Hard Rock Zombies is a 1985 American comedy horror film directed and co-written by Krishna Shah and released by the infamous shlock-meisters The Cannon Group.
A heavy-metal band must do a performance to impress a record company scout. They do a concert in a town that outlaws rock and roll music. The town counsel is influenced by a murderous Nazi cult. The band is slain by the cult, with only their manager surviving. When they try to recruit him, he runs away. later, the band is returned to life as zombies by a song recording that the bass player wrote using medieval spell book lyrics. Fresh out of the grave, the band thirsts to take their revenge and give a new music performance. The mysterious song causes an outbreak of zombie ghouls.
Featuring plenty of sleazy B-movie gore and lots of screwball comedy, Hard Rock Zombies is about what you'd expect from a shlocky 80s Rock 'N Roll horror film.
This movie contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: The Nazi cult are the first to die in the zombie outbreak, followed by the bumbling townsfolk.
- Back from the Dead: The band are revived by a recording of a song Jesse (the band's bassist) recorded, based on an old Latin manuscript he found.
- Canis Latinicus: "Reknits Ais Einre" is sang in a song to sound like a Latin chant, but it actually is "Ernie is a stinker" backwards. Ernie Curcio, the film's lead actor, was known for playing pranks on set, and this was the cast's way to turn the tables.
- Depraved Dwarf: The Nazis have two little people on their side, who later become quite vicious zombies.
- Ghostly Goals: After their Roaring Rampage of Revenge, the band's only interest is performing their final concert. They return to their graves soon after, only to be revived when they learn Cassie is in danger.
- Gratuitous Latin: The song that revives the dead is all simplistic Latin.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: The entire town outside of the cult are slack-jawed yokels who hate rock 'n roll and are oblivious to the evil cult ruling their town. Predictably, most of them die.
- Horror Hunger: One of the Nazi dwarfs becomes a zombie and literally cannot stop eating, eventually turning on themselves and feasting on their own flesh until they're nothing but a skull. Don't think too hard about it.
- Large Ham: Adolf Hitler (yeah, it's that kind of movie) is an absolutely ridiculous caricature who speaks in vaguely German-sounding gibberish.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When the band returns from the dead, they do weird power-walking dance moves and kill the entire Nazi cult, who then return as zombies.
- Nazi Zombies: The band's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the secret Nazi cult creates this. They're the primary antagonists throughout the rest of the film.
- The Power of Rock: The zombie outbreak is started by, and then ended by, rock music.
- The Reveal: A particularly silly one. The leader of the Nazi Cult is revealed to be Adolf Hitler himself.
- Revenant Zombie: The band don't talk when they come back from the dead, but they seem to retain some control over themselves. They're also the ones who save the day at the end to rescue Cassie.
- Resurrected Romance: At the very end, Cassie weeps over Jesse's grave, thinking he's Dead for Real this time, and desperately begs him to come back for her. Evidently, he hears her, and his arms raises out of the grave to caress her.
- Shout-Out: When the band comes back from the dead, they're all decked out in Music/KISS style makeup.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Though the Nazi Cult is mostly played somewhat seriously at first, it all goes out the window when Hitler himself shows up and starts rambling like a crazy person
- Too Dumb to Live: The townsfolk charge right into the zombie horde with shields painted with pictures of heads, under the assumption that zombies "hate heads." Guess what happens?
- Hitler just stands around yammering while a few zombies shamble towards him in a circle. He has ample time to run away, but instead chooses to shriek in horror while giving the Roman Salute.
