Bloody Nightmares #32: Zombie Rampage (1989/1991)

During a recent viewing of Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, I began to ponder just how oddly versatile the zombie film genre has become. Despite some serious over-saturation, talented filmmakers still manage to wring out new and interesting perspectives on the shuffling dead in a variety of different artistic mediums. Now that we're inundated with successful mainstream films, books and even television series', it's hard to believe that it wasn't too long ago that fans had to resort to somewhat less polished efforts to get their zombie fix. And, yes, sometimes that means dipping into works of auteur director Todd Sheets, the low budget maestro who also brought us Nightmare Asylum and Prehistoric Bimbos In Armageddon City. By 1989 the bloom was off the zombie rose, coming before Tom Savini's remake of Night Of The Living Dead or Peter Jackson's Braindead, so Sheets - obviously a massive fan of the genre - decided to get some friends, some camcorders and some animal entrails together and put on a show. The result was Zombie Rampage, which swings wildly between incoherent and amateurish, but does manage to provide plenty of gut-munching for particularly undemanding audiences. The version of the film in the Bloody Nightmares collection has an opening disclaimer stating that this is the "director's cut", so take that for what it's worth.

Note: That is not how discretion is spelled.

Two gangs from the mean street of Kansas City - one led by Sheets himself - have an old fashioned brawl (with a rock cover of "Spirit In the Sky" in the background) that leaves a few members dead. Upset, one of the gang leaders gets an occult paperback book that is said to bring the dead back to life, though the other gang manages to get the same book and - after a particularly windy reading of incantations - manage to create the titular zombie rampage. The gang members are quickly consumed, leaving the leader (and king asshole) Tommy (Dave Byerly) to hole up at a bar, alongside the young bemulleted Dave (Erin Kehr) and his girlfriend. There's also big dopey serial killer roaming around for some reason. Soon they are all overwhelmed by zombies of various quality - from halloween fun mask, to gooey burn victim - and the constantly bickering Tommy and Dave (along with their girlfriends) attempt to escape down an elevator shaft. And then there are a couple of shots of zombies, and the whole thing ends. Huh. How about that.

I feel like I'm repeating myself by mentioning that Zombie Rampage is a total amateur effort, featuring consistently terrible acting, special effects, writing and direction. I suspected - based on Sheets other efforts - that this would be the case going in, but this movie has some unique quirks that are particularly baffling. For one, the transition between the gang's efforts to raise the dead and the panic that leads to the characters attempting to seal themselves in a bar is totally nonexistent. There appears to be at least five minutes of exposition that is totally missing, and characters who seemed absolutely fine one minute, are suddenly (and incompetently) attempting to seal up doors and windows the next. Then things just get strange, as we're shown some random guy getting bitten outside a church(?) and a young man and woman attempting to nurse his wound, another couple attempting to hide in some sort of boiler room, and of course there's the serial killer subplot which is a real head scratcher.

And then there's the ending. I actually went back and watched it a second time to see if I may have missed some sort of event that would trigger the closing credits. Maybe the characters slipped into the elevator shaft? Maybe they were suddenly overrun by zombies? All we get is the voice-over from the ending of Lucio Fulci's Zombi implying that the city is overrun, but the characters get absolutely no visual resolution. The IMDB does imply that there is a Zombie Rampage 2 out there, but I can't find any concrete evidence supporting this. Needless to say, what is already a confusing film is saddled with a particularly unsatisfying ending.

Note: Quite a visible boom mic in the bottom left.

But let's look on the bright side. First, this isn't nearly as awful as Nightmare Asylum. The acting is a smidge better, and while characters still constantly shout unintelligible dialogue over each other, at least the first twenty minutes seems to make some sort of sense. The music is also much better than in the other Sheets films I've seen, no longer relying on public domain classical music and instead featuring a mix of rock songs and dated synthy stuff - as well as some more recognizable genre thefts. There's also plenty of guts to go around if you're into that sort of thing, though the special effects are inconsistent - the knife used by the serial killer has obviously been cut off, and most scenes of cannibalism are just a pile of entrails laying on someone's stomach.

I also can't help but note two particularly ridiculous moments. First, there's a scene where a woman is pushing a baby carriage through a street at a comically late hour before being attacked by zombies. I give Sheets some bad-taste credit for also having the ghouls tear her baby - which is obviously just a children's doll - to bits, An inspired bit of sickness. Second, one random character decides to blow his own brains out, which leads to a delightfully extended sequence that - despite the sorrowful music in the background - is absolutely impossible to take seriously. Needless to say, if you guessed that a slew of brains end up coating the wall, you would be correct.

Baseball fury? Or zombie mime?

