User Reviews

The Astro Zombie is a man in a rubber mask. The Male leads try to keep a straight face while spouting ridiculous dialogue. Tura Satana wears exotic outfits, makeup and eyelashes which gives the movie some camp appeal. You'll have a hard time figuring out the plot. It's shocking to see the depths Wendell Corey had descended to but he was probably too sozzled to care. The women scream a lot especially when the Astro Zombie tries to rip their clothes off. John Carradine bumbles around in his laboratory endlessly. The opening and closing credits are shot over film of toy robots and tanks. If you thought Ed Wood made bad films wait until you see this. I'll never part with my video copy though!

I recommend this movie to insomniacs, maybe they can watch this movie and enjoy it. It's a mix of spies, science, and horror as several plots interrupt each other. 1) A team of detectives are investigating a series of murders where organs are taken from bodies and try to stop a gang of spies. 2) A mad scientist (played horribly by John Carradine) takes the organs and makes a series of astro zombies that run on batteries (more on this later). 3) A gang of spies, led by Tura Satana, needs the scientist's information to create their own supermen to take over the world.

Now, each plot has its good points. Joan Patrick is the shining star in the detective story as a young nurse used as bait for a zombie (seems the brain of a criminal she operated on is inside of it). After that fails, she goes home and is attacked by one while her cop boyfriend is outside. The cop puts up a fight with the thing and (luckily for him, since he was getting beat pretty bad) the zombie runs out of energy in its "cell battery" on its forehead, so it grabs the nearest flashlight, turns it on, smacks it onto the battery, and runs back to the lab! The scientist plot is saved by the presence of a scantily-dressed young captive who is gawked at and pawed upon by Carradine's assistant Franchot. Carradine just rambles on and on about science and zombies and such to his mute assistant, who couldn't care less! All Franchot wants to do is experiment on the captive! The spy story is Tura Satana's story and I could watch her forever! An extremely sexy woman, just like in FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, she is pure evil. She holds men hostage and burns cigarette butts into their faces, shoots cops gleefully even after they're dead, and obviously wants to take over the world!

Now that I think about, I guess I can see why people might want to watch this. For the sheer silliness of it all. But there are many boring parts, including a hypnotic nude dance in a club by a woman painted head to toe in psychedelic colors! Proceed with caution!

Despite the fact that he had the greatest voice (not to mention the best wild-eyed leer!) of all the 1930s/'40s-era horror actors, he was given very little to do in the low-budget films in which he so often starred during the latter part of his career. "The Astro-Zombies" is no exception. Dressed in a white lab coat that hangs loosely on his skeletal frame, Carradine performs all his scenes on a cheap-looking dungeon set. Most of his lines are gibberish: "Activate the sonic transmogriceptor!" and so forth. There is some fun to be found elsewhere in the film, as Carradine's berserk astro-zombies wreak havoc throughout the city; there's even some gore and partial nudity (the very comely blonde chick who does a topless dance routine covered in wacky, multicolored body paint). The subplot involving foreign spies is painfully dull, however, and poorly acted by Tura Satana and her cornball henchmen. Don't expect too much...just enjoy the film for the grade-Z nonsense it is.

I will admit the pace of this movie is leaden at times, making it tough sledding. But I do believe this film could be edited down into an AMAZING B-movie horror/cheese fest lasting 55-60 minutes.

Personally,what I love about the film is its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink script. We are treated to the greatest hits of exploitation movie-making, all in one film, including: mad scientist, mute hunchback lab assistant, rampaging monsters, zombies, aliens, slashers that kill big-breasted women, brain transplantation, spaceships, spies, the CIA, naked go-go dancers and evil dragon ladies.

Let's not forget my favorite bit: a doppleganger for a shirtless Ed "Big Daddy" Roth wailing away on the bongos, miming (badly) to a pre-recorded music track (no other musicians are seen!), while a body-painted topless go-go dancer wriggles away.

GENIUS!

