Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989) Film Locations

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989) Film Locations

I never past the chance to have a hamburger and a soda at the Randsburg General Store. The small town has become a family tradition anytime we are out hiking at Trona or Red Rock Canyon. During one visit, I overhead a conversation regrading past filming in the area. I made a mental note and decided I would do some research before our next hiking excursion in the area.

My research arrived at 1989’s Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. Randsburg stands in for the fictional city of Zariah. The movie has an all-star cast: Martha Quin, Don Calfa, Billy Bob Thorton, and Hal Sparks. It’s a great B-movie and Don Calfa stole every scene. He plays an evil genius who is turning the citizens of Zariah into zombies to work in a radioactive mine.

Randsburg was a former mining town.

Three prospector discovered gold in the area in 1895. The claim was originally called the Rand Mine named after a gold producing area in South Africa. The settlement near the mine became the Rand Camp and eventually Randsburg.

The Rand Mine was soon renamed the Yellow Aster after the title of a book being read by one of the founders of claim. I’m assuming the book is A Yellow Aster by Kathleen Mannington Caffyn Hunt published in 1894.
By 1896, the population exploded to 1,000 and reached a peak at the turn of the twentieth century of 3,500. I believe the last census has the current population at 69.

As the gold boom faded, the town continued on as other ore, such as tungsten and silver were found in the nearby hills.

During World War II, mining was halted do to Limitation Order L-208 which banned extraction of non-strategic metals during the war. In the 1980s, mining restarted and continued at the Rand Mine until 2004.