[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zombie_nightmare_filmposter.jpg]]

''Zombie Nightmare'' is a 1987 Canadian horror film starring Creator/AdamWest and Jon-Mikl Thor, a follow-up of sorts to Thor's ''Film/RockNRollNightmare''.

Our film opens in a time supposedly in the 1960s or so, showing us a softball game led by a beefy guy named Bill (played by writer John Fasano). Bill's the center of activity in the community, and he's even brought his family (wife and young son Tony) to the game. Unfortunately, a couple ne'er do wells are also in attendance and decide to stalk and assault Molly Mokembe, a young Haitian woman (played by Manoushka). Bill stops the crime in progress, saving her, but the two thugs fatally stab him and flee, all in front of his son.

Flash forward to the present day, and Tony is all grown up (now played by Jon-Mikl Thor), playing softball on the same field. That evening, he becomes a hero in his own right, foiling a convenience store holdup. Unfortunately, as he walks outside, he's the victim of a hit and run courtesy of a bunch of idiot kids, one of whom is the son of one of the thugs that killed his father.

Aggrieved, his mother decides to go for extrajudicial justice, calling upon Mokembe to do some form of [[HollywoodVoodoo voodoo]] to catch the (presumably unknown to her) culprits. This results in the animation of a zombie whom gradually hunts down not only the kids but also the two thugs from the beginning of the movie... one of whom is now an upstanding pillar of the community!

Like ''Film/TheHorrorOfPartyBeach'' and ''Film/TheIncrediblyStrangeCreatures'', this is another movie gadding about calling itself a horror musical, but it's got even less than those two on which to stake the claim; there is plenty of incidental metal music on the soundtrack, but no actual musical numbers. Oh, and Creator/AdamWest is in it, too. Neat, huh?

For those interested in more Thor, a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GLbKuJBBEI documentary]] ''I Am Thor'' will serve as his biography. He also has a [[Music/{{Thor}} trope page]].

The film was riffed in a sixth-season episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. The episode page can be found [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E04ZombieNightmare here]].

