by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Okay, who's in the mood for silver-screen zombies, Silver Age comic-book superheroics, greasy old-school rock 'n' roll, vintage cheesecake sleaze and lucha libre (Mexican wrestling)?

"You just listed my top five favourite examples of lowbrow pop culture," I'm told by Toronto's Stacey Case - musician, postermaker, writer and filmmaker, whose latest oeuvre Enter… Zombie King! has its world premiere at Fantasia this weekend, and features all of the above.

"There used to be a clear division between ‘the cultured' and ‘the masses.' The cultured looked down their noses at the five elements you mention, yet their secret guilty pleasure was sneaking off to buy a girlie mag or see a sexploitation film. The masses felt no guilt in admitting they read Allo Police! or went to the Montreal Forum to see the Sheik carve up Mad Dog Vachon. I am in the latter camp - I love lowbrow pop culture, the seamier and seedier the better. Enter...Zombie King! puts it all in a blender and hits ‘liquefy.'"

The lovingly low-budget Enter… Zombie King! is the brainchild of Bill Marks, onetime publisher of Vortex Comics (Chester Brown's first break), and was co-written by Sean K. Robb, a former Naked News colleague of Case's. Given Case's obsessive love of trash culture, wrestling in particular, he was a natch for the director's chair. That spot gave him the chance to work with superior wrestling talent such as Toronto's leading luchadero Rob "El Fuego" Etchevarria, who choreographed the film's top-notch turnbuckle terror, and the legendary Jim "the Anvil" Niedhart.

Music in the film comes care of the Sadies, the Exploders and the Tijuana Bibles, the ferocious, lucha-masked garage-rock sextet from T-dot. Drummer Super Destructor speaks well of Case, despite Case being an emasculated, pencil-necked art fag. "None of us in the band ever thought Stacey would ever make it any farther than his Parkdale Wrestler short films. Yeah, he's a bit of a lightweight, but he talks a good game, which is why he somehow has gotten away with never giving us a cent for any of our music.

"We let him raid our two records, and the bastard used 12 songs! We had a band meeting about it, and basically it came down to a flip of the coin. Stacey flipped it himself, but before he did he said, ‘Heads, I win, tails, you lose.' Somehow, he won. We're still trying to figure that one out."

For a full-contact take on the Tijuana Bibles, check out their gig at Foufs' Viva Lucha night after the movie screening. Super Destructor, who indeed speaks in capital letters, announces what to expect and what's with the Mexican masks.

"We wear masks at the request of the RCMP - we're all so good-looking under them that women kept fainting and men were punching each other out in frustration. The Tijuana Bibles are without a doubt the Toughest Masked Band in the World. We've got the World's Only Masked Female Horn Section, the Tinto Brass. We're Intelligent & Sensational, the Champagne of Lucha Libre Rock 'n' Roll. We're gonna lay down a right royal whupping in Montreal with the Crybaby Killers, it's gonna be a Texas Bull Rope Match, an Indian Death Match and a Falls Count Anywhere Montreal Blood Match all in one. Only with guitars."

Enter… Zombie King! premieres at Fantasia at Salle de Sève on Saturday, July 31, 7:30pm. The Tijuana Bibles, Crybaby Killers and Severe Gorish Wrestling team are at Foufounes Électriques on Saturday, July 31, 9pm, $12

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