Zombie Rampage has obviously been transferred directly from an old VHS tape and features the requisite tracking issues and washed out colors you expect from that format. It's a shot-on-VHS production, so image quality is iffy, and there's a notable hiss on the soundtrack throughout. Sound is a constant issue, particularly in the early scenes where wind consistently drowns out dialogue, and I again had to switch to headphones in order to attempt to make sense of what was being said. Despite many outdoor scenes at night, the lighting is thankfully serviceable. 

My understanding is that one of the selling points of the "Director's Cut" of Zombie Rampage is that there was a collection of extra features, but we get none of them here. And once again there are no chapter stops, so prepare yourself before you dive in.

Teenage mullet fury.

Perhaps I'm growing more fond of Todd Sheets' work, or perhaps my expectations have just shifted appropriately, but Zombie Rampage isn't nearly as offensively awful as I was expecting. It's still wholly nonsensical - and a frustrating experience for those not used to the limitations of no-budget films - but in all it's fairly painless, and would have delivered the goods for a zombie-crazed 14 year old version of myself. Strangely, it seems like Sheets' work actually regressed after this film, as this is the best of the three efforts of his that I've seen. Best to stick with one of the many, many, many superior zombie options that are available.

Bloody Nightmares #29: Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City (1991)

Todd Sheets has been making micro-budget genre films - mostly of the horror variety - for a quarter of a century, so you'll have to excuse me if I take a moment to show the man a little respect. Yes, his Nightmare Asylum nearly broke my brain. Yes, Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City has all of the same technical and structural limitations as that later film (and a few more). Yes, it took me three attempts to get through this film despite it being only 69 minutes long. But, the man is committed to the genres he loves, and despite a long history of creating some of the worst things ever committed to videotape, he's still ballsy enough to call himself the "Master of Splatter". It's almost admirable.

Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City begins in a particularly confusing manner, with plot points and characters being thrown at the screen with reckless abandon. Apparently there's a group of Prehistoric.. Bimbos who are searching a post-apocalyptic Chicago for an antidote to the disease that is plaguing one of their comrades. Along the way they battle - ridiculously - in a rec-room against the minions of the evil Salacious Thatch. Then the whole thing is over. Only eight minutes. That wasn't so bad.

However, these are actually clips from Todd Sheets' earlier Bimbos B.C. (1990), the film to which Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City is a sequel. Bimbos B.C. is - tragically - not included in this collection, so I'll just have to try and pick up on important plot points from the earlier film as we go along. We're immediately thrown into the film's opening credits, which are redeemed significantly by the Sheets' composed theme song titled (surprisingly) "Prehistoric Bimbos In Armageddon City" which manages to somehow be both low-fi and low-brow at the same time. Thank goodness this song exists, since its main guitar riff appears to be the only bit of original music throughout the film - the rest being composed of public domain works (notably Mars: Bringer of War by Gustav Holst and the music that begins Act II of Swan Lake that is notably used in Tod Browning's Dracula).

We begin with a post-Apocalyptic Chicago that looks suspiciously like regular Chicago - and I hope the original film explains why the women are at all "prehistoric", as aside from wearing a bit of fur over their tie-died mom jean-shorts and t-shirts they seem fairly representative of your average early 90s woman. They also spend a lot of time wandering the halls of what looks a lot like a fully functioning school, which sort of takes the edge off of the "warrior woman" vibe that Sheets is going for. Gabrielle (Holly Starr) has been left in charge by Bimbo leader (and star of the first film) Trianna, but is having trouble gaining the respect of her.. uh.. bimbettes. She decides a team building exercise might help bring the group together, so she assembles the titular gals to go out in search of precious gems.

Meanwhile, since the supposed death of Salacious Thatch, Armageddon City has been taken over by the supremely goofy Nemesis and his band of discount robots. One of these robots finds the not-actually-dead (though badly wounded) Thatch and - after giving him a shiny metal robot arm - he joins Nemesis in an uneasy alliance. Thatch vows revenge against the Bimbos, and he soon has Gabrielle and the rest of the gals (including Male Bimbo Larry) working as slaves in his underground mines. Eventually Nemesis gets a bit jealous of Thatch taking over things, and the two have an epic chase that encompasses motor-vehicles, pedal-bikes and skateboards before the two are blown up by a particularly crummy robot programmed by Jeriboah, the creator of the stolen robots (who also happens to stumble over half of his lines). Trianna returns to congratulate the bimbos (along with ineffectual characters like Pringle (played by the director), John Apollo, and Doc) before promising that they'll all get together in another sequel. We're still waiting, Todd.

Despite piss-poor sound (much of the dialogue is drowned out by the repetitive music, so I eventually switched to watching with headphones so I could make out what was being said), and what can only be described as a non-existent visual style, I enjoyed Prehistoric Bimbos significantly more than I expected to. The acting is uniformly terrible, but at least this time there appears to have been a script (by regular Sheets collaborator Roger Williams), and the whole thing wraps up before it gets too tiresome. It's saved by a few moments of humor - Pringle running into the alien from Ridley Scott's Alien and saying "I'm in the wrong movie! Go find the bald-headed chick", the comically extended chase scene at the end - and the high-school art class "robots" compiled from plumbing parts and cardboard boxes. Despite the title, there's hardly anything in here that would bring this over a PG rating aside from a few "shits" and - a Sheets trademark - a character calling someone a "piece of dook".

