Follow TV Tropes

Following

Film / Nudist Colony of the Dead

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_nude.png
"It's an inky dinky do dah morning..."

Nudist Colony of the Dead is a 1991 horror-comedy musical film by Mark Pirro about exactly what the title suggests. A group of teenagers sent to religious retreat are haunted by its former owners: an undead nudist colony. The movie was filmed mostly in Sacramento, California and made on a production budget of $35,000.

A nudist colony named "The Sunny Buttocks Nudist Colony" is being shut down after complaints are made about it by a group of religious Moral Guardians. When the fundamentalists take the matter to court, they succeed and force the nudists out of their home. Not taking the matter lightly, the nudists commit a suicide pact, but in doing so vow that their spirits will haunt the land and one day enact revenge on the religious zealots that stole their land from them. Many years later, a new group of rambunctious young adults are sent to a religious retreat that was once the site of the nudist colony. Unknown to them, their presence ends up reawakening the nudists, turning them into undead zombies bent on getting their revenge.

Also, did we forget to mention it's a musical?


Nudist Colony of the Dead provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Big Bad: Mrs. Druple is the leader of the nudist dead.
  • Bloody Hilarious: All the deaths in the film are all Played for Laughs due to how ridiculous they all are. For instance, one character gets his head cut off, and somehow stay alive long enough to talk to his fellow survivors and even drink a can of cola.
  • The Cameo: Horror/Science Fiction fandom figure Forrest J. Ackerman plays the judge who evicts the nudists. Despite his role's brevity, Ackerman is usually billed as the star.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The girl Shelly manages to escape with has her mouth and throat filled with cement by the zombies.
  • Dirty Coward: The park ranger. At least he left a note on his ranger post telling the campers that at least he's alive and does return at the climax to rescue the final girl.
  • Downer Ending: Shelly is rescued by the park ranger, and the nudists return to their graves once more. She returns to confront the reverend at her church over why he knowingly sends his parishioners to die, only to learn he's one of the zombies. The film ends with the parents of our victim pool driving to the retreat to be killed themselves.
  • Driven to Suicide: The nudist commit a suicide pact so that their souls may haunt the land and get revenge on the religious zealots that stole it from them.
  • Genre-Busting: The Musical meets zombie movies...
  • Godiva Hair: Some of the undead female nudists have this.
  • The Fundamentalist:
    • A collective of them are the reason why the nudists originally lose their home. As a result, the nudists commit mass suicide in order to haunt any other religious folk that step on their former land.
    • As for the kids themselves, Lou easily takes the cake out of all of them. He literally jumps through a window just to rescue his Bible.
  • Fan Disservice: Mrs. Druples. Ugh! The rest of the undead nudists should also count, for that matter.
  • Final Girl: Subverted with Shelly, who's implied to be killed by the reverend zombie at the end.
  • Hand-or-Object Underwear: Thought the nudists are completely nude before they kill themselves, they return from the dead covered in moss and leaf. It's possible that the fundamentalists dressed them before they buried them.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: One character gets cut in half from the waist while running... and his bottom half continues to run afterwards.
  • Hysterical Woman: Fanny after the murders begin. She doesn't stop until her spotlight song.
  • Ironic Death: Lou, the religious zealot, gets killed by literally having his Bible shoved down his throat.
  • Kangaroo Court: The beginning of the film involves the members of the "Sunny Buttocks Nudist Colony" trying to defend their land in court (fully nude, mind you) against angry religious fundamentalists who want to take it away.
  • Logo Gag: The beginning of the film does a parody of THX's logo and original slogan.
    "The audience is squinting."
  • Moral Guardians: Judge Rhinehole and the religious fundamentalists order for the removal of the nudist colony due to obscenity complaints.
  • Mr. Exposition: The park ranger is introduced in order to explain what happened to the nudist colony before the camp was turned into a religious retreat... in song.
  • The Musical: Not what you'd expect with a title like that. The first song in the film (not counting the intro credits song) happens about 20 minutes in.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Pretty much the main driving force of humor throughout the film.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Well for starters, they're nude.
  • The Place
  • Painful Rhyme: Parodied. "Fee-fi-fo-fum. I smell the blood of a Bible thum...per."
  • Punny Name: All over the place. Aside from the nudist colony being named "Sunny Buttocks Nudist Colony", a majority of the characters have puns in there names, such as Mrs. Druple, Billy McRighteous, and Fanny Wype.
  • Revenge: The nudists colony's goal.
  • Running Gag: Lou's running joke is that he spews fictional Bible quotes and verses whenever the film requires it of him.
  • Those Two Guys: Mucky and Stokes.
  • Title of the Dead
  • Tomato Surprise: Reverend Ritz is one of the nudist zombies, and it's heavily implied by the ending that he sets up the retreats for the purpose of killing Christians.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Almost all of the campers, but especially Fanny Wype for dancing right off the edge of a cliff.
  • Villain Song: The undead nudists get one later in the film.
  • Visual Pun: Done quite a bit, considering it's a spoof film.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: Juan after seeing one of the bodies.
  • Your Makeup Is Running: Fanny's mascara, which is obviously black face paint. At one point, Stokes even dips his pen against her cheek so he can finish writing his will.


Top