ZOMBIE HIGH
It's like Disturbing Behavior without the Mormons
The title of this movie features one zombie. That's more than you'll see in the movie itself.
Can't say I was expecting big things outta this baby - my previous experiences with movies whose titles start with "Zombie" have led me to get out my suck-detector, and it was going off wildly when I pointed it at this film.
Virginia Madsen stars as a young lady who gets a scholarship to go to a prestigious private school which until recently was all-male. She befriends this really lame comic-relief guy (and a couple of the other female students), encounters romantic tension with one teacher, and develops the obvious problems with her now long-distance boyfriend, who never seems to leave. After a very very very VERY long time, she discovers that the faculty is planning to brainwash all the students to turn them into good little right-wing stereotypes.
So basically, it's Disturbing Behavior, with irritating preppies instead of wholesome Mormons. I'm not sure which one I can put up with less; but I do remember that my own high school was pretty much split between the preppies and the Mormons. Just after I graduated, that's when the brawls, stabbings, and drive-bys started. Honest!
The back of the box claims that it's a "humorous thriller", although the only humor in evidence is provided by the lame comic-relief guy, and some unintended chuckles (like one shot of the school dance - must not be much fun for the guys if they outnumber the girls ten to one - where each couple is dancing in perfect unison, demonstrating their lobotomization)(you know, like country line dancing). And, I suppose, there's the ultimate "silver bullet" against the lobotomized students, which is an obvious inspiration for one of Mars Attacks!'s less inspired (and more incessantly repeated) gags.
The film features a really cool "pin wall" (know those things where you can leave your hand or face imprint in the pins? This one's six feet tall), and Virginia Madsen shows a modicum of the charm we know she's capable of, but she can't salvage a piece of crap like this. Back off, son. Back off.