“Raiders of the Living Dead” (1986) directed by Samuel M. Sherman.

(MF Title: “I watched it all, my eyes are bleeding but I watched it all dammit….”)

Starring: Robert Deveau, Scott Schwartz, Robert Allen, Donna Asali and Leonard Corman.
Zombie Film Rating:

Overview: “There…. is….. no….. God…..“.

I am of course quoting myself after watching this movie no fewer than 3 times trying to make sense of it. After the medication wore off and I had chewed through the restraints I escaped the clutches of the medical professionals charged with my rehabilitation and immediately sought out internet access to post this, a warning to you all.

This is quite possibly the worst Zombie movie I have ever seen in my life (not a judgement passed lightly by the way). A quick blurb, here we go…. An evil doctor has set up shop in an abandoned prison, a journalist gets wind of the strange goings on and investigates only to be attacked, then stalked by the undead. Undaunted by this he continues to prod around until he is captured by the evil doctor, and rescued in the nick of time by an old man, a young boy and a laser that was fashioned from common household items. This rag tag band then vanquishes the doctor in a flurry of bad special effects.

Summary: This movie opens with the hijacking of a tanker truck by generic evil henchman #413. He then drives the tanker to the local nuclear power plant (which looks amazingly like a mill), takes some people hostage and demands the release of a number of convicts (why he didn’t just take his own car to the mill, um plant, we’re never sure of).

The police react by sending in a two man SWAT team (does that even qualify as a team?), they use a taser to stun him, then rush in and ignore him altogether while he regains his wits, kills one SWAT member and then runs away from the second. A short chase, entirely devoid of challenges or demans follows and the Generic Evil Henchman #413 is electrocuted by the wiley (but mute) SWAT guy.

We now jump to Johnny and his grandfather, seems Johnny is spending some time with his grandfather while his father completes a “special project”. Grandpa mentions that his new Laser Disc Player is not working and Johnny offers to fix it for him. During the repairs Johnny fries his hamster with a laser beam, and decides that the military applications of common home theatre components deserves more study.

Next we’re introduced to Reported Seeking Big Break #129 (here after referred to as RSBB129) and “Generic Disposable Photographer/Flunky #760″ (Not referred to here after as she dies almost immediately) who drive all night to sneak around an abandoned building based solely on the tip “the last person who went out there never came back”. Naturally RSBB129 is jumped by zombies, and flees on foot.

On his way back to town he is struck by a car, and the female driver takes pity on him driving him back into town. After having had his flunky killed, and being chased around the forest by the undead RSBB129 decides that he should NOT contact the police, but instead should rent a room in the village and buy a shotgun (my favorite part of this film is the 15 minutes or so that RSBB129 wanders around interacting with other characters with a shotgun shaped package under his arm, and everyone fails to notice.)

We take a short break here as RSBB129 and the careless driver go on a date (natual after a zombie attack, no?). Following the date RSBB129 is attacked in his rented room by a zombie, and succeeds in killing it. Natually the police attend, and somehow track down Careless Driver, carefully explaining every fact uncovered by their investigation.

RSBB129 wanders the streets aimlessly (clearly renting another room is out of the question) and is taken in by Johnnys grandpa. RSBB129 explains what has happened (wish he’d explain it to me), and insists that he is determined to solve this mystery no matter the cost.

RSBB129 rushes off to the abandoned prison where the evil lurks, Grandpa decides he needs help and immediately recruits a his grandson Johnny, a friend of Johnnys and a security guard from his work (Whaddafarg?). After donning appropriate equipment they set off for the prison.

The final battle between good and evil takes place… and evil wins (after all this movie was released).

Critique: Holy crapajoles…. Look, this movie is simply awful. There are long periods completely free of any dialogue what so ever and when the dialogue begins you can’t help but pray for silence again. The score is the worst kind of badly mixed public domain tunes spliced together abruptly and painfully.

This movie is horrible.