gwnightscream
This 1989 horror film stars Scott Grimes and John Astin.
Grimes (Critters) plays Archie, a nerdy teen who works at a mortuary
for his uncle, Flanders (Astin). Archie gets picked on by 2 jocks from
school who soon die in a car accident with their girlfriends. One night
during a rainstorm, they're resurrected by lightning and Archie becomes
terrorized by them. This isn't bad and Grimes is good in it along with the
make-up effects. Give this a view at least once horror fans.
texasarcane
Another poster called it the Citizen Kane of zombie movies. They were right. It's got some magic in it.If you heard the premise you'd judge this film in advance and in doing so you'd be missing a real horror classic. There's something about it that follows you out of the end. It's scored in a very interesting way, shot in a very interesting way and the whole thing has a dreamlike quality. Scott Grimes was superb in the lead. The very last bit really makes the film. Clever. The whole thing is well written. The dialogue is not hackneyed or trite, it's literate. Watching it I thought the director must have been really hungry because he spun this simple story into something gold.
d_m_s
Grave Misdemeanous is an enjoyable b-movie. The film is actually better for the first two thirds, before the zombie element comes into it. In this section it is funny (with some pretty good lines and visual gags that had me giggling, much to my surprise), entertaining and well shot with some great lighting.It's still OK after the zombie's come into it but the quality does dip a fair bit, mainly because some daft bits start to happen and the zombie's aren't very zombie-like but act like normal people in make up. This is especially evidenced when the zombie's start using high kicks and all manner of fighting techniques to beat up some cops in one scene. Those kids didn't even do that when they were still alive! Where did that come from? It wasn't even done in a comical manner, they just turned into weird karate zombies.
Carlos Xavier
17.1 NIGHT LIFE (horror/comedy, 1989) Archie (Scott Grimes) works with his domineering uncle Flanders at the local mortuary. Though he hates the job, he needs the money to go to college. At school Archie is constantly bullied by the local 'jocks'. In one of their many pranks they get him fired. If that wasn't enough his only love interest is leaving town. But Flanders offers him a second chance when he asks his help with some new corpses. Archies' assignment is made all the more difficult when they unexpectedly come to life.Critique: Horror comedy mixes youth exploitation plot with good dozes of zombie fun. In fact, the whole film seems geared at a 'Revenge of the Nerds'-type audience; as Archie gets repeatedly bullied, has failed romantic exploits and so on. The difference being that our hero turns out to be more resilient, tougher and smarter than your usual self-pitying film geek. Film has good special effects, spooky atmosphere, action and humor. Above all it's a fairly surprising showcase from an otherwise unknown, capable cast. Particularly appealing is Scott Grimes' Archie. A cross between Michael J. Foxs' 'Marty McFly' from the 'Back to the Future' trilogy, and Macauley Caulkins' 'Home Alone' kid. He is funny, charismatic and exhumes a surprising leading man-type appeal. A fun but otherwise gory film.
AD
