| Year of Release | 1968 |
| Director | Ted V. Mikels |
I’d been meaning to check out The Astro Zombies for a while now. Created in 1968, The movie starts off in unmistake-able 60s fashion. An attractive woman cruising through suburban USA in