Zombie Death House (1987)

The ultimate novelty flick for John Saxon (Black Christmas, Tenebre) fans. Zombie Death house is the one and only movie that Saxon would ever direct and its pretty bad (but in a good way). The same year Saxon would do A Nightmare On Elm Street part 3 : Dream Warriors but still found the time to do low budget shit-tastic flicks like Zombie Death House.

The story is about a ex Vietnam war hero who now is the chauffeur for a powerful crime lord played by Anthony Franciosa (Who would play besides John Saxon in Dario Argento's Tenebre). When Franciosa learns that his driver is having an affair with his young, blond, bimbo-girlfriend, he kills her and frames the war veteran for the crime. The chauffeur is sent to prison a.k.a. Death House where he will have to fight against a army of zombies. John Saxon is the one to blame for the undead epidemic. Saxon plays Colonel Gordon Burgess whom is experimenting with a new serum that turns a man into the flesh-eating, walking dead. The only problem is he is using the inmates as his guinea pigs.

Zombie Death House should get the reward for most gratuitous nudity of all time. While it doesn't necessarily have a huge quantity of naked flesh it makes up for it by having the most unnecessary naked flesh. In one of my favorite scenes we have a 30 second dream sequence which exists for the sole reason of showing Tane McClure's tits. We also get our share of the red stuff. A man has his achy-breaky skull crushed between prison bars (complete with splat), A man gets the electric chair and becomes an electrified-zombified, super-strength madman, we have dismemberment, multiple dead cops (complete with throat slashing and bullet wounds to the skull) "This pig deserves to die", Then we have a fat zombie chef who goes crazy with a meat cleaver when someone touches her Twinkies, A pick axe to the gut, shoot-em-up gun violence, car chases, drownings, decapitation, white-cotton-panty-fu, Dead Kennedy's on the soundtrack and some serious homosexual activity "Who do you think you're talking to, you little cunt? You bend over for Franco... Now you're gonna bend over for me!"

Personally not usually being a big fan of 80's movies, Zombie Death House could have been a lot worse. At least it tries to be a serious movie and isn't filled with awful jokes, except of course for the Twinkies scene. It offers up the blood and bare breasted bimbo's. The only problem is it seems to drag along after a while. Fans of this movie should definitely check out Shadow Dead Riot for a more modern and more sleazy zombies run amuk in prison flick.