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!!This film contains examples of the following tropes:
%%* EightiesHair: Jim and Tony.
* AntiHero: The zombified Tony, Molly, the HollywoodVoodoo practicioner, and Frank, the JerkAss detective.
* AssholeVictim: ''Nobody'' mourns when Jim Batten is killed. That includes his parents, according to what his father Fred, a friend of Churchman, tells him.
* TheBadGuyWins: If you consider Tony the villain, as he stops attacking people right after he finishes killing everyone he had been raised to kill.
** However, considering the fact that Tony was a good guy who foiled a robbery/assault and was resurrected by a voodoo priestess to kill a bunch of idiot kids and a crooked police chief, one can't really count him as a full on bad guy.
* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Jim keeps bragging about his cock size, making one wonder if he's CompensatingForSomething.
* BittersweetEnding: While a few sympathetic characters do die (usually as collateral damage or by the doomed villains), the primary target of the zombies are a corrupt police chief and a group of young delinquents led by an annoying psychopath... who all get dispatched.
* BrotherSisterIncest: Jim [[DiscussedTrope claims]] that he wants to have sex with his older sister to the waitress he keeps harassing.
-->'''Waitress:''' I'm old enough to be your older sister.\\
'''Jim:''' Hey, that's cool, I always wanted to make it with my older sister!
* CassandraTruth: The cops on scene practically roll their eyes at the waitress' story that a giant was Jim's killer, despite his corpse having been impaled by a ''baseball bat''.
* TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch: Churchman flat-out ignores the coroner's report and tells the press that Tony's murder of Peter and Susie were a drug-induced murder/suicide.
* {{Delinquents}}: Our five teenage leads, most of who exist to pad out the runtime and the body count.
* DeusExMachina: [[spoiler: Churchman has killed Tony and Molly, and prepares to do the same to Frank, when all of a sudden, Tony's zombified father bursts out of his grave and drags Churchman to Hell.]]
* DirtyCop: Captain Churchman, and possibly most of his department.
* DownerEnding: There's probably four surviving named characters, though you might consider this the VillainProtagonist variant, as Tony was sent to kill those who killed him and harassed Molly, and it explicitly spares the most innocent and uninvolved characters (even if one of them still gets tossed around).
* DraggedOffToHell: [[spoiler: Churchman, by Tony's zombified dad]].
* {{Fanservice}}: The hot tub scene. And Tony's nipple-revealing shirt.
* FateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler: Churchman]] begs Frank for a MercyKill while he's being DraggedOffToHell, but Frank decides not to shoot him.
* FoodSlap: Jim throws a handful of cold spaghetti in his mother's face during an argument.
* ForTheEvulz: The apparent motivation for Churchman and Fred attacking and almost raping Molly in the first place can be seen as a mix of racism and their own sadism. The hit-and-run that kills Tony averts the trope, since it was a genuine accident and Jim is the only one who feels pleased about it.
* HateSink: Jim Batten, the only member of the teen gang who expresses psychotic glee at killing Tony, and later harasses and tries to rape a waitress. The funny-voiced police coroner even tells Frank, having known Jim's parents all his life, that Jim himself was an absolute disgrace to the family. It's shown earlier in the film that not even Jim's parents themselves can stand him, and they don't even mourn or hold a funeral when he dies.
* HollywoodVoodoo: The extent of "voodoo" in this movie involves Molly putting on skull make-up and bringing Tony back as a zombie to avenge his killers.
* IdiotBall: The incredibly violent suspect at the police station somehow fails to be restrained by three or four officers. Captain Churchman exacerbates the situation by [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kicking the guy in the head, enraging him]].
* ImprobableUseOfAWeapon: Jim Batten is not beaten by Tony's baseball bat, but '''impaled''' by it.
* IronicName: Captain ''Churchman'' is a bigoted DirtyCop who commits more crimes than he solves.
* JerkAss: Jim Batten, and Capt. Churchman to an extent.
* LargeHam: Shawn Levy as Jim Batten, and Adam West as Churchman.
* LikeFatherLikeSon: Fred, Jim's father, was one of the delinquents who attacked and nearly raped Molly. Though he wised up and cleaned up his act, his son is similarly evil, if not moreso.
* LookBothWays: Subverted. Tony is looking straight at Jim's car as he walks into an unlit street in the middle of the night, and still doesn't seem to see it until it's too late.
* MisplacedRetribution: Tony is sent after those who killed him (and his father). While [[spoiler:Churchman and Jim's father Fred]] were actively involved in the assault on Molly and his father's murder, Jim's passengers didn't do anything except be in the same car that killed Tony. They're generally unpleasant people, but they had no agency in the killing (and are very clearly shaken up about it, unlike Jim himself), while other unrelated characters who got in the way were spared (it also makes the other armed robber look like a KarmaHoudini by comparison).
* NeutralFemale: Tony's mother, during the scene where Tony is a kid.
** Susie, the blonde from Jim's gang. She's the only teen who seems to have a conscience by feeling the tiniest bit guilty about running down Tony. Yet for some reason, she receives the most brutal death out of any of them.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Tony and his father get killed immediately after helping someone in trouble, the latter as a direct result of helping, and the former by getting caught in a hit and run shortly afterwards.
* PoliceAreUseless: Churchman is more interested in closing cases than solving them. Frank at least ''tries'' to do a proper investigation, but he's not very good at it.
* RapeAsDrama: And the abuse heaped on the ''victim'' by the police.
-->'''Frank:''' But you went into the alley with him.
** He later harshly instructs the police, "Get her outta here."
* TheSociopath: Jim Batten is outright called a psychopath by his own friends, given that he stalks and attempts to rape a waitress, throws food at his mother's face, and relishes snuffing Tony's lights out.
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Tony successfully stops an armed assault and walks away, unlike his father. And then he's immediately killed by a group of unrelated teens. In a bit of an exaggeration, everyone in the movie just knows he's dead immediately, even the reckless driver who wasn't paying attention in the first place (they only doubt it when they don't see anything in the paper). It's to the point that Tony's friends don't even bother calling an ambulance, and simply deliver him to his mother's lawn under a sheet.
* TooDumbToLive: Being rock-stupid makes it laughably easy to get killed by a zombie. Here are good ways, demonstrated by three particular brain donors:
** If you're Susie, pass by the exit sign when being pursued by a zombie. Also make sure to stop while still in the same room as said zombie.
** If you're Fred, sit in your car and don't turn it on. Also, be sure to leave the door wide open.
** If you're Amy, hide behind a window.
* TwoPersonPoolParty: Peter and Susie strip down to their underwear and climb into the hot tub at the gym. However, their intimacy is interrupted by the appearance of the zombified Tony. According to Old Joe, the janitor, this little hot tub celebration was traditional after their tennis matches.
* UselessProtagonist: Frank presumably ends up being the hero, albeit through no extraordinary effort of his own. He was at least correct that the murders weren't caused by a common street thug.
* TheUnintelligible: Molly. One line sounds like she's saying "feel again the worm."
* VoodooZombie: After Tony disrupts a robbery at a grocery store, he is struck and killed by a car full of teenagers: Bob, Amy, Jim, Peter, and Susie. The teens flee the scene and Tony's body is carried to his home, where his mother Louise mourns over him. She contacts Molly Mekembe, the girl William saved, to repay the favour of her rescue. Now revealed to be a Haitian voodoo priestess, Molly resurrects Tony as a zombie and uses her powers to guide him to the teenagers, aiding him in his revenge.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Tony's mother features consistently in the plot and kicks off the whole zombie thing by calling in a favor from Molly. She eventually disappears from the movie, however, and when [[spoiler:Molly dies making sure that Churchman is dragged off to Hell]], it's treated like the entire affair just wrapped itself up, even though a primary instigator is still out there.
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