31 Days of Cheese Day 19 - Astro Zombies

People, from time to time, ask me ‘Bob why on earth do you watch these films?” and sometimes I answer “Because I am an emotionally stunted misfit with limited interpersonal skills and this substitutes for a personal life” . And then once the shock wears off, I’ll say “Actually because of films like Astro Zombies.”

This is a 1968 film written and directed by Ted Mikels who has spent a life time do stuff like this. You really think by now he’d be better at it but well no. This is a pretty bad film.

Make that really bad. But…

Well anyway after the opening sequence where a girl is killed by what we assume is one of the Astro Zombies we get the titles which are played over shots of toy robots and tanks. Yep we’re in for a ride here.

The film concerns John Carradine who as his appearance here proves, would do anything as long as he got paid for it (to be fair his family was large) who is a classic mad scientist intent on creating an Astro-man a re-animated corpse artificially enhanced and running on solar power.

That by the way is a bit more coherent than the actual film lays it out but never mind.

There is a lot of padding in this film – each step in the making of the new Astro Man takes forever. (There is an earlier version running about doing the killing – we learn later the only brain John could get was that of an insane killer. John reads the line like he was upset that he couldn’t get the name brand spark plugs he wanted at Pep Boys and had to make do – it’s another odd touch. )

Anyway each step in the making of the Astro man is explained at exhaustive detail – degaussing is mentioned, perhaps the first time in film history and then shown, again perhaps the first time in film history (it’s process that removes or weakens a magnetic field).

Meantime on the trail of the Doctor is a team of federal agents and a team of either Russian or Cuban spies – it’s hard to tell here. The head of the spy ring is played by Tura Satana (who is best known for playing the lead in Faster Pussycat Kill Kill). She wears slinky dresses and shoots people and depending on the scene has either a Spanish or Russian Accent or some kind of ménage of the two. It’s fairly confusing but since the movie doesn’t care, neither will you. Still she’s fun to watch. She knows she’s in a rotten film and she just rolls with it.

There are lot of scenes in bars and some of the actors sound like they weren’t drinking iced tea when they were doing the takes. There is a pointless go-go dancer sequence that makes you want to take a shower as well.

Well that’s the plot (more or less) and the padding What makes this film are two incidents. In the first the Doctor’s assistant (he’s not named Igor but the hell with it, I’ll call him Igor. ) has captured a young woman in a gold bikini and has her strapped to some kind of lab table. We don’t have the slightest idea who she is or what her story is. The film needed a babe in bikini I guess. As she struggles he sets up his equipment, knocks her out with a hypodermic and is then about to start whatever it was he was going to do when John tells him that he’ll have to finish his experiment later, right now he needs help with the Astro Man. Igor looks a bit annoyed, the puts down his equipment and goes to help the Doc. Leaving the babe in the bikini. We never see her again – even at the end. The whole pointless sequence comes to complete dead end and is then dropped like a bad habit. It’s just amazing.

In the other incident one night, the Astro Zombie with the killer’s Brain attacks the male lead’s Girl. In the struggle, his battery pack, which stores energy from the solar cells in his forehead (don’t ask really it’s not important) is knocked off. The male lead arrives in the nick of time and fights off the Astro Zombie. Because it is dark, the Astro Zombie begins to lose power. To keep himself going he grabs the Male lead’s flashlight and holds it to his forehead. Then there are several shots of walking the streets with the flashlight held to his head as he stumbles back to the doctor’s lab. Again it’s one of the bizarre sequences I’ve ever seen. Dali could only wish he was this surreal.

In the end. The doctor, the spies and the zombies are all killed. The male lead and the female lead hug and we fade out. No word on the girl in the bikini tied to the lab table.

Enjoy with a Cuban Sandwich and Borscht