Teenage Zombies (1959) and a Common Horror Catalyst

Every story should have three main sections.  There should be a beginning.  This sets the characters on their journey.  It gives their backstory and pushes them on a path they’ve never been on before.  Or in the case of many sequels, pushes them back into the same situation the audience is familiar with, to continue the adventures of the characters.  Then there is the middle, where the characters adventure through this newly changed world and try to find their way.  Finally, the ending hits, and the characters figure out how to get out of the new world, or come to terms with it.

Horror is an interesting genre to look at because there needs to be a reason for the horrific events happening.  That reason might be that an animal has started attacking people in the area.  It could be that some sort of serial killer has begun their next killing spree.  One of the most common, however, is when the unsuspecting victims are lured into a house or a building where they can be killed, or worse, transformed.

Teenage Zombies took from this kind of catalyst.  Reg (Don Sullivan), Skip (Paul Pepper), Julie (Mitzie Albertson), and Pam (Brianne Murphy) went out on a boating trip and ended up on an island.  The inhabitants of the island were led by Doctor Myra (Katherine Victor), a mad scientist bent on creating zombies.  She trapped the teens and planned to use them for experiments, but the teens had another idea and planned their escape.

The catalyst of the Teenage Zombies involved the teens being lured into the house of Doctor Myra.  When they arrived on the island, the teens decided to relax.  Some of the relaxation involved exploring what could be on the island.  Nobody knew about the place and this was the first time the teenagers had gone there.  When they got back to the shore, their boat was gone.  They went to Doctor Myra’s house and asked about the boat.  She had lured them into her home by hiding their boat and would keep them there for her experiments.  It was an evil plan that she made work that pushed the rest of the story forward.

This catalyst to kickstart a story has been around for ages.  There are many tales that involve someone being lured into a house only to have bad things happen after they enter.  It’s a simple idea of bait and trap, which puts the protagonist into a perilous position.  Since the audience follows the protagonist through the story, the audience is also put into this perilous position.  This is an easy way to build a tense connection between the characters and the audience.

One of the older instances in which this kind of catalyst was used in a story was the tale of Hansel and Gretel.  The original tale had two children being lured into a house made of candy by a witch who promised bed, bath, and food.  They were hungry and lost in the woods, so they accepted.  Once they were inside, the witch trapped them and prepared them to be her own meal.  They were her captives after being lured into her house with the promise of three necessities of life.

This story got updated a few times.  One such time was in Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, where the characters were no longer lost in the woods.  Instead, they were in modern suburbia.  The witch lured people into her home with the promise of good weed.  When she ate people, it wasn’t because she was hungry.  It was because the bodies of young people brought her youth.  She became younger after eating them.  She got them in with her marijuana, though.  It lured them into her house, and from that point on, she had them.  They were trapped.  When she lured Gretel’s boyfriend into the house, the main characters’ story was kicked into action.

There are many examples of this catalyst being used throughout the horror genre.  Hansel and Gretel might be one of the more obvious, but there are many other examples.  It’s an easy way to get a character or multiple characters into a horrifying situation, and that’s exactly what you would want from a horror tale.  The characters need to be trapped to rack up the tension.  As the story gets tenser, the audience gets antsier.  They squirm in their seats.  They hold each other.  They gasp, scream, and react to everything happening on screen.  All because the characters were lured into danger.

The Human Centipede II used that luring catalyst to get things going at a certain point.  Ashlynn Yennie played herself, the actress from the first Human Centipede film.  She was lured into danger by a man saying he was going to take her for an audition with Quentin Tarantino.  Once she went with the man, she was assaulted and forced into being a part of a homemade human centipede.  It was how she was made the victim.  It was how the audience was better able to connect with her and want the main character to fail at his plan.

Even horror comedies have used this type of catalyst to get the story going.  Killer Condom was all about people being lured into danger for the benefit of the villain.  The condoms that ended up biting off people’s penises were being distributed through the Hotel Quickie.  People were lured into the hotel because it was a place to get quick sex.  The villain knew that and utilized the condoms in that location to get rid of what they thought were the seedy sinners of New York City.  The catalyst pushed the lead character into trying to solve the mystery of the murders, which is what the story was.

Every horror movie must find a way to put the characters into their dangerous situation.  There are certain catalysts that continuously occur throughout the genre.  The villain luring the main characters into a location by dangling something they want in front of them is a typical way of doing it.  Whether that thing is safe sex, an audition with Quentin Tarantino, food and a bed, or a missing boat, these promises trap the protagonists so that the villain can do their dastardly thing.  It is the common beginning between a bunch of stories that have different middles and different ends.  The catalyst pushes them forward into their respective tales.  Characters will never be the same after it.

Now for some notes after I totally didn’t stick that landing:

• Hansel and Gretel Get Baked (week 38), The Human Centipede II (week 180), and Killer Condom (week 205) were each mentioned in this post.
• Teenage Zombies featured Steve Conte, an actor who was also in Hamburger: The Motion Picture (week 197).
• Have you seen Teenage Zombies?  What did you think of it?  Do you like the catalyst of luring characters into dangerous situations?  You can discuss this stuff in the comments.
• The comments are also a place to let me know about suggestions you might have for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments.  I’m always open to hearing what you think I should cover.  You can reach me on Twitter, as well.
• Sometimes when I watch bad movies, I’ll share bits and pieces of them in my Snapchat story.  Add me (jurassicgriffin) if you want to see that or some of the other dumb, pointless stuff I put up there.
• I’ll be continuing the zombie theme next week with Shock Waves, a 1970s movie where some Nazis come back from the dead to attack people on an island.  Zombies and islands.  It’s like a double feature but two weeks apart.  I’ll see you then for another post.