALs · 1/10 · 15 January 2005]

I was dopey enough some years ago to buy a used tape of this from a Blockbuster. I thought it might be fun in a campy sorta way. I wasn't expecting much in the way of high class entertainment. Well, I watched the whole movie. I concluded that it sucked -- a lot. I quickly sold the VHS for a buck, mad at myself that I had spent 2 bucks on this sh*t. Ugh!

I'm not gonna discuss the plot. You can read about what passes for the plot from another commenter. I can only say I wasn't entertained at all. I don't have high standards for movies like this, but even my low-rent standards were compromised by this pile of garbage. There are several movies whose negatives I wish I could destroy. This is one of them.

I might add that any readers who don't find this review useful are the kind of retards the director made this movie for. So there.

I was a teenage idiot for renting this movie!

[ManHands · 1/10 · 13 April 1999]

I saw this film when I was a perverted 13 year-old who hoped for plenty of cleavage and carnage. The cover artwork displayed a zombie carrying off a scantily-clad bimbo --- all the makings of good pubescent fun. On the contrary, I was bored silly and amazed that someone actually got paid for writing this junk. A good zombie versus a bad zombie?! For Christs' sake, this movie was too bad to even be called camp. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't even on the worst 100 list.

Lifeless Execution

[NoDakTatum · 2/10 · 5 October 2023]

This silly Troma-like horror comedy has a stupid energy all its own. A group of guys led by Dan (Michael Ruben) and goofy Gordy (George Seminara) decide to buy a quarter pound of marijuana for the big spring dance. They get some stuff sprayed with pesticide from Mussolini (Steve McCoy), and confront him when the pot makes them sick. Mussolini slips on a banana peel and dies, or so the boys think, and they try to throw him in the recently contaminated river, but he wakes up and promises revenge. Dan hits him with a baseball bat, then tosses him in the drink, and they go back to their normal high school lives. Dan has the hots for Cindy (Cassie Madden), but becomes tongue tied whenever he is around her. Speaking of tongues, Mussolini comes back to life and pulls the taste organ out of one of the group. Mussolini also assaults and kills one of their girlfriends, and the guys set a trap for the zombie. The whole thing boils down to a gory finale at the dance.

The rest of the gang of guys are so unmemorable, I could not tell them apart. This was filmed in 1987, and features Duran Duran jokes and a soundtrack by the Violent Femmes and the Smithereens. The money used to get these groups' songs would have been better spent on the production itself. The film is funny in a dumb way, and the film makers should have gone for a higher brow screwball comedy. Instead, the comedy is boring. The gore scenes are few and far between, including the old talking disembodied head bit- which has an actor sticking his "decapitated" organ through a hole in a table. The gore effects are weak. The editing is sloppy. The jokes are old. The acting is bad. The direction is standard. The script is half-baked. And yet the film is so awful, it is entertaining. I do not mean in a "so bad it's good" way, but in a "so mind alteringly awful, it's watchable in its own mindless way" way. It is ugly, dumb, still bad, and not easy to block out of my memory.

Takes place in a crappy suburb of Tromaville

[ddschneider72 · 1/10 · 15 September 2021]

This is hard to sit through. There is not one good thing I can say about it. It makes Lloyd Kaufman (who does get a shout-out) look like Spielberg.

An hour in it and there's no teenage zombie yet.

No plot, no acting, no script. Nothing but time I'll never get back.

All the ingredients for a solid cult flick

[BloodTheTelepathicDog · 6/10 · 22 March 2005]

The makers of My Boyfriends Back, obviously saw this film a number of times. The likable cast of unknowns help to pull this above the majority of 80s cult wannabes.

The plot centers around six friends trying to score some weed to loosen up their prom dates. It's been a very dry year, so only dealer Moose(who Backlash007 perfectly described as a meshing of Jerry Stiller with Cheech Marin) has the only "weed" in town. His product is subpar to say the least, so the buddies decide to get a refund, which Moose refuses to honor. This leads to the guys killing Moose, and disposing of his body in a contaminated river. Well, the contamination brings Moose back from the dead, as a crazed revenge seeking zombie. After Moose kills baseball stud Dan(a remarkable performance by Michael Rubin), his friends decide to dump his body into the river, thus re-animating him to serve as undead protection from the zombie Moose.