About the only elements that Ted Mikels missed were vampires, bikers, and giant insects! Who can resist the lovely Tura Satana with her evil makeup and low-cut evening gowns? Plus some nice color footage of L.A. in the Sixties. And of course the brilliantly stupid credit sequence with the tiny toy robots!

I urge fans of hardcore weirdness/Cheese to check this out. For less casual fans, you might want to wait until you have committed the complete works of Ed Wood to memory. Only then will you be in the proper frame of mind to truly appreciate this cinema (non) landmark.

Don't listen to those who claim this isn't a so-bad-it's-good film. It's terrifically lousy and laughably GREAT. From the dull, muted library music to the stock footage of LA Police cars to what has to be the first unnecessary nude-dancer scene (since then, a staple of cop/buddy movies), to the total lack of pacing in the editing, to fight scenes that look like Shriners hugging after an all-nighter, this is hoot city.

First, a compliment: The Astro-Zombies' masks are actually impressive, except they do not say "Astro-Zombies." They say "tricked-out motorbike helmets for the Village People."

You already know the plot, such as it is, from the other comments and no, it doesn't make a wit of sense, but the wife and I enjoyed every grueling minute. Personal favorites: the 40-weight oil on Franchot's hair and Carradine's endless muttering in a vain attempt to let the audience in on the plot. Wendell Corey, apparently stewed to the gills just to be able to mumble his dialog (he died from drink before the film was released). The Astro-Zombie running, running, running, holding a flashlight to his forehead (now that's ACTION!). The long, pointless shots of a car radio. Tura Santana's need to use a silencer in a gun fight (it's a revolver, which can't be silenced anyway, and the silencer is hardly real; more like a mashed dixie cup painted silver). Poor Rafael Campos, actually doing decent acting, making the other players even more wooden. And who leaves a scimitar lying around in a lab? Handy, yes, if you need to lop off someone's head, which as I recall from my own lab experience, is rather rare. But why ask questions about the incongruous? Astro-Zombi cannot answer them. It's an enigma. Or is that enema?

Those toy robots in the credits. What the? Hysterical. This is not to be rented. You must own it.

Word on the street has it that "The Astro-Zombies" is one of the worst films of all time, right down there with "Plan 9...," "Robot Monster" and "The Beast of Yucca Flats," and for once, the word on the street is right. This movie really IS an incredible stinker in every conceivable department, and is a fairly bewildering experience to sit through. I for one could not figure out what was going on throughout much of the film, despite the inanity of the proceedings. Tura Satana, so bodaciously kickass in the late Russ Meyers' "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," does add some sodden spark to the proceedings, but John Carradine is reduced to mumbling techno gibberish in his zombie lab, and Wendell Corey, in his last film role, probably wished that he was dead (he died right after filming was completed!). It's hard to believe that Wayne Rogers was involved as a producer and co-writer of this mess. Oh, Trapper, what were you thinking?!?! Horrendous acting, crappy editing and amateurish directing, combined with a mishmash of a plot involving skull-faced, radio-controlled, synthetic cadavers (or something like that...I'm really not too clear on this point), Mexican secret agents, the CIA and mutilation murders, all combine for 90 minutes of semipainful head shaking. The film is an absolute must for all connoisseurs of bad cinema, but all others really should be warned away. This movie really is BAAAAAAAAD!

This movie is even bashed by fans of cheesy old "B" horror films. This I don't understand. I loved every second of this movie. It took me a while to find a copy of Astro Zombies, but I found the DVD for $7.99, when it arrived, I immediately popped it in. I was not disappointed in the slightest. Its title may suggest that this film contains an onslaught of Romero-esque zombies from space, of course, that would've been a whole lot cooler than the few Astro-Zombies we see in this film, but they still delighted me. I found this film to have a preety cool premise (zombie like quasi-men who can be controlled and programmed), even though it contained all the stereotypical characters a film like this needs. Of course, that didn't bother me in the slightest. Neither did the pacing, I didn't find this film to bore me at all. Teenage Zombies would be a film with incredibly bad pacing. That is a boring movie. You need to keep in mind that Astro Zombies is a cheesy zombie movie from 1969, its not Oscar material. So, you all need to quit your whining and just accept that there is much worse out there. LONG LIVE TED MIKELS!

