NEON MANIACS [1986]

THE ONLY MONSTERS THAT CAN EXPERIENCE A RAIN DELAY!

I enjoyed this quite a bit more than I did when I originally saw it over 15 years ago.  This is just a fun, fun movie.  

From 2000 to 2006, I worked at Borders and in the break room we had one of those combo TV/VCRs on which to watch the silly employee training videos.  Of course, when no trainee was imminent, we used to play video tapes on an endless loop.   A retired high school teacher and bad horror movie fan named Stephen worked there for a couple years and brought in his favourite craptacular bad horror movie triple feature consisting of STUFF STEPHANIE IN THE INCINERATOR, NEON MANIACS and BLOODSUCKING PHARAOHS FROM PITTSBURGH.  I must admit NEON MANIACS didn't make a huge inpression on me but I did enjoy it.  Watching it all these years later (and on a crystal clear dvd print instead of the muddy VHS tape) made all the difference.  

These . . . zombies or whatever they're supposed to be . . . live inside a tower of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and venture forth to murderlize everybody . . . unless it's raining then they go back inside because their kryptonite is water.  At no point are we meant to take this seriously; it's meant to be fun and it is.  The Neon Maniacs all have their little personae/costumes:  one's a samurai, one's a Native American warrior, one looks like an escapee from Dr. Moreau's House of Pain, etc.    There's a little bit of a WARRIORS vibe in this respect a la the themed gangs like The Lizzies, the Baseball Furies, etc.  Only they're zombies instead of gang members.  The Neon Maniacs are just adorable and are just screaming out for an action figure line!  Our monster friends cause quite a few fun kills before our heroes (two high schoolers and a geeky underclassman) learn their water weakness.  As the Neon Maniacs infiltrate the eighties-est school dance ever filmed, our heroes have passed out water pistols to all the kids and the final melee ensues.  The ending of the film sort of peters out in some respects and leaves me hungry for a sequel that never came.  Too bad.  NEON MANIACS is an entertaining hoot.