Zadar! Cow From Hell will be screening at the Bijou Monday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. Doors for the show will open at 6:30p.m.
Kim Zanger Tucker and Bob Campagna have been working to get the opportunity to screen the movie for the past few years. Kim is asking for free-will donation to attend the screening that will benefit the Mount Vernon after prom.
Kim’s son, Grant, conducted an interview with Bob Campagna about the movie back in 2022 for a history project. Kim remembered being an extra in the movie, having skipped school for a day during filming for that opportunity.
Kim said that the title shouldn’t scare anyone from seeing the film. It’s a family-friendly, “campy” movie with a lot of Mount Vernon locals who were in it.
Campagna wrote a column about the movie and Grant’s interview on the project for the Sun in October 2022.
Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater was the company who made the film, which included five University of Iowa graduates – Jim Turner, Dan Coffey, Leon Martell, Bill Allard, and Merle Kessler. The troupe’s manager, Steve Baker, was Bob’s roommate at Iowa.
Zadar! was filmed in Mount Vernon because of that connection, with other local shooting locations including Solon, Tipton and Iowa City. The film was shot in Mount Vernon in the late 1980s
From Bob’s column – Adorned with plastic cow horns, fake animal noses, and white sheets splotched with black spots (think Holstein), locals had fun in bit roles, such as strolling in Memorial Park, lining First Street, and transforming into mutant cows.
The sidewalk in front of Stoll’s Ben Franklin was the setting where a mutant cow ripped away the leg of an unwitting deputy sheriff, played by Jim Turner. Fake blood spewed everywhere. Eeeewwww!
Two 10-year-old kids sprinted around the Bauman’s corner yelling “the movies are coming!”
The newly constructed Memorial Park gazebo served as a focal point for the nighttime local premier of the movie that is within the movie. Almost a hundred residents stayed until the morning’s wee hours to get this scene correctly filmed.
Filming was truly a small-town affair. Overhead shots were made possible thanks to Cornell College’s “loan” of its bucket lift truck.
The United Methodist Church provided restrooms and dressing areas for the cast.
The movie was a satire stuffed with sophomoric, inside humor. Eagerly awaited and publicized statewide, Zadar! fell flat after its Hancher Auditorium premiere in Iowa City.
The movie did have a smattering of truly genius and wryly funny moments.
Fortunately, each of the Ducks Breath cast members have since enjoyed successful individual careers as writers, actors, producers, performers, and humorists.