The Astro-Zombies (1968)

Believe it or not, but the ingredients are here for an interesting, surreal movie, 11 April 2008

The plot of The Astro-Zombies is so convoluted that I'm not sure I can sum it up in just a few short sentences - but I'll give it a try. It seems that a series of gristly murders is being blamed on a Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine). Until recently, Dr. DeMarco worked for the government on a top secret project where he was attempting to develop a synthetic man. The synthetic or astro-man was thought to be ideal for long range space flight. The CIA theorizes that Dr. DeMarco has succeeded in creating an astro-man and that it may be responsible for the murders. In addition, a group of spies, headed by a woman named Satana (Tura Satana), is also looking for Dr. DeMarco. They represent a foreign party interested in Dr. DeMarco's discoveries.

You know, I could sit here and go through a litany of weaknesses found in The Astro-Zombies. But I'll be honest, that's too easy and, ultimately, too time consuming. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. So I'll stick to the biggest problem I had with The Astro-Zombies and that's how deadly dull much of the movie is. There are great big chunks of the movie where nothing happens. I don't mean it's just slow - I mean there's absolutely nothing going on. For example, there are a series of scenes with Dr. DeMarco preparing his lab for an experiment that seem to go on FOREVER! Vials are filled, switches are thrown, microscopes are peered through, and on and on it goes. No dialogue – just mundane, routine scenes of people trying to look busy. I swear that at one point it looked like Carradine was working on a thermostat. And who wouldn't want to see John Carradine do a little home repair project?

But as bad as The Astro-Zombies is, the movie's not a total loss. There's enough bizarreness here that someone with a little talent might have gotten something interesting out of it. I'll go so far to argue that a good editor might be able to shave a half-hour off the thing and come up with an interesting, surreal movie. The ingredients are here – CIA operatives, John Carradine, mutant creatures, a secret lab, Tura Satana (who's pretty surreal in her own right), a hunchbacked lab assistant, violent attack scenes, an unknown woman in a bikini strapped to a table, and enough scientific hokum for two movies. But until someone takes the time to put this movie together, the best I can give The Astro-Zombies is a 3/10.

3/10