Street Zombies. 1993. Directed by J.R. Bookwalter. Written by Bookwalter and David Wagner. Released by Tempe Entertainment.
(Note: This movie was released under the names
Street Zombies and
Ozone. Although the DVD currently out uses the latter name, I'm using the former name because A) it's slightly better, and B) the director reportedly hates it, and he deserves to suffer)
There are different degrees of bad film. There's the camp film, the film that tries to do something original and fails, the "so bad it's good" movie, the Uwe Boll Tax Shelter Flop, the by-the-numbers copycat, et cetera. And then there's the "how the fuck could any studio waste even a bloody nickel distributing this awful piece of shit?" movie. Street Zombies is one of the best examples of this particular breed of bad movie. And by "bad," I mean "unspeakably awful".
Of course, it's written and directed by J.R. Bookwalter, whose resume includes such classics as
Robot Ninja,
Zombie Cop, and
Kingdom of the Vampire*. He's basically a poor man's David Decoteau**, but he lacks the vision that his one-time mentor has shown. Street Zombies, incidentally, was originally released as Ozone, but I'm assuming that it was renamed to try to leech some business from cult hit
Street Trash. It's not like either title is a winner.
We start with a junkie going to his dealer for a hit. His dealer gives him some new drug, and, of course, the first hit's free. When the junkie goes home, he melts the crack-like (but black) rocks he got and injects the liquid into his veins. That's when he discovers that the first hit is the only hit. Because after a few seconds, his neck swells up and his head explodes! Oh no! Cut to the opening credits.
We now meet up with two vice cops on a stakeout,
Crocket and Tubbs Mike and Eddie. They're staking out that drug dealer (whose name is Richter, not to be confused with any homophonically identical X-Factor members) and they catch him in middle of a deal. Naturally, a shootout occurs, and Richter gets hit. While Mike runs after Richter's customer***, Eddie goes to search Richter's body for more drugs. Alas, Richter isn't dead yet, and he stabs Eddie in the arm with a syringe (which, even though the plunger never gets pushed, presumably puts the drugs into Eddie's body, possibly through the magic of filmmaking).
Meanwhile, Mike is still chasing down the junkie****, and he heads into an abandoned-looking building. Of course, instead of a junkie, he finds a zombie! We get the usual cliches here, as he yells at the zombie, threatens it, shoots it, and finally realizes that he's up against something really nasty. As he backs away, another zombie sneaks up on Mike and cuts off his hand with what has to be the world's most oddly-shaped diamond. Well, it looks like a shard of glass, but we all know that there's no way typical window glass could cut through a bone that easily, so I'm guessing it's really a diamond.
Anyway, Mike runs away, leaving his hand behind (poor hand). He barricades himself inside a closet, but the zombies soon break in, and we fade back to the original crime scene.
Eddie's captain is busy chewing Eddie out about how he handled the case. At no point does anyone seem to worry much that Mike is missing, likely because in this police department, cops go off on sudden benders just to cope with the pain of being in a movie this bad. Or something.
Back at the station, Eddie gets chewed out some more in a typical "rebel cop/hardass lieutenant" scene leading to Eddie's suspension, and then Eddie goes into the bathroom, where his face melts. Really. After $12 worth of f/x shots, Eddie wakes up to realize that it was just a dream. Well, the face-melting part, at least.
Now, in case you weren't paying attention, before his nightmare, Eddie got stabbed with a mystery syringe. So you'd think that he'd see a doctor. I fact, you'd think that departmental regulations would require it. Then again, that might cut the rest of the movie short, and although that would truly be a blessing, it ain't happening.
Eddie heads back to the building where Mike vanished, but instead of his partner, he finds a zombie. This zombie asks Eddie if he's "transformed," and says that he smells like a "brother." Now, granted, Eddie is black, but the zombie isn't, so we're probably meant to believe that Eddie gives off a zombie vibe, just like Laura Bush. Eddie eventually encounters movie cliche #238 and falls through some rotten floorboards, where he finds a few dead bodies that he doesn't bother reporting to anyone.
Eddie then checks out Mike's apartment, where he bullies his way past the landlady. The answering machine contains -- get this -- a message for Eddie, from a zombie! And the zombie says that he'll tear out Eddie's intestines. That's way more interesting than the messages I get on my answering machine.
As Eddie gets back into his car, a cop comes up and tells him that they need him back at the station. When Eddie gets out of his car, the cop attacks him. It's a zombie cop! Eddie kicks him in his zombie crotch and throws him into the parking lot, where a car conveniently speeds by at about 70 MPH and squashes his head. The $28 spent on that scene pretty much takes care of the gore budget for this movie.
Naturally, Eddie heads to a local seedy country bar next. Why? Because that's the set piece that the director wanted to use! After meeting yet another junkie shooting up with Ozone, the folks at the bar capture Eddie, take off his shirt, and make him fight another black guy with a weird saw/axe hybrid weapon. Yes, a bunch of country music loving white folks are having two black guys fight in their basement. I'm not sure if there's supposed to be racial commentary here or what. It's not something that's ever addressed again. Or even explained.
