Allison Goldstein
Wild Zero (1999) is an authentically fun and unexpectedly earnest rock ’n’ roll horror comedy that never quite found the audience it deserved. The movie follows Japanese garage punk band, Guitar Wolf (vocalist/guitarist Guitar Wolf, bassist Bass Wolf, and drummer Drum Wolf), as they bond with their superfan, Ace (played by Masashi Endō), and fight for survival during an alien invasion-slash-zombie outbreak.
Director Tetsuro Takeuchi manages to shove gun fights, exploding heads, and B-horror gags into every inch of this 98-minute film. Audiences are treated to a jet-fueled mix of real pyrotechnics and hilarious 90s CGI, along with live Guitar Wolf performances and an overall killer soundtrack – including a fight scene set to Bikini Kills’ ‘Rebel Girl’. Zombie fans will also appreciate the overt nods to classic films, including on-camera references to ‘zombies’ and even name-dropping Night of the Living Dead.
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Takeuchi’s slow-moving, undead victims take their cues from Romero as well as the self-aware, quippy zombies from Return of the Living Dead. With zero focus on realism, Wild Zero’s zombies look like extras from a local haunted house, covered in blue/gray grease paint, torn clothes, and the cheap fake blood that reads like corn syrup – which only adds to the overall charm.
While Wild Zero is undeniably a Guitar Wolf movie, the narrative moves between multiple characters and storylines, including a heartfelt central message about love across the gender spectrum. Yes, in 1999, a Japanese punk band without any queer members made an explosion-filled horror comedy about zombies, the power of rock music, and trans love.
The movie opens at a live Guitar Wolf show just after a meteorite crash in a nearby town. After electrifying the crowd figuratively and literally (lightning bolts shoot out of their instruments), the band gets into a fight with the Captain, a psychotic club owner who loves pairing hot pants with Prince Valiant wigs. When an insecure greaser named Ace walks into the fight to defend the honor of rock ‘n’ roll, Guitar Wolf rewards his dedication by becoming his blood brother and gifting Ace with a magic whistle he can use if he ever gets in trouble.
The set up is exceptionally cheesy, but delivered with such genuine feeling that you just go with it. Guitar Wolf is less like The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, and more like The Ramones in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, where the band isn’t really the main character but a Fairy Godmother spiritually guiding the protagonist through the film.
The day after the show, Ace meets a shy, sweet girl named Tobio at a gas station and the two are instantly smitten, complete with heart-shaped cut outs framing the shot. Meanwhile, a hapless trio of idiots (Hanako, her boyfriend Toshi, and their third-wheel buddy, Masao) act as the film’s goofy comic relief, including a botched robbery at the gas station and a full Benny Hill-style running gag through the woods. While Hanako and Toshi spend of the majority of their screentime yelling at each other for being broke losers, they also end up sharing a few genuinely tender moments, underscoring the theme of ‘love against the odds’ as the central motif of the film.
In yet another storyline, we meet Yamazaki, an illegal arms dealer with an armored military vehicle (convenient), who first encounters the zombies while naked in her shower (also convenient). While Yamazaki gets the least amount of backstory, she does get a pretty fierce pants-less bodysuit and embodies the no-nonsense, 100% out-for-herself character that every good zombie-invasion movie needs.
As the outbreak continues to expand, the storylines intersect, and everyone ends up fighting with or against each other as the zombies and UFOs close in.
Major Spoiler Alert: The surprising but powerful romantic crux of the film takes place when Ace and Tobio are hiding together in an abandoned building complex. Trapped and scared, Ace breaks down in an emotional monologue, declaring that God must exist because even though the zombies are killing everyone, some higher power brought Ace and Tobio together and let them fall in love – even if Ace will never be as cool as Guitar Wolf.
This admission is followed by somewhat clumsy Crying Game-style ‘reveal’ where Tobio, suddenly haloed in angelic light and soft music, takes off her clothes and reveals that she’s in fact trans. Ace initially reacts with confusion and disgust. He runs out of the room screaming, leaving poor Tobio naked and alone (both emotionally and literally). After locking himself in another part of the building to process what just happened, a vision of Guitar Wolf appears and gives Ace the emotional equivalent of Cher’s slap and ‘snap out of it’ scene from Moonstruck while boldly declaring “love has no borders, nationalities, or genders!” And Ace, a presumably straight male, listens to his heart and goes back to save his true love.
It feels both out of the blue and exactly right that the emotional core of Wild Zero is a scene where a punk legend tells his #1 fan to get over his bullshit ideas about gender and to love who he loves – that wedged somewhere between the flame-spouting motorcycles and laser-powered guitar picks is a display of thoughtful LGBT allyship firmly planted within the punk ethos. Society can’t dictate who we love, and gender is just another construct. The cartoonish zombies, the CGI UFOs, and even the villainous Captain character are all presented in a fully over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek tone. But when Guitar Wolf roars into the frame to teach Ace that love (just like rock ‘n’ roll) has no boundaries, the audience knows it’s sincere.
Wild Zero is everything you want in a punk Zombie flick – it’s loud, fast and fun. The movie is self-aware enough to keep the explosions and jokes at the forefront while still delivering on its rock ‘n’ roll premise. Even 25 years after the film’s initial release, Wild Zero holds up due to an effusive blend of low-budget horror and high camp sensibility guided by the deep belief that there’s nothing more punk than being in love, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
Allison Goldstein received her MFA in Poetry from California College of the Arts. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary and cultural publications including Not Very Quiet: The Anthology, Burnt Pine, Molecule, Gyroscope Review, Paper Dragon and Maximum Rocknroll. Allison currently lives and writes in South Florida. You can learn more about her work by visiting https://
