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Someday some studio will decide it's time to remake Zapped! And will turn it into a mess influenced by testing, stripping it of its more over-the-top elements, and replacing them with a hip-hop soundtrack and probably one of the Jonas Brothers. Thankfully, we'll be able to brag this disc off our shelves and enjoy this ribald teen-male comic take on Carrie. We just can't look too closely or we'll see the cracks in what is a flawed, yet entertaining movie.
Barney (Scott Baio) is your average teenage nerd, who, thanks to a deal with his principal, has his own private high-school science lab at his disposal, 24 hours a day, where he experiments with the effect of alcohol on mice and growth solutions to create massive, hyper-effective marijuana plants. His buddy Peyton (Baio's future Charles in Charge co-star Willie Aames) is the richest kid in school and pitcher for the inexplicably popular baseball team, but he's best friends with a geek like Barney (partially as a way to fulfill his schemes.) Together, they are middle-of-the-road citizens at Emerson High, neither popular nor invisible. They are just there.
Then, a freak accident in the lab gives Barney telekinetic powers, and Peyton decides to take full advantage of it to win some bets and get in the pants of blond Jane (Heather Thomas). Despite such a major change, the only difference in Barney's everyday life is the intrusion of Bernadette (Felice Schachter, The Facts of Life), a geeky girl (thanks solely to her oversized glasses) who discovers Barney's powers and sees it as an opportunity for research. Of course, such a close working relationship soon blossoms into a romantic one, but the problem is, that's all that happens, as there's no plot in this movie, just a premise that plays out in a number of montages and goofy special-effects scenes.
The film is loaded with every '80s film stereotype, including the materialistic blond bombshell, her rich jerk jock boyfriend, the nameless high-school henchmen, the falling-in-love montage, the awful fashion and copious female nudity. But it's also got some of the off-kilter moments that later were the realm of "Savage" Steve Holland (Better Off Dead), which makes it stand out from the pack, including a trippy hallucination on the part of Barney's baseball coach (the always entertaining Scatman Crothers), involving Albert Einstein and a salami bazooka, and a subplot involving Barney's mother, Satan and a ventriloquist's dummy.
The film also has a finale that, freed from the need to wrap up any kind of real story, aside from a weak attempt at a low-stakes late-game conflict for Barney, utilizes questionable motivation to present a ridiculous prom scene that may be the greatest display of bad acting and gratuitous nudity ever caught on film. It's really a wonder to behold and the thing you'll remember best when you think of this movie. Well that, and all the stuff they wouldn't be able to get away with in a teen comedy today, like Peyton having an affair with a school administrator, a bit about revenge porn, an erotic sex scene between high-schoolers and a generally rapey vibe at several points.
What you'll try to forget are some awful performances, led by Aames, who couldn't find an emotion he couldn't overplay, and Thomas, whose turn as the hottest girl in school is a pageant of wooden deliveries. On the other hand, Crothers, Schachter and Baio, who plays wide-eyed, eyebrow-raising concentration as telekinesis, are enjoyable, as is Marya Small, who plays Barney's mother. But honestly, the acting is something of a secondary element to the set-ups and special effects, opticals which today look aged and laughable. But hey, so's the rest of the movie, which is why it's so much fun.
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