As I watched this film, I couldn't help but think that leading man Wendell Corey looked intoxicated throughout the movie--acting listless and somewhat slurred in speech. So, I did a search on the net and read up on Corey's life--discovering that the same year he made this film he also died from cirrhosis of the liver as a result of alcoholism. What a sad end to what had been a good career. Corey had been mostly a supporting actor in the late 40s and into the 50s--steady and effective in his films. Here, though, he was blundering through his lines in a grade-z sci-fi yarn. Oddly, despite getting top billing, he's not in the film that much--perhaps he died before it was completed.

John Carradine is also in the film, but that isn't nearly as sad as Corey, as Carradine made a career out of appearing in bad films, so this seems to be right up his alley! It is truly an awful film--with practically no budget, ketchup for blood and acting that seems amateur at best. You know it's a bad film when Carradine is probably the BEST actor among them.

Here is the plot: American scientists have been working on creating "astro-zombies". In essence, robots that follow mental commands over great distances--so that humans on Earth can control these droids in space. The problem is, a mad scientist (Carradine) has gone missing and many mutilated bodies begin appearing. Could it be Carradine or the Commies or both?!

One of the few strengths about the film is the head "baddie". This woman should probably have gotten a fashion makeover, but I still loved her style--no debating--just shooting people. And, when she shoots them, she shoots them again and again--pumping bullets into the lifeless bodies just to be 100% sure they are dead. For once, we seem to have an intelligent villain--too bad she's starring in such an unintelligent film!! And, too bad that she conveniently forgets to do this at the very end--when she SHOULD have unloaded a full clip into her victim! The biggest deficit (and there are many) is that the film is so dull. Cheap does not mean that it must be dull. Even bad films such as PLAN 9 or TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE are fun to watch because of their ineptness and because they try so hard to be entertaining. This one, sadly, isn't bad enough to be good for a laugh.

Not surprisingly, the film is from Ted Mikels--one of the best bad film makers that ever lived. Clearly, he was the rival of the likes of Larry Buchanan, Ed Wood and Al Adamson. If you don't believe me, understand that "The Astro-Zombies" is among his BEST films!!

The problem with this film is two-fold.

First, Mickels revealed, in his first film ("Strike me Deadly") that he really wanted to make real films. "Strike" is not a great film, but given the low budget, it actually keeps its integrity pretty much in tact.

Unfortunately, not enough so to persuade film financiers to support Mickels into a career in mainstream Hollywood. Consequently (as Mickels reveals in his interviews) he abandoned himself to making low-rent drive-in trash, which at least made money.

Consquently, there's an awful lingering sense throughout this film that Mickels, having determined to make a bad film, is actually laughing at his audience. WE think this is 'so bad it's funny'; Mickels seems to be saying 'You're so dumb you think this is so bad it's funny (when it's only just bad)'.

Secondly, since someone intentionally making bad films for suckers doesn't really care, the pacing here is really awful. There are indeed some really funny scenes here, but you better have some patience waiting for them.

An unsettling performance for lovers of bad films - and not good enough to recommend otherwise.

I tend to like movies that are really good or really bad. Of the bad movies, there is good/bad and bad/bad. This movie is definitely good/bad. How can you not love the Visible Man used as a scientific prop? How can you not love Tura Satana's wardrobe? How can you not love John Carradine reading his lines off a clipboard? How can you not love FRANCHOT the greasy idiot sidekick??? And those stupid windup toys during the credits. Now that's what I call entertainment.

