HUNG UP ON A DREAM: THE ZOMBIES DOCUMENTARY

Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary, Utopia Distribution

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 15, 2025

It wasn't animosity or creative differences or anything that usually happens in creative relationships that led to the initial end of The Zombies. No, the surviving members of the British rock band are pretty blunt in Hung up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary about why they stopped performing together just before the release of their second album in 1968, after forming only seven years prior. They weren't being paid enough to make a living from being one of the most popular rock groups in the world.

The guys who still are or were in the band, all in their 70s or 80s at this point, come across as genuinely practical people in director Robert Schwartzman's documentary. That's not something one expects to say about successful musicians who made three iconic rock songs during that particular period of music history, when bands and tunes came and went with such frequency that even some of the most popular acts mentioned here have become all but forgotten.

The Zombies recorded "She's Not There," "Tell Her No," and "Time of the Season" in about a four-year period. They're great songs and, notably, distinct from each other in terms of style. If the band hadn't been treated so poorly by business-minded people trying to cash in on what they saw as the fad of rock and roll, who knows what they might have made in the ensuing years.

They seem to wonder that, too, as Schwartzman interviews lead singer Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, drummer Hugh Grundy, and bassist Chris White about their lives and careers. The initial run of the band comes to an end about halfway through this film. While it seems as if the story of these men and the band would stop along with it, there's surprisingly much more to the story of what they did, how the band somehow kept being revived for various stretches, and the relationships they formed and somehow maintained with each other for more than 60 years at this point.

In many famous cases, bands that break up don't have these sorts of continuing relationships among their members. The Zombies, though, are a pleasant exception to that apparent rule. Even when they're interviewed separately, each member talks about the others with the kind of fondness and warmth that fame and money can so often destroy. The history of modern music is filled with tales of celebrity and financial success ruining romantic relationships, marriages, and even close family ties. Maybe the fact that the Zombies weren't paid what they deserved from their record and concert sales was a strange blessing in disguise. Money wouldn't and couldn't come between these men, because nobody was giving it to them in the first place.

What's also refreshing is that nobody here seems bitter or resentful of that unfortunate reality. They have plenty of reason to be, to be sure, when we hear some of the stories of how the Zombies were basically exploited by some greedy people. They had a multiple-day residency at a massive arena in the Philippines. The shows were packed each time with more than 10,000 people in the audience, but then, the band members explain how their already low payment had to be divided among them—after a percentage was taken off that.

The point is that, according to Blunstone, the band members could barely pay for their basic living accommodations and expenses, which made sense when they just teenagers forming a band on a kind-of whim, trying to come up with a name, and participating in a talent competition. When three of their songs become hits, though, they probably shouldn't have to pay out of their own pocket for studio time to record a second album. All the while, Blunstone explains that he had to watch the clock while putting the final touches on "Time of the Season," the last song on that album. Once their scheduled time ran out, the band didn't have any more money to add to it.

The structure of Schwartzman's documentary is entirely chronological, starting with the childhoods of each original band member, and its basic aims are mostly biographical, taking us from event to event in the first lifespan of the Zombies. There's no ego here. Everyone in the band seems to know that luck was as much a component of the success they had as their individual and collective talents. In other words, listening to them talk now is still to hear a group of men from working-class backgrounds, who treat every success with humility and every stumble as an opportunity to keep going. That attitude goes a long way here.

The rest of the film's own success is how it relates the rest of the story, following the band's financial inability to keep doing what they loved together. Some stuck together for other musical projects. Some went their own ways, but circumstances or friendship would keep bringing them back together over the years and decades.

They are true friends, basically, and scenes of them reuniting in the recording studio to talk shop are equally fascinating and endearing. It's especially lovely how they and Schwartzman keep the memory of original guitarist Paul Atkinson alive, including his daughter in the interviews, highlighting his work after the band, and focusing on a final live performance that proved how much so many people loved and respected him.

Most of all, perhaps, Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary is genuinely inspiring in a way that one doesn't expect of a biography about musicians whose time has seemingly come and gone. It hasn't, and their story, despite the odds and general trends of fame, continues.

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