Anyway, Eddie wins the fight and escapes into the vast network of catacombs underneath the bar. He meets up with a woman named Justine who starts licking Eddie's syringe stab-wound. And this, of course, leads to the FREAKY ZOMBIE SEX!
See, as they start to get hot and heavy, a layer of slime forms over both of their faces, and they mutate and develop massive puss blisters on their faces. This turns out to be both of their kinks*****, and they do the nasty as they make horrible squelching sounds. Eventually, Eddie wakes up again and, repulsed by what he'd done, or dreamed, or whatever, runs away.
He now encounters the Worst Pinhead Impersonator Ever. See, there are three "punk" zombies******. And one of them has about six nails stuck in his bald head. It's like he wanted to become Pinhead, but ran out of nails before he could finish, and then got distracted or something. Anyway, he and his buddies threaten Eddie, who runs away and finally calls his department. He then discovers that he's wanted for the death of the zombie patrolman. You know, the one who was run over by someone else entirely?
Meanwhile at the morgue, Richter (the drug dealer) has come back to life, and naturally, he kills the coroner and his assistant. Which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't do it while naked. Yes, we get lots of NAKED ZOMBIE ASS during this scene.
The next few minutes are a giant clusterfuck (moreso than the previous hour). Eddie gets captured, Squeaky (remember him?) dies, zombies shoot each other for no good reason, Eddie escapes, Eddie is recaptured, and time is wasted. Eventually, Eddie is brought before the drug dealer from the opening scene. Who has mutated into Jabba the Hutt. Really. It's a naked fat mutant in a chair. Jabba taunts Eddie and then has him thrown into a cell.
Naturally, Eddie escapes (by overpowering his guard), and comes across a cell with Mike in it. Hey, he found his partner! We can all go home! Alas, Mike is mutating into something that spews rotten milk, so Eddie runs away. And finds Justine. It's like a fucking convention here! Aparantly, while in the throes of their slimy passion, Eddie and Justine didn't use protection, and she's knocked up. And zombie babies, as we know from Dead Alive, have a short gestation period. She gives birth to a wrinkled piece of slimy plastic that looks at Eddie and says, "Daddy." Eddie's paternal instincts do not kick in here.
Instead, he runs away and finds Jabba and Richter. He shoots them, to no avail. So he shoots them again, just to be sure. He finally runs away, and escapes to the "Ammo Room." Really. The room has a fucking sign on it saying "Ammo Room." The mind boggles.
The Ammo Room contains almost no ammo, but it does have a gun, some bombs, and some dynamtite. Maybe it should have been called the "Demolition Room." Or the "Deus Ex Machina Room".
Eddie kills one zombie with an explosion, but Richter comes after him and mutates even more, with his face turning blue for no good reason. Eddie eventually slams the door on Richter's head enough times to keep the zombie down for good.
We finally get the Big Confrontation, in which Jabba taunts Eddie again and brags that he can't be hurt. He even slits open his own stomach just to prove it. This is exactly what Eddie was waiting for, and the cop runs up to Jabba and shoves the bomb into the wound. Jabba played right into his hands! As Eddie runs away (seeding dynamite behind him) the place explodes, and the world is safe.
We then get an incomprehensible ending in which Eddie is accused of killing dozens of people. He defends his actions, saying they were zombies, and out of nowhere, we cut to Richter, looking mostly human (with a few scars) saying that Eddie will come around, and then laughing maniacally. Cut to credits.
Trust me, after watching
Street Zombies, I long for the sweet, well-written screenplay of something like
American Psycho 2. This film is a Troma-level mess, without the Troma-level fun. What's truly incomprehensible is how a movie this bad could be made without anyone involved realizing just how bad it is. I'd complain about things like the lack of explanation for the distribution of Ozone, but frankly, any additional information would have made the movie longer. And that would have been awful. The screenplay is just pathetic, the effects are awful, and no one here -- not even lead James Black, the only person here you might have seen in anything -- can act. I genuinely resent every second I spent watching this travesty.
Street Zombies is only safely out of the IMDB bottom 100 films of all time because too few folks have seen it.
Street Zombies is a god-awful waste of time, the sort of nonsensical movie that makes anyone with even an ounce of love for genuinely good horror flicks want to wash out their brains with something better. Which would include almost anything. Someday, J.R. Bookwalter will stop securing financing for his films, and the fifty bucks he loses out on will go to support a more talented writer and director.
*As well as overrated cult "classic" The Dead Next Door.
**Of Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-a-Rama fame.
***Ah, the war on drugs. Or bad directing. Would even the most hardened of narcs be that worried about a junkie when there's a perfectly good drug dealer wounded on the street?
****Whose name, incidentally, is Squeaky. Seriously. It would be one thing if all of the characters were named after second-rate wannabe assassins, but as far as I can tell, this is the only one.
*****There's someone for everyone.
******If I'm going to put "punk" in quotes, I should probably do the same for "zombies," since these are the least zombie-like zombies ever. But I'll stick with the idea that all of the bad guys are supposed to be zombies for now. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}