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The Astro-Zombies | Year: 1967 Classification: Horror Directed: - Ted V. Mikels If You See John Carradine, Go Fix A Snack... "Astro Zombies has two major flaws. #1- Not nearly enough of Tura Satana! Of course, I could watch a 3 hour movie of her just standing around smoking cigarettes!! #2- Way, WAY too much meaningless babbling from John Carradine (as the astro-scientist)! Listening to him explain everything to his henchman "Franchot" is like watching your mother-in-law knit! His scenes (which take up like a third or more of the movie) are excruciatingly painful to both mind and body! They drag on and on until inducing a coma-like state. A limbo between suicide and hysteria. The rest of the flick is cool enough, with it's solar powered zombies, spies, thugs, cops, murder & mayhem, etc. Ted V. Mikels ain't no Hitchcock, but he just might be hitch's neighbor's brother's gardener. Enjoy... Saw it when I was 6 or 7 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! No! Not The Emotional Quotient Rectifier! 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 ha Buy The Astro Zombies at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Astro Zombies Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Astro Zombies This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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