This film is very clever, in the league of Evil Dead and Re-Animator, and should be considered a great cult film. Personally, my favorite scene was when Dan day-dreams about swatting a clutch homerun, that kills the crazed Moose. Well worth a look for people who like witty comedy sprinkled with their horror.

The most underrated film of all time

[polysicsarebest · 8/10 · 14 August 2004]

Well, I've seen TONS of bad reviews for this movie... for no apparent reason. Did people expect a serious movie? On the old VHS copy of this tape I have, it even says on the back of the box "this is a movie for people who like some laughs with their gore." And it certainly delivers the laughs and is just an overall good time. It's not REALLY a horror movie, persé, but it's definitely worth checking out and is pretty easy to find at old mom-and-pop shops across the country.

The minute this movie starts with a long shot of a lake and the hilariously bad rockabilly/swingin' song "I Was a Teenage Zombie" (by the Fleshtones -- I am so lucky to have this song on MP3), you know you're in for a treat. The characters are absolutely priceless: We have a guy that looks like Lars Ulrich (who gets his tongue ripped off, I believe). Then, the main character, who looks like Doogie Howser and is basically a huge geek. Then, there is a Mexican pimp selling some bad weed, and he is just amazing. In one scene, he rips a guy's hilarious and shocking Playdough face off and says, "Yeah, I'm the weedman! I got some WEED!" I was rolling on the floor laughing.

A good b-movie's weight can be measured in how many scenes you will want to show to your friends, and this film certainly delivers. Whether it's the hilarious rape scene (the Mexican zombie pimp is raping a girl and drooling and then breaks her legs in half or something), the decapitated head basketball scene, or the hilarious Troma reference (LLOYD KAUFMAN JUST FELL INTO A CONTAINER OF TOXIC WASTE!). However, the most amazing part of the movie has to be in the first half-hour of the film: One of the characters changes into a baseball uniform JUST to hit another character in the head with a baseball bat and then changes back in the next shot. It's all very humorous.

I'm guessing the people who gave this a bad rating were expecting a Fulci classic or something. All in all, it's definitely a good time, up there with Monster High and Rock N Roll Nightmare as the most amazingly underrated and wonderful B-Movies of all time. See it.

Gags & Gore to Go Around

[[e-mail] · 7/10 · 13 November 2006]

"I Was a Teenage Zombie" is a classic low, low budget indie film. It has bad sound and cheesy film quality, but the characters are as good as any high school horror/comedy film I've ever seen, and the acting is better than some.

The screenplay could have been tighter. It dragged in places. They probably could have cut 15 or 20 minutes out of it without losing any of the fun. But it contains enough laugh-out-loud gags and gag-out-loud gore to make it well worth your while. It's a must-see for indie film buffs.

I happened on a audio cassette of the soundtrack long before I actually saw the movie.

It is the best movie soundtrack I've ever heard, bar none.

Anybody know where I can get a CD of it?

Weird, wacky, and memorable

[drownsoda90 · 7/10 · 20 December 2016]

"I Was a Teenage Zombie" follows a group of teenagers who kill a drug dealer at their high school and dump his corpse in a toxic river that turns him into a zombie. Chaos ensues in true eighties teen film fashion.

One of the weirder offerings of the late 1980s, "I Was a Teenage Zombie" is borderline-"so bad it's good," but it has several things going for it that make it at least semi-interesting. I have seen some compare the film to those of John Waters, and the comparison is most definitely warranted. The film has the kitschy, gritty edge of Waters' early work, with a dash of John Hughes, resting in the framework of a solid horror movie.

