Astro-Zombies
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Movie Reviews of Astro-Zombies
Movie Review: GOTTA LOVE THE ASTROZOMBIES
Summary: 5 Stars
WONDERFUL B MOVIE MAYHEM. LOVED THE SPY STUFF, CARRADINE'S PSEUDO-SCIENCE, THE GREAT WIND-UP ROBOTS AND TANKS OPENING SEQUENCE,THE ASTOZOMBIES...HELL I DUG IT ALL! NOT GREAT ART (WHO EXPECTED IT TO BE?) BUT IT IS GREAT FUN!Movie Review: an endearing guilty pleasure
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a lot of affection for this film. I first learned about it from the Misfit's song Astrozombies and then I stumbled across Mark Of The Astrozombies (the sequel to this movie) on video. I was astounded! I then tracked down the original on DVD and it was love at first sight. I loved the great DVD cover featuring an Astrozombie attacking a beautiful female and those great cheesy blurbs like "See: Astro Space Laboratory"! Great stuff! I put this disc into my DVD player, hit play, and I had a blast! It's been magic ever since. Folks this infamous bad movie has become like a beloved retarded relative to me. Sure it's slow in spots (it would have played better if it were only a little more than an hour long so keep your finger on the fast-forward button) but it's got plenty of entertaining moments that I adore. Truly a gulity pleasure. The sequel is something else too. Wait 'til you see the living severed head of John Carradine in that one! Mark Of The Astrozombies is a fine follow-up and an even more enjoyable gulity pleasure. Ted V. Mikels has gotten better with age! THANKS TED!Movie Review: B-movie commits cardinal sin....
Summary: 2 Stars
Unlike other truly horrible B-movies, like lets say Ed Wood's movies, this movie lacks the entertainment factor and becomes bogged down in numerous sub-plots and intricacies. Over all the movie is pretty boring.
Everybody is trying to get their hands on the "Astro-Man" who is sometimes referred to as an "Astro-Zombie." The Chinese spy, Satana, who never actually identifies herself as from that country, desperately wants to deliver the all-obeying "Astro-Man" to her government. The authorities and the mad scientist's former partner also are looking for the "Astro-Man" who was stupidly ressurected from a psychopath's brain and is now on a murderous rampage through town, killing off young gals.
The movie is flawed in almost every way. Many scenes are dragged on for much too long, especially in the labortories. The mad scientist talks to his wannabe Igor in B.S scientific lingo for a good chunk of the movie. If it made sense then it might have then made a valuable addition to the movie unfortunatelyu it does not and is as I earlier said B.S. The director decided to plop down numerous scens like this throughout the movie. Also it was never explained how the authorities came to the conclsion that a zombie was killing people. They tried to somehow make sense of it and they were not able to. Yes, I know this is a B-movie, it isn't supposed to make sense.
However the most egregious flaw in this movie is also what makes this a sub-par B-movie is that the zombies were only in the movie for about 5 minutes. The first zombie was exposed to us in the first 5 minutes then dissappeared for about half an hour. Instead the movie focused more on the ridiculous and boring sub-plot of spies and police officers which was neither funny nor scary nor anything that should be in a 'quality' B-movie. When we finally get some zombie action by the end on the movie we are already bored out of our minds and then dissapointed that that action oly lasts for less than 5 minutes.
The movie fails as a good movie but more importantly it fails as a B-movie as it is boring and overall not funny. I would recommend a little bit of use of the fast forward button if I were you.
Movie Review: Saw it when I was 6 or 7
Summary: 4 Stars
I just wanted to chime in that I saw this movie at either the theatre or the drive-in when it came out. I was born in 1963 so do the math! I hesitate to buy the dvd since I know a contemporary viewing will surely pale to the effect it had on me as a kid. I thought it was a hoot at the time and always had fond memories about it. I'm glad my parents were liberal enough to allow me to become such a demented little cuss at such a young age. Thanks mom and dad!Movie Review: No! Not The Emotional Quotient Rectifier!
Summary: 3 Stars
Oh, where to start? The movie, co-produced by Wayne Rogers (Trapper John from M*A*S*H) is a bit difficult to follow, which is not one little bit surprising seeing that it is the directorial brainchild of Ted V. Mikels. The plot is fairly typical B movie fare, but has a few subplots and distractors to keep the viewer on their toes. The movie shows off the ample talents of Tura Satana as much as possible in the lead role of ruthless Chinese spy. She and her two henchmen (one is a Hispanic man who may be supposed to be Cuban, all we know is that he likes to dance around with his switchblade a lot, the other is a cranky old coot who reminds me of Abe Vigoda with constipation) are trying to get the secrets of lunatic scientist John Carradine's Astro Zombie project. When John enters the film, the problems start.Carradine and his conveniently mute French Igor character, 'Franchot", work in a lab in a huge mansion bringing back people from the dead. This is not a good situation. While Tura is pretty (as are the good lab assistant women we meet later), and the spies vs. the CIA subplot is kind of interesting, as soon as they show the lab I cringe because only one thing happens there: Carradine explains every painful little bit of his procedures to Franchot is pseudo-science technobabble like "We must feed this memory circuit through the emotional quotient rectifier!" This just never ends. Apparently Wayne Rogers picked up a physics textbook, flipped to the glossary and started writing. Man, the Carradine stuff is just painful. The only thing that is good about John's lab is his equipment. He has all the bubbling test tubes, of course, but when he is doing his dirty work he straps what looks for all the world like a colander to his victims head; no doubt it has something to do with the dekrelnification redundancy circuiting of the gauss plasma ion generator of the prefrontal cortex of the brain stem. (But I digress. Of course John will tell you what it's for; I must have dozed for a second during that monologue.)
Eventually, the cops get involved and start looking for the Astro Zombies, who are, of course, on a killing spree. There are many plot cul-de-sacs to be negotiated, including my favorite which involves the absolute lamest 'exotic' dance that I have ever seen in a movie; yes, even worse than in Mikels' much better "Girl In The Gold Boots", from 1969 (and notably starring the same male lead.) The three spies lug around a radio detector thing that makes the exact same sounds as Spock's panel on Star Trek, and locate Carradine's lab. The spies try to hijack the Astro Zombies, but Carradine sees the error of his ways, and the good guys show up. For some reason the head lawman (we aren't sure what agency they are from, but are led to infer the CIA) brings his girlfriend to the bust. It is a wild melee and justice is served. I particularly like the John Carradine/Tura Satana joint death scene and the zombie with a machete.
This movie has some fun spots for bad movie fans like me. It has some hilarious scenes, like when the zombie holds a flashlight to the photocells in his forehead to get recharged. It also has some classic day/night confusion a la Ed Wood, and this is compounded by the fact that some of the film is way too dark, especially when the spies and CIA guys are having a shootout in the apartment complex (I may be wrong, but that apartment complex looks to me to be the exact same one from Mikels' later film "The Corpse Grinders". Did Ted live there?) The wacky plot and all it's needless but fun twists are big pluses, but I just couldn't give it more than three stars for the huge chunk of John Carradine rambling on about infusing the memory proteins in the hydrogen recombiners, or something like that. Good luck!