THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES begins w/ a woman taking a leisurely drive, while groovy tunes play on her radio. Upon arriving at her home, horror and death erupt, as one of the titular terrors leaps forth! Then, the credits, and for some unknown reason, toy robots and tanks move about. In smoke. Ahhh, this is a Ted V. Mikels film! Enter Franchot (William Bagdad), who is out collecting a corpse for his master, Dr. Demarco's (John Carradine) twisted experiments. Meanwhile, agent Holman (Wendell Corey) and his team are on Demarco's trail, suspecting him for a series of recent murders. Much "scientific" palaver sets up a possible motive for the doctor's foray into mutilation and mad science. He's building an army of solar-powered, killer cyborgs! This is of great interest to Satana (Tura Satana- FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!) and her ruthless gang of ne'er do wells. Actually, Ms. Satana is the primary -only?- reason to endure this film. Beautiful, mysterious, and sadistic, she is a wonder to behold! In her world, cigarettes and stiletto heels are weapons of choice! Unfortunately, her scenes are limited. The rest is comprised mostly of Demarco tinkering or performing duller-than-a-podiatrist's-convention procedures in his secret lab, while Franchot lumbers around messing w/ things. This is accompanied by Demarco's endless, coma-inducing blather. Blessedly, Franchot never speaks. Mikels takes great pleasure in our agony, making these scenes seem far longer than logically possible! Yes, Holman's people continue working on the case, but they're hardly worth mentioning. As for the title creatures, they pop in once in a while, just to remind us of their silliness... EXTRA POINTS FOR: The painted, exotic dancer, accompanied by a bare-chested bongo player! This! Is! Cinema!...

I primarily checked out The Astro-Zombies because of The Misfits track which shares the same (or very similar) title. This film is, in a word, terrible. The pacing is excruciating, and when anything does happen, it is so badly acted out that it is just laughable, and not in a good way. The plot is paper thin, and the "Astro-Zombie" scenes are incredibly hammy. The titular "Zombie" is just some dude in a plastic mask. This is a B-Movie I know; a world where villains are often just dudes in plastic masks, but it is so casually obvious, with no apparent care or attempt to make it seem less obvious. For the first half of the film I was completely lost in regards to the plot. The mad scientist and his cliché hunchback assistant are nauseatingly boring to watch, but the strangely beautiful Tura Satana keeps things mildly interesting as the enigmatic villain, even though she can't seem to fire a gun without posing like a complete buffoon. Appalling, but a small part of me wants to see the sequel, for reasons that I cannot even explain to myself...

Am writing this review many years after seeing this film. I'm a pretty avid film-goer, and I've only wanted to walk out of a movie two or three times over many, many years, but I absolutely could not sit through this and left maybe halfway through.The acting was bad, the plot, what there was of it, was bad, the editing was bad, the pacing was terrible... I don't remember all the details, but I remember the increasing pressure in my brain telling me to get out before I exploded.This is not in the same class as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which was a deliberately done bad movie which means that there was a lot of good stuff to laugh at, and not even in the same class as Plan 9 From Outer Space, whose badness at least made me laugh.

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!!!