tomgillespie2002 The Astro-Zombies is one of those Z-grade efforts where you can tell the producers had a bunch of props and sets left over from previous productions and wrote a script based around them. Therefore, the film makes absolutely no sense, and ends up throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the audience. We are left with a story involving mad scientist Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine) and his hunchback lab assistant who are attempting to create an army of 'astro zombies', superhuman beings whose actual purpose is sketchy. After one is loosed and goes on a killing spree, the CIA (led by a clearly sozzled Wendell Corey, who died due to his alcoholism shortly after filming) and a spy ring led by the great Tura Satana become interested.It's easy to label a film 'the worst film ever!', but The Astro Zombies, directed by schlock favourite Ted V. Mikels, truly lives up to its reputation. Carradine, bless him, makes a valiant attempt to make some kind of sense of the plot with some muffled monologues, but I got completely lost in all the drivel. There is the odd moment of camp weirdness such as the wounded astro zombie fleeing with a torch pressed against his head to keep itself alive or a naked exotic dance that serves absolutely no purpose, but it constantly lingers on endless laboratory scenes where literally nothing happens. The zombies themselves are nothing more than a man in a kind of insect/skull/mutant mask, and there's only really one of them. It's a truly painful experience that lacks the amusing moments of Mikels' other 'works' such as The Corpse Grinders (1971) and The Doll Squad (1973), that at least made those films bearable. Truly painful stuff that could benefit from a good thirty minutes shaved off the running time.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Michael_Elliott Astro-Zombies, The (1968) 1/2 (out of 4) When people discuss some of the worst movies ever made, this one here usually gets a vote or two. While this film is certainly bad it at least has a few decent things going for it. The movie tells the story of a scientist (John Carradine) who wants to create some "astro-zombies" so that he can control their mind and have them doing all of his dirty work. Of course, along the way several people are killed so that this experiment can move forward but a CIA man (Wendell Corey) is on the case. There was a time when this here was one of my most sought after film simply because I had read so much about it but as a kid every Mom and Pop store either didn't have a copy or if they did someone had rented it and their VCR ate the tape. When I finally got around to seeing it on DVD the thing certainly lived up to its bad reputation but I would stop short of calling it one of the worst films ever made. I think the film has a couple things going for it and one is of course Carradine. It's amazing to think that at one time he was one of the most respected character actors around and yet he ended his career appearing in one bad movie after another. The movies themselves might be bad but it's always fun seeing Carradine do his thing and I must admit that I found most of his scenes here to be mildly entertaining. The stuff with his hunchback assistant runs on way too long but there's some sort of weird atmosphere going on. Corey, who died shortly after this film, appears drunk in most of his scenes and doesn't have too much to do. Another plus are the Halloween masks that our astro-zombies use. Yes, they look fake but they at least are fun. The biggest problem with this turkey is that it's deadly boring. There's not an ounce of energy, life or even a light pulse to be found. The pacing is just deadly because it takes way too long for this so-called "story" to actually be told. This problem is made worst by the fact that a little editing probably would help things. The majority of the scenes run on and on for no apparent reason other than to push up the running time so if they would have cut some of this added time we'd probably be talking about this thing as something "so bad it's good." I can't help but imagine a drive-in back in 1968 where a guy took his virgin date to see this thing knowing he wasn't getting any but by the thirty-minute mark the woman had decided to give herself up just so she could take her eyes away from this thing. The badness is all over this movie and there's no question this thing is a disaster but at the same time there's just a weird vibe going on that makes this thing worth viewing if you enjoy bad "Z" movies.

jonathan-577 A bunch of Vitalis-laden slugs sit around a wood-paneled office and chat, including the drunk as a skunk Wendell Corey. Tura Satana sits around in a spectacular outfit and looks incredibly bored. John Carradine shleps around his lab with Igor and talks at length about how Astro Zombies work. Occasionally someone is shot or garden-weaseled to death, sometimes by a guy in a skull mask. In one scene a woman is sitting around and the door opens and she gasps but nothing happens, but the irony is that it would have been more of an inversion if something DID happen. In between lines there are excruciatingly long passages of people wandering around and fidgeting. There are also a lot of cars driving around, and even in broad daylight the exteriors all seem to have been pushed three stops. At the end Carradine is shot and Satana is electrocuted, inspiring the cop to muse, "Well, there's one basic element of human life that can never be removed - the emotions!" We're in Phil Tucker territory here, folks.

librachild 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!