Zombie High (1987) - Warning, does not contain zombies (sort of)

It's never a good sign when you pause the film you're watching and expect to see the counter reading roughly an hour of the way through, only to find that you're only thirty minutes in (to a movie that's only an hour and a half in total).  In short, this film is a drudge to watch.

I like to think I'm hardly a 'cinema snob.' I've watched every film with 'living dead' in the title and, as long as there's a few brains being eaten here and there I can totally enjoy a cheesy B-movie, especially if it's set in the eighties.

I don't know whether this is a 'spoiler' or not, but there are basically no 'zombies' in 'Zombie High.' Okay, so that statement may be open to interpretation, but if your definition of 'zombie' involves a walking corpse (or 'infected' person, if you're in the '28 Days Later' world) hunting humans down for food, then you're going to be severely disappointed here.

A young girl (supposed to be in her teens, but actually 26 in real life) joins an elite school, only to slowly discover that the pupils are being transformed into mindless er 'zombies.' Nothing wrong with that plot (let's face it... it's basically the story behind every variation of a 'Bodysnatchers' movie and they could be pretty awesome!).  The problem here is that it's just so damn slow.

If I had to sum up 'Zombie High' in one word it would simply be 'boring.' The eighties ambiance is on full display here and everything from the sets to the music and costumes spell out this decade to the full.  It also has a (pre 'Twin Peaks') Sherilyn Fenn as a side character - usually a fine addition to any cast and yet even she can't really elevate the script enough to make this worth watching.

I really wanted to like this, but it's such a slog that I can't really recommend it for anything.  Not even any real gore to speak of.  I guess if you like looking at eighties style sets and wardrobes then you'l definitely get that here, nothing 'horrific' in this 'horror' movie.

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)