I should note that there is apparently a 80 minute version of this out there - which might explain why certain characters just show up at the end without explanation - but the 69 minute version (which has less than an hour of original footage) is probably just right for those looking to dip their feet into the work of Todd Sheets. The film is presented full-screen and was shot on video, and comes with the usual glitches and inconsistent color that you quickly become accustomed to on no-budget productions. Thankfully much of the film is shot outdoors during the day, so the lighting issues that plagued Nightmare Asylum are not an issue here. As mentioned, the sound is awful aside from that rocking theme song.

As per usual in the Bloody Nightmares collection there are no extras, not even chapter stops.

While it feels more than a little rushed together, Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City isn't quite as shoddily made as some of Todd Sheets other efforts, and has enough moments of pleasant silliness to keep things from going off the rails completely. It still looks and sounds just awful, and barely makes a lick of sense, but it's all over so quickly that it's, at the very least, easy to forgive. Certainly not recommended, but also not as bad as it could have been.

Bloody Nightmares #3: Nightmare Asylum (1992)

An entirely unpleasant viewing experience, Todd Sheet's Nightmare Asylum strongly resembles a particularly violent high school play being performed in a haunted house, but with little of the entertainment value that might suggest. Every line is shouted, punches miss by a foot, and generally everyone just seems embarrassed to be involved. Sheets has spoken of his affection for Italian horror directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, but this effort is artless and (even worse) tedious despite its hour running time.

To create the proper nightmare atmosphere for his film, Sheets has made a conscious choice to nearly completely avoid a plot. We follow Lisa (Lori Hassel) as she wanders from room to room in a demented funhouse (with wax museum!), occasionally being pestered by a creepy family (and their son Spider) or terrorized by a group of killers who are intent on dispatching people in the messiest way possible. There's plenty of corn syrup and organ meat on display, and it frankly gets to be a tad nauseating. Eventually, the big baddies (think a really talkative Leatherface with long blond hair and his mullet zombie sidekick) drag everyone to the zombie pit (not as fun as it sounds) before we're treated to not one, but two shitty fake-out endings.

According to the credits, Nightmare Asylum was filmed at The Devil's Dark Side Haunted House. It looks like a lot of fun. It has a wax museum ("Look, it's Pinhead! Cool, Linda Blair from The Exorcist!"), and a creepy morgue and all sorts of gory fun. However, it is not a movie set, and while Sheets gets plenty of mileage out of colored lights and fog machines, the rest of production is painful to sit through. While the cast is obviously speaking as loud as possible, it's only occasionally intelligable which makes long scenes of dialogue (much of which seems to have been made up on the spot) a garbled mess.

There is plenty of gore, including a severed tongue, guts being strewn about, and a stick being shoved up an ass and out a mouth, but it's all ineptly filmed or sabotaged by choppy editing. Occasionally a scene will be broken up by a seemingly random shot of a part of the haunted house, but such moments (along with the predominance of lit Exit signs) tend to remind the viewer of just how cheap looking the production is.

The acting is terrible, though Matthew Lewis as Spider at least seems to be trying, even if what he's trying to do is annoying. The nastiest of the baddies (Blonde Leatherface and his Mullet friend) have intolerably long scenes together, and the rare occasions when you can understand what's being said ("Oh, your aching banana! Well, my aching cumquat you piece of dookie!"), may make you long for the times that it's incomprehensible.

Make-up is mostly of the white face-paint variety, and the special effects are what you would expect from a Halloween haunted house. We get a few zombies at the end, but by then even viewers with the strongest fortitude will be crying out in pain.

Nightmare Asylum appears to have been shot on a camcorder, and it has a comparable image quality to low budet porno of the era. The Bloody Nightmares DVD transfer appears to come directly from a home video release, even including the FBI warning at the beginning. There are a few small glitches throughout, but considering the awful production as a whole it would seem petty to pick on them.

Almost the entire soundtrack is taken up by what seems to be a ten second loop from a quite familiar piece of soundtrack music. It's invasive, and seems to have been placed at random. There are some other original pieces of music that appear throughout composed by Enochian Key or Sheets himself, but it serves mostly to drown out dialogue. Thankfully.

On his website, Todd Sheets refers to himself as a "master of splatter". I respectfully disagree. From looking at his filmography, it seems like the films of Mr. Sheets appear again in this collection. After watching Nightmare Asylum, i'm suddenly starting to worry about what i've gotten myself into.

Oh so very bad.