Babes Virginia Madsen and Sherilyn Fenn play college room-mates in Zombie High, which I guess is as good a reason as any to check out this cheesy '80s horror. The lovely young ladies play Andrea and Suzi, who are targeted by the college faculty, who have been transforming pupils into perfect preppies with the aid of crystal brain implants. Also, by extracting blood and brain tissue from their students, the professors have created a serum that makes them immortal. Andrea discovers what is going on, and with help from faculty member Dr. Philo (Richard Cox),who has the hots for her, and her boyfriend Barry (James Wilder),she attempts to put an end to their nefarious behaviour.

Borrowing heavily from The Stepford Wives (1975),and providing the template for Disturbing Behaviour (1998),Zombie High attempts to blend teen comedy, satire and horror, but rarely does so successfully. The result is a frequently bizarre late-'80s oddity that feels extremely awkward for much of the time, never sitting comfortably in either the comedy or horror genre; that said, it still manages to be moderately fun, largely thanks to its camp nature (which may or may not have been the intention). The film is full of stereotypical teen characters, from the leather-jacketed rebel to badly-dressed nerd Emerson (played by Paul Feig, who would go on to direct the terrible female Ghostbusters remake),and the ending is suitably silly, the faculty growing old and decaying when deprived of their serum, with the preppies keeling over when rock music (a Beastie Boys rip-off called Kiss My Butt) is transmitted to their brain crystals.

The film's funniest moment is the homecoming dance, where an R&B band fail get the party started, the mind-controlled students responding to the music by moving uniformly in a robotic manner.

See, this is exactly what you should do in case you want to make an 80's horror fanatic very angry. You just give the false impression that he/she is about to watch a movie with plentiful of zombies and then subsequently you serve a movie that features absolutely … NO zombies! The friend who borrowed me his VHS-copy luckily warned me beforehand about the complete lack of zombies, but I can easily imagine that back in the eighties a lot of initially enthusiast zombie buffs were severely disappointed. It's actually a big shame because misleading titles and disappointed genre fans lead to negative ratings, even though "Zombie High" really isn't that much of a bad film. It's a fairly spirited and harmless little 80's horror-comedy that only features derivative story elements instead of horror or comedy, but at least it's never boring AND it stars two of my personal favorite B-movie actresses; Virginia Madsen and Sherilyn Fenn. Madsen, playing an 18-year-old student at age 26, is very happy when she gets selected as one of the first girls ever to attend classes in a prominent boarding school that previously was accessible for boys only. Her enthusiasm gradually turns into fear as she notices that her fellow students start losing their personalities, like they are being lobotomized or something. Andrea has a bit of a crush on her handsome biology teacher Mr Philo, but can anyone in this entire perilous school be trusted? In the subject line of this user comment I raised the question of where this titular school could be located. Deriving from the brief plot description, I think experienced thriller fans know exactly the school is located. Rebellious and headstrong teenagers transforming overnight into exemplar students? Doesn't it ring a bell? Could this school possibly be a little side- project of the chauvinist males of Stanford? The concept of "Zombie High" is a mixture between the 70's classic "The Stepford Wives" and the plot of a horror novel by John Saul which I believe was called "Darkness". Eventually it turns out that the teachers are over a century old and extract fluid from the student brains in order to stay young and virile. Apparently extracting brain fluids turns people into model citizens! I sure hope the government doesn't find out about that! Anyway, after a pretty dull and uneventful first hour, the denouement sequences are amusing and contain a handful of decent special effects. Director Rob Link attempts to maintain an atmosphere of mystery surrounding the school's dark secrets, but it's too predictable and commonly known.

A girl decides to go to a prep school on a scholarship (Virginia Madsen),which displeases her cool beau (James Wilder). He warns her with rumors of a diabolical covenant the faculty has, but she dismisses it until strange things help her to see otherwise. Sherilyn Fenn plays a student and Richard Cox a sympathetic teacher.

"Zombie High" (1987) is a mixture of two future movies: "Disturbing Behavior" (1998) and a little "Dead Poets Society" (1989) albeit with a wink of humor & camp. There's also a bit o' "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956/1978). The title is somewhat misleading since you won't see a school full of literal zombies, yet it's applicable in another way.

It's nice to see Virginia when she was so young (25 during shooting) and Fenn doesn't hurt.

The film runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot at School of Cinema-Television, USC, Los Angeles, California.

GRADE: B-