Give In to The Zombies

A few years back, I saw The Zombies perform at SXSW. They put on a stellar show, during which I found myself blurting out repeatedly, “wow, I forgot they wrote that!” (“She’s Not There”) or “I love this song! I forgot they wrote that!” (“Time of the Season.”)

After the gig, I was lucky enough to be backstage where members of some of the biggest bands that played SXSW (including The Sword and The Black Angels), along with some Austin music royalty, were geeking out. I saw multiple people others would be in awe of, come armed with records or posters to sign, proving the truism about The Zombies, that they’re your favorite band’s favorite band.

Recently, at a special showing in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse, I was lucky enough to catch Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary. It’s the first full-length documentary on the band and it goes some way to explaining how the legendary British band is at once so famous and so unknown.

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Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Robert Schwartzman
Starring: Colin Blunstone, Paul Atkinson, Rod Argent
Running time: 116 mins

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If you’re like, “Who the hell are The Zombies?” trust me, you know their song “Time of The Season.” It’s in every movie about the ’60s — What’s your name?/ Who’s your daddy?/ Is he rich like me? That track comes from their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle, a record many music nerds rank alongside Dark Side of the Moon or peak Beatles. And they’re right — it’s that good.

But the industry completely fumbled the bag. Their debut single “She’s Not There” was a smash in 1964, but instead of building on it, their label botched promotion and gave bigger pushes to less adventurous acts. By the time The Zombies self-financed Odessey and Oracle, because the label didn’t believe in the songs, the band was already burned out. The record barely got released, they broke up, and only after “Time of the Season” blew up organically on U.S. radio did the industry scramble to cash in. Too late, the band was gone. Things got so ridiculous that “fake” Zombies bands toured America pretending to be them and from one of those knockoff acts, two long-bearded Texans eventually formed ZZ Top.

Directed by Robert Schwartzman (Jason Schwartzman’s brother, Nicolas Cage’s cousin), the documentary covers nearly six decades of their musical journey, from teenage beginnings through to their 2019 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The film features all the surviving original members, including drummer Hugh Grundy, Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, and Chris White reflecting on their journey, while honoring the memory of late guitarist Paul Atkinson. The movie dives into the personal relationships of the members of the band, along with how their legacy stands as the sands of time settle into the lower part of the hourglass.

Schwartzman stays focused on the band’s music rather than the stories that leaked into the tabloids, like the band’s relationships to their peers, how they fell out of vogue thanks to bad record deals.

While there are some lingering questions I had as a viewer, the film concentrates on the legacy of the band. (Did anyone deal with massive drug abuse, how did the band navigate the reunion demands, the agreement between touring and non-touring members.) By all rights, with the hits they had and the songs they wrote, they should occupy a significantly higher place in the musical pantheon than the one they have, which is roughly as if they were a one-hit wonder with “Time of the Season.”

Nothing is perfect, certainly not in the music business. Throughout the doc, the living members discuss their contentment while being obviously wistful about what could have been, This bittersweet acceptance gives the film its emotional weight — these aren’t bitter old musicians dwelling on what went wrong, but artists who have made peace with an imperfect industry while still cherishing the music they made.

In a particularly moving moment of the film, lead singer Blunstone talks about his complicated family relationships growing up and discovering as an adult — in a revelation delivered just before her death — that the woman he thought was his aunt was actually his birth mother. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain and gives the sense that he’s a tender guy, and maybe that’s part of why his lyrics land the way they do. Take “A Rose for Emily,” which feels almost like a subconscious signal beamed into the world:

“Her roses are fading now
She keeps her pride somehow
That’s all she has protecting her from pain”

Aside from that gripping moment, the focus is mostly on The Zombies’ music, specifically why it actually matters, and why the guys do indeed deserve adoration from rock and rollers, all these years later.

Critics have responded in kind. The Guardian framed the film as a “happy-sad tale,” which feels right. There’s joy in seeing the music celebrated, but also frustration at how badly the industry served them. The documentary underlines that The Zombies were never just a novelty, but a band whose fingerprints are all over rock history.

What struck me most is how timely it feels. We live in an era where a decades-old Fleetwood Mac song can rocket back up the charts because a guy filmed himself skateboarding with cranberry juice. The same could easily happen with The Zombies. Tracks like “She’s Not There” or “Time of the Season” are already cultural staples, and the documentary primes a new audience to understand why they’ve endured.  If either song found its way to virality on TikTok or Instagram, no one who’s seen the film would be surprised; The Zombies were always right there in front of us.

Hung up on a Dream has just been released on Apple+ and Amazon.