USA, 1986
Review:
JA Kerswell
Somewhat biting off more than it can chew, Nico Mastorakis’s THE ZERO BOYS attempts an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to the genre and—whilst there’s certainly fun to be had—never really hits it out of the park with any of its disparate strands. A group of paintballers and their girlfriends celebrate a victory with a trip to the countryside but fall foul of a backwoods snuff ring that now wants to snuff them out. Part slasher, part action movie, part adventure, part teen sex comedy and perhaps part spoof. It would have worked better if it had picked one or two lanes and stuck to them.
The Zero Boys of the title are three teenage (read twentysomethings) boys that have made their name in the paintball scene (if such a thing exists). The film opens in an old-timey Mexican town set, where, at first, it looks like a group of men are duelling to the death—but it turns out it is an elaborate paintball tournament. Although, I don’t think I’ve ever seen paint guns fashioned into uzis and even a machine gun on the back of a truck! Head Zero Boy Steve (Daniel Hirsch) is victorious and wins a bet against his Jewish swastika wearing rival Casey (John Michaels)—the prize being a date with his girlfriend Jamie (Keli Maroney). Only Jamie had no idea she was being offered up as a prize and is, at first, highly miffed.
However, Jamie eventually agrees to join the group to celebrate with a trip to the country with the other Zero Boys Rip (Jared Moses) and Larry (Tom Shell)—plus their girlfriends, Trish (Crystal Carson) and Sue (Nicole Rio). After an afternoon of r&r, Jamie thinks she sees a woman running through the woods, which leads them to a comfortable cabin in a clearing. On entering, they find a note seemingly from the owner saying that it is free until after the weekend, so the group decides to kick back and enjoy someone else’s hospitality.
As the weather begins to worsen, they make moves to head home only to find their truck disabled and have no choice but to stay the night. After Jamie sees someone standing in the woods with a fucking-big-knife they begin to worry they might be in danger. Their nerves are further rattled when they find skeletons littering the property and a TV and camera set up in the barn to capture what looks like snuff videos. However, the killer—or killers—haven’t banked on big-haired 'teenagers' armed to the teeth with automatic weapons …
THE ZERO BOYS is all over the place—quite literally. It veers through so many genres and subgenres that it never really takes time to develop any of them fully or even really at all. The setting of the isolated cabin by a lake and the man in the woods with that fucking-big-knife brings to mind the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise, which was clearly intentional (especially as it was shot on the same sets as FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982)). One of the characters even says: “It wasn’t me, it was Jason!” Whilst the film’s volte-face back to action-via-DELIVERANCE (1972) territory in its closing third could have worked, it never really commits. There are four killers, but none of them are given any personality. Three are essentially backlit stunt men with machetes and Joe Estevez just looks like an accountant coming off a coke binge. The snuff angle goes nowhere. It feels like the concept was written on a napkin over an LA lunch and didn’t change much from there going forward.
It’s a shame, as the core group have fun chemistry together and deserved a better movie. Kelli Maroney is always a welcome sight. Although her character is generally all over the place like the rest of the film, from tough girl, to sweet girl, to aspirational Final Girl to, er, homophobic girl. Her character’s random gay slur just comes out of nowhere and just seems to be a bizarre touch for the person we’re meant to be rooting for the most. Weird choice. ZERO BOYS has them in abundance.
Maroney, of course, was chased by killer robots in the same year’s much more satisfying CHOPPING MALL. Nicole Rio was also in the same year’s SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE. Tom Shell was also in 1986’s EVIL LAUGH—a film with a budget much smaller than this film, but which takes its slasher parody angle and runs with it. Joe Estevez went on to do FATAL PULSE (1988), amongst other things.
Nico Mastorakis was no stranger to slasher or slasher adjacent movies, having helmed both BLIND DATE (1984) and THE EDGE OF TERROR (also 1986). He brings a certain polish to the production but fails to coral it into anything special. Surprisingly, the film was one of composer Hans Zimmer’s early projects. It at least looks great—especially the atmospheric night scenes—courtesy of Steven Shaw.
The shooting script for THE ZERO BOYS has a copyright for late 1985, which suggests it was shot then or early 1986. It appears that it struggled to find theatrical distribution outside of Canada and was released first to the UK on video in March 1986, before a US bow on tape at the tail end of the year.
THE ZERO BOYS doesn’t earn zero stars, but it sadly doesn’t get more than a middling score either.
BODY COUNT 6:
Female 2 / Male 4
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THE ZERO BOYS trailer