One of the smarter and more original slasher films to come out of the eighties, The Zero Boys (1986) is a somewhat obscure horror\thriller that is worth a revisit.
The plot: a group of rich California college kids obsessed with survival games, go out on a camping weekend and start to be picked off one by one by a bunch of psychopathic rednecks.
On the surface, this looks like a typical slasher movie of the era. There are pretty young people, the proverbial "cabin in the woods", and a bunch of killers wielding big knives. But co-writer/director Nico Mastorakis seems to have more on his mind than mere slasher tropes. From the mock-macho opening titles, which mimic and parody the opening of an eighties action blockbuster, Mastorakis seems intent on jumping from one genre to another, commenting on each in turn. And the above-average script has some witty dialogue, and characters that are a bit more than fodder for the psychopathic killers, and seems to have a point to make about the reactionary, macho male posturing of the eighties, painting the male characters as egotistical young adults who think they are invincible behind their machine guns and semi-automatic pistols. But as the movie progresses, the male characters, especially, become more and more helpless, realizing that their worldview maybe askew. Also, the female characters, although not very memorable, are painted as somewhat complex and not just damsels in distress.
The film also boasts stylish cinematography by Steven Shaw, and there's a terrific suspense sequence near the end of the film, featuring a slowly approaching killer and several characters trapped with a rattle snake. But, despite flashes of wit and an effectively ominous tone (helped by a moody score by Stanley Myers and Hans Zimmer), what brings the film down several notches are a number of dumb decisions by the main characters that just defy logic. Also, the ending, though admirably dark and unexpected, is abrupt and mildly unsatisfying.
Flaws aside, The Zero Boys is an entertaining, occasionally smart, and eerie horror film that deserves to be rediscovered by fans of the genre.
Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.
Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon.
Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon.
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