The film certainly stands out among the crop of late-eighties horror films, when the slasher was in its death knell between 1987 and the post-"Scream" landscape. It is aesthetically on par with the greatest of eighties teen cult films, and boasts some economical yet serviceable special effects. It's quite clearly low-budget, but rather charming in all its ridiculousness. The acting is by and large quite poor as well, punctuated with bad delivery and bad dialogue. The film has the distinguishing feature of boasting a wildly memorable soundtrack, including a title track by The Fleshtones and other songs from the Violent Femmes and the late and great Alex Chilton. Are you interested yet?

Overall, it's easy to see why "I Was a Teenage Zombie" has become a minor cult hit, though at the same time, it's surprising that the cult hasn't grown over the years. The film's niche audience sees in it precisely what it was striving for, and expects no more and no less of it. It's an absurd film, humorous and utterly inane, but ceaselessly amusing. Fans of low-budget cheese will have a ball with this one. 7/10.

A Triumph

[stevebreighner · 9/10 · 4 September 2016]

One of the best movies I've seen in a while. No wonder it is in the Criterion Collection. Yes, of course its stupid,but so what? Does stupid necessarily equal bad? I don't think so at all.. This movie had almost everything I admire about zombie and more generally, horror movies: the camp (poor video/audio quality and dialogue in this regard) action, raunchiness, some gore yes, and laughs. I thought the plot was entirey original and well thought out. The film had many likable characters and includes great performances by the drug dealer and the two main heroes. In fact they were most all endearing. There were one or two particularly gross scenes which I could have done without. Awesome soundtrack also. Highly recommend to any zombie fan. Bravo!

A High Camp Masterpiece

[jokerman-6 · 23 January 2000]

If you are a member of the "It's so bad its good" crowd you are going to love this movie..We have it all here friends...Men who are obviousley in their late 20's trying to play high school students and a vietnam war veteran drug dealer who looks like an 18 year old freddy mercury! Yep it's cue card heaven..Theres a guy that looks like a fat rick nelson from cheap trick (even wears a cap)...there is a henry winkler (fonzie) character...I could go on but what's the use..Check the bottom shelf of your local video store's horror section..dust this thing off and take it home you're sure to find it giggle inducing.

Troma Meets John Hughes?

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 21 October 2016]

Six high school buddies accidentally kill a drug pusher and dump his body in toxic waters. When the pusher returns as a zombie and goes on a killing spree, their only recourse is to dump the body of one of their own recently dead, and have him return as a "good" zombie to face off with the "bad" one.

If this film wasn't inspired by "The Toxic Avenger", I'd be very surprised. The toxic waste theme, the low budget production, the offbeat sense of humor. It seems like a Troma film with some touches of John Hughes (with a nerd hanging out with cooler kids).

If you don't like horror-comedy of the no-budget variety, you won't like this. But if you do, you'll love it! This is just an absolutely wonderful example of what could be done in the 1980s if you had the right minds... somehow we seemed to lose that charm when the decade ended.

Great Silly Movie

[CMRKeyboadist · 8/10 · 14 December 2005]

I was in the video store back in the eighties (probably 1987) and I was just a kid mesmorized by the horror video section. Now, parents let me rent horror films just as long as the cover was not gruesome or had a guy with a chainsaw on it. Boy were they fooled. I saw the cover to this movie and instantly it looked like a cool movie. My parents looked at it and saw nothing objectionable about it, so I rented it. I remember the movie itself was silly and childish but what really stood out for me were some of the gore scenes in the movie. When your a 7 year old kid and you see someone getting their face viciously ripped off that kind of thing sticks with you. Now, going into present day, I had one hell of a time finding a copy of this movie but, thanks to Ebay, I found an original copy just as I remembered it. Boy, was this a jem for me. So, I got some beer, sat down and popped it on. I was not disappointed at all. Basically, the story goes like this. A group of teenage friends are looking for some weed to smoke at high school dance. They can't find it anywhere but through a low life called Mussalini (Moose for short). The weed turns out to be really bad and they go to get their money back but off course Moose plays it like a jerk. So the teens kill Moose by accident and through his body into a local river that has been heavily polluted. Needless to say, Moose comes back to life to seek revenge and soon starts killing the teens. Well, the few that are left decide to fight fire with fire and throw one of their dead friends into the same polluted water and hope that he comes back. This is a great low budget film that brings back a lot of memories from the eighties. For gore fans, don't expect anything to vicious but the movie does have its moments, just very low budget moments. 8 stars

"Are you the guy who's selling the Marajahooby?"