Gordo

This film is tough to rate without exhibiting my psychotronic bias, however, I can understand both the low and high ratings. It's a movie that exudes raw cheapness while displaying the unpolished energy of its principals, including a great cast, that apparently decided to pump out some entertainment, like it or not. Part of the test for my evaluation also involved some basic decision making; would I prefer going to a theater and paying good money to see " The Astro-Zombies " or most of the alleged " masterpieces " of the 21st Century cinema that I've been forced to endure lately? Usually The A-Z come out on top in that regard. You'll probably benefit from a strong background of abjectly cut rate movies, viewed in the dead of night, emanating from a pre-cable era local station on a black and white TV ( although this one is shot in color ) complete with maneuverable antenna ( rabbit ears ) on top, emitting an artificial sickly pale glow over you as the lone occupant of the rec room. This is not your ordinary tale involving sub rosa experimentation by government entities whose meddling with space technology along with other sinister machinations has gone awry .... or has it? It's frequently hard to tell, but I know what I like, and it may even be art, in the sense of its creation of a formal if admittedly accidental anti-aesthetic. This is a film that can be readily missed or dismissed in the midst of the stream of more contemporary bombastic sci-fi blockbusters, yet has a sort of 60's vibe of utter coolness that only rubber headed zombies evading radar while wielding ray guns on the rampage can bring.

Astro Zombies is one of the greatest movies of the 20th century! Ted V. Mikels is the godfather of schlock moviedom. Acting? Who needs it? Storyline? So what. Coherency? Nah! What we have in Astro Zombies is rogue scientist John Carradine as Dr. DeMarco, creating an army of astro men - half man half astro robot, tough, sexy spy Tura Santana (dig her cool wardrobe!) and her minions trying to shanghai the zombies for her evil country, and has been actor Wendell Corey and his FBI cronies trying to put a stop to it all. Why would they want to spoil all the fun? The astro zombie masks are really cool looking too. Fabulous nonsense from the man that brought us The Corpse Grinders, The Doll Squad, and the sequel Mark of the Astro Zombies. Hell, the Misfits even entitled a song after this flick and there is a European punk/metal? band of the same name. Tune in this film for fun and mayhem as the Astro Zombies rampage late 60's Los Angeles. Highly recommended!

The film is bad in a fun kind of way, but everybody has to admit that the openingcredits and end credits look super cool.

Toy Robots and colord smoke are brilant, I could watch that for hours

When I read that this was thought of by some reviewers as the worst film in history along with John Carradine headlining this act I figured why not give this thing a watch. I must say that no I don't think it's the worst film I have ever seen, but boy it is close. It starts with you guessed it a bad opening and when you thought the first 20 minutes were enough to sink this mess it just gets worse.

To give you an idea of the story over the last six months murders have been occurring that is when it sort of gets the feel of a hokey 50s sci-fi/horror cornball movie. Poor old John Carradine (who must have agreed to any script he was given) plays Dr. DeMarco who sadly just turns knobs and spouts out pages of dialogue. For it is he who is creating these Astro-Zombies.

Death scenes are poorly executed and we the viewer need Dr. DeMarco to injected some excitement into this movie. It sounds when reading the plot that it may not be too bad on the excitement scale, but it is just a boring movie really.

Based on screenplay by the director Ted V. Mikels and Wayne Rogers (who I remember as Trapper from the great TV show M.A.S.H.). I would suggest watching that show instead.

I just wasn't sure that I could watch after seeing that beautiful white 65 0r 66 Mustang convertible splattered with blood after the zombie killed the heavenly beauty that was riding it. I was just hoping he wouldn't put any dents in it.

Most of it was a major snooze-fest with lots of time spent showing people driving or riding, the mad scientist John Carradine, and the requisite topless dancer with the Ken-doll looking government agents watching. Watching Carradine explain his experiments to his Igor-like assistant was a real hoot. This guy couldn't understand George Bush.

It was really funny watching all the fakeness in this film. It was like something Ed Wood would do.

But, hey, I watched this to see the sultry Tura Satana. She was smoking hot!

So making up my collection of really cheesy, sleazy and bad movies of the seventies I stumbled over this great movie. Astro Zombies is very recommendable for having some great fun time. Especially the technical advices used by John Carradine are just hilarious and his Quasimodo like mute assistant adds to this. There are so many just senseless or stretched scenes and but the powerful soundtrack (hahahaha) keeps you awake. The outer appearance of the Astro Zombies is also remarkable since I nearly never was so frightened to die from a laughing riot. Definitely Astro Zombies belongs in the category sooo bad that it is a great fun to watch. Even I would consider Astro Zombies for one of my worst movies favorites. So now I really cannot await to get the sequel and dig deeper into the realm of trash. Thanx Mr. Mikels for such a great laughing moment. So if you like trash - GO FOR THIS ONE!!!

Okay, this movie really sucks and not many people are gonna tell you any different. Even though I had some fun watching Astro Zombies, I know it is a worthless piece of sheet! It's just amazingly so horrible that I actually laughed at it and enjoyed doing so. I think that's what it was intended to do was to make people laugh at its stupidness.

If you are a John Carradine fan, then you must watch this film. Otherwise you more than likely will absolutely hate it and most people won't even make it 30 minutes into the movie. There is no need to get into plot, acting, or effects because there really isn't any to talk about! If you can take this movie for what it is, and that is to not be serious, and if you enjoy watching really campy films, then you may just possibly enjoy this little bundle of joy...but don't count on it!

John Carradine does his usual mad scientist thing in this second rate horror bomb about electro powered zombies. It's late '60s style horror action exploitation all the way- which means it was made on a shoe string budget, poorly conceived, chock full of cheesy mad scientist dialogue, and it's actually more violent than you may expect. It's worth it for Tura Satana if nothing else!

I feel sorry for John Carradine who got caught up in a lot of these terrible movies late in his career. I hope he at least banked a good check for doing this one. They used to run this on TV in the '70s, so I got to see it a couple of times back then. It rarely sees the light of day now. Too bad- it's a perfect low rent, shock-value-only, drive-in movie classic. Don't expect it to be good, and understand that your girlfriend will probably hate it. Don't even get her involved with it.

Yeah I know this flick is an infamous piece of schlock, but heck that's what I expected. I went into it expecting entertaining cheese and was highly entertained. Carradine's pseudo-scientific lingo is a hoot! I like the cold war espionage vibe of the flick too, but I really really love the design of the Astrozombies themselves! Great masks! The Astrozombies have the perfect mix of cool and cheesy aesthetics going for 'em. For a little more mayhem (and more Astrozombies) be sure to check out Mark of the Astrozombies. It's another wonderful piece of schlock with a bit more blood and, most importantly, more Astrozombies! The world needs more Astrozombies!! How about yet another Astrozombie movie Mr. Mikels? We need a trilogy!

John Carradine plays a doctor who is trying to create an "Astro Man," so you can guess how this will end up. The scary part is that Carradine seems like one of the few normal people in the cast. His assistant is a short hunchback named Franchot, which is French for "Igor." Franchot has the IQ of a doorknob. Imagine if Hugh Griffith and Robert Newton had a child together - and now you know what Franchot looks like. In some of the film's most hilarious scenes, Carradine explains every step of his experiments to Franchot. Franchot nods like he gets it. I get the same reaction from my students every time I teach.

Meanwhile, over at CIA headquarters, Wendell Corey (who appears in just two scenes) is trying to figure out why people are getting dismembered. It seems the CIA knows about Carradine's experiments; unfortunately, it takes them 90 minutes to do something about it. In between, Corey's agents start dropping like flies.

In another subplot, we have the nightmare pairing of Rafael Campos and that marvel of architecture, Tura Satana. These two are apparently enemy agents after Carradine's creation. Satana gets to wear some incredible outfits, most of which manage to accentuate her large breasts, like she really needed assistance in that area. In the film's opening credits, there is a line that reads "Santana's Wardrobe." Apparently, the producers were expecting Carlos to sing "Black Magic Woman."

Elsewhere, there are assorted women sporting short skirts, long hair, and big talent.

Corey is not around for the climax. Presumably, he was still out collecting pieces of Mrs. Thorwald. The rest of the cast converge on Carradine's house. This includes the Astro Man, who (I kid you not) has a flashlight stuck to his head.