Book Review: ‘ROCK AND ROLL REFORM SCHOOL ZOMBIES’ by Bryan Smith

When a fellow horror fiction fan said of Bryan Smith’s Rock And Roll Reform School Zombies (Deadite Press 2010) that “It’s fun, it’s fast, and it’s packed with Sex, Violence, and Heavy fucking Metal!” I knew I had to read it. As the title suggests, Smith combines rock and roll with flesh-eating zombies drawing from influences like Return of the Living Dead and the metal documentary The Decline of the Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. This short novella lives up to its inspiration on both counts. If you are a fan of darkly comedic 80’s splatter horror or zombie comedies like ROTLD you have to read Rock And Roll Reform School Zombies. There is non-stop action, gratuitous sexual content, over the top gore, rotten flesh-eating corpses, and of course heavy metal. Bust out your patch covered denim, throw up your devil horns, and get ready to kick some zombie ass!

Rock And Roll… is set in an especially fruitful year for both horror and metal, 1987. Metalheads blast Guns-n-Roses’ Appetite for Destruction from boombox speakers or laugh wildly at the bloody mayhem of Evil Dead II while the “Washington Wives” fight their war on explicit music by way of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). As a punk and metal fan that no doubt lived through this era, Smith revives that time of insane paranoia and parental fear of the punk / metal aesthetic poignantly in his story. The fictitious teenage metalheads of Smith’s Rock And Roll… are shipped off in droves to The Southern Illinois Music Reeducation Center (SIMRC, sound familiar?), a school that specializes in ’de-metaling,’ a treatment to cure teens of their metal loving, devil worshiping ways.” Want to know something really scary? Smith didn’t fabricate the idea of “de-metaling.” This was actually taken from the metal doc mentioned in the introduction which featured a parole officer who discussed the process and need to “de-metal” the youth!

One Southern Illinois teen on her way to reform is Wayne’s girlfriend Melissa. He is determined to spring her from the joint with the help of his best friend Steve, but they will face more than reform school rent-a-cop security. Just before they arrive, a meteor crashes nearby waking the dead from their graves. Our leather clad heroes will have to defeat hordes of zombies if they want to get out with Melissa alive!

Smith takes cues from his inspiration, Return of the Living Dead, with dark ironic twists and satirical comedy, but he doesn’t simply rehash an old favorite. He takes the best parts of the ROTLD formula – excessive gore, explicit sexual content, and a punk rock attitude – and applies it to a fresh storyline.

At the opening of Rock And Roll… the SIMRC Head Mistress Sybil Huffington is enjoying one of her regular S&M sessions with a student clad in a skimpy Catholic schoolgirl outfit when her violent sexual appetite leads her to murder the wayward teen. This is not the first incident as Miss Huffington has found the center to be a great haven for her sexual exploits. After all, she can just claim the rebellious teen ran away in the middle of the night. The accomplice to her many “accidental” murders, maintenance man Everett Quigley (nice ROTLD head nod), is called in once again to dispose of the body in the school’s makeshift graveyard. Quigley indulges in his necrophilic urges before burying the girl in her final resting place, but is interrupted by the meteor crash. In an ironic twist of fate, the dead girl rises from the grave, “a necrophile’s wet dream,” eats the maintenance man who just moments ago violated her dead body, and mayhem ensues. That sardonic sense of humor continues throughout the story as abused and violated teens get their posthumous comeuppance. Smith doesn’t hold back on the gory details. Blood squirts from ragged stumps, teens are disemboweled, and heads blow apart.

Smith also included one of my favorite aspects of the ROTLD aesthetic; the killer soundtrack! Smith accomplishes this in a couple different ways. One is he has titled each chapter after a ROTLD worthy punk or metal song. The chapter that finds our maintenance man Everett digging a grave for another one of Miss Huffington’s victims for example is titled “Garbageman” by The Cramps and another is titled after a song from the original ROTLD soundtrack “Burn the Flames” by Roky Erickson.  The second way Smith brings punk and metal to his novella in ROTLD fashion is he put together his own official Rock And Roll… soundtrack available for your listening pleasure via his website The Blog That Dripped Blood.

Bryan Smith has written several horror novels from Leisure Books including House of Blood, The Freakshow, The Killing Kind and Depraved and has garnered an impressive following, but this little novella was my first excursion into the mind of Smith and I crave more! I would be content reading more 80’s horror-comedy mashups from this writer, but I have a feeling he has more sinister tricks up his sleeve.

Rock And Roll… is a must for zom com fans, but I would even recommend it to those who have grown tired of the zombie genre. This novella is entertaining enough to renew anyone’s taste for braaaaaains!

Rock And Roll Reform School Zombies is available in trade paperback format from Deadite Press or you can pick up the e-book version published by Bitter Ale Press. Keep up with all Bryan Smith news via his website, twitter, and facebook.