[Backlash007 · 8 December 2003]

~Spoiler~

I Was a Teenage Zombie is a major throwback to the teen horror flicks of the late 50's. It's got the soundtrack, the malt shop, and even Cindy Faithful. Too bad it was done better in My Boyfriend's Back. This is just a poorly done horror/comedy with hardly any effort put forth. The direction is choppy at best, the sound quality is pitiful, and the production values are nonexistent. I don't even want to get into the story, but I will. Five friends are in need of weed during the town's dry season so they can get their dates a little loose during the spring dance. They turn to a local thug, Mussolini (think Jerry Stiller crossed with Cheech Marin), who rips them off. While trying to get their money back, they accidentally kill him (he slips on a banana peel) and dump him into the river (which is filled with toxic waste from the nuclear plant). He comes back as a zombie and kills one of the five, our titular hero. The remaining four dump their dead friend in the river as well so he will become a zombie and protect them from Mussolini. Does it get any worse than that? Other than a few mildly funny gags, I would say no.

Note for genre buffs: The name Lloyd Kaufman is given as an employee of the nuclear plant. Lloyd Kaufman is head of Troma studios and co-creator of the Toxic Avenger.

This is a great movie why do people not like it?

[jacobjohntaylor1 · 10/10 · 29 April 2019]

This is a very scary movie. It is has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street. It is scarier then The Shinning. I give this movie 10 out of 10. Why did it get 4.5?

Eh, it's not that bad...

[Dr Wily · 12 June 1999]

Maybe it was because I was a teenager when I rented it, but, I don't think this flick is all that bad. The basic element is dumb, naturally: some sort of toxic, polluted marijuana turns a dealer and a teen into zombies who must, for some reason, battle each other. But, there are some okay moments. The guy who gets his face torn off and then has his face rubbed in... well, his face. And, the odd rape scene on the car hood, with our resident dealer zombie, who tears off her legs, apparently to the victim's delight, is just plain odd enough to make you laugh inquisitively.

I was an inept student film maker.

[FATLOSER · 18 October 1999]

This movie smells worse than a rotting corpse. The film maker wasn't interested in little things like continuity, synchronized dialogue, or comprehensible shot angles. I'm undecided on whether to put this in the "it's so bad it's good" category because it may just be too horrible. Watch it and decide for yourselves.

well..............um...............uh

[cacalash · 30 October 2000]

Now some people may say this movie is and i quote "stupid,cheap and cheesy" but honestly this wasn't the best movie in the world but if you stick with it this is a very good movie but if you do give it up your missing an awesome ending some will like this some will not.

Strictly amateur level

[lor_ · 17 March 2023]

My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie in 16mm at a Times Square screening room.

The best thing about "I Was a Teenage Zombie", unfortunately, is its title, harking back to the Heman Cohen hits of the 1950s that launched the acting careers of Michael Landon and Gary Conway. New pic is a low-budgeter that is amateurish in every department and a very long shot to curry favor in midnight bookings.

Thin plot has a drug pusher named Mussolini (hambone Steve McCoy) selling toxic maijuana to high school students, causing one of them (George Seminara) to go through special makeup convolutions that are a hint of the poorly executed, grossout makeup effects to come. Mussolini ends up dead and dumped in the river, but comes back to life (face painted green) as a zombie caused by a leak into the river from a nearby nuclear power plant.

When the hero (Michael Ruben) is killed, his pals dump him into the river to create a good guy zombie to do battle with Mussolini. Pic climaxes with extreme gore at the high school dance.

Besides the phony, done better many times before makeup effects., pic suffers from idiotic dialog, amateur acting and direction worthy of a home movie. A nonstop score of rock songs functions as droning muzak in the background.