THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES
1969
USA
Written By:
Cinematography By:
Special Effects By:
Music By:
Editing By:
Cast:
Alternate Titles:
Space Zombies
Space Vampires, The
Directed By:
Ted V. Mikels
Produced By:
Kenneth Altose
Wayne Rogers
Ted V. Mikels
Ted V. Mikels
Wayne Rogers
Robert Maxwell
Gary R. Heacock
Nico Karaski
Ted V. Mikels (as Theo Mikacevich)
Art Names
Wendell Corey, Tom Pace, John Carradine,
Joan Patrick, Tura Satana, Rafael Campos,
Vince Barbi, Joe Hoover, Victor Izay,
William Bagdad, Egon Sirany, Janis Saul,
Wally Moon, John Hopkins, Rod Wilmoth (as the Astro-Zombie)
Review from Zombie
by Allan Bryce
Film Quality: * (of 5)
Gore Content: * (of 5)
"One of the very worst movies you are ever likely
to come across, this Z-grade clinker stars John Carradine as a
mad scientist who for no discernable reason makes zombies (actors with
silly skeleton masks) in his cellar. The zombies then go
out on the rampage, ripping out peoples vital organs. Enter FBI
agent Wendell Corey (who died soon after filming was
completed, but might very well have popped off in the
middle judging by his comatose performance). When Corey stands
around making official pronouncements regarding how baffled the police are,
the viewer knows exactly how he feels. Trivia buffs might like
to note that this movie was co-written and produced by Wayne Rodgers
of M*A*S*H fame, and it stars bounteous Russ Meyer heroine
Tura Satana as a sinister villainess.
Review from Fangoria Presents Best and Bloodiest Horror Video #1
Edited by Anthony Timpone
"What a pleasure it was - sort of. ASTRO ZOMBIES opens and
closes with footage - very dark footage - of toy robots.
The reason for this is beyond me, but this out-of-whack
framing device is somehow indicative of the brand of logic that pervades
the rest of the movie. Some of this logic is undoubtedly determined
by a lack of money, as in the set design for the lab
run by John Carradine and his deformed assistant. A couple of
props, you will no doubt notice, look very much like
camera lights; this is because they are camera lights.
OK, so it was a tight budget. Other aspects of the
picture, though, are not so easily explained, such as the
Mr. Wizard-style lectures mad doctor Carradine repeatedly gives his disfigured
handyman, which go on and on and on...Scenes in the
good-guy lab peopled by clean-cut scientists are also a little
tough to grasp at times. One thing about this lab
that we can be sure of is that it performs an important
function; we know this when we see one of the institution's top
scientist's putting the finishing touches on a Visible Man model
(leading one to believe that this lab is government funded).
The horribly, but not convincingly, deformed Astro Zombies themselves are
another matter. After a bout of fisticuffs with the movies
suave hero, one Astro Zombie has to hold a flashlight
to his head to keep himself juiced up. Of course there
certainly are a fair amount of laughs to be found in
ASTRO ZOMBIES, but you have to keep still through a lot of
snail-paced developments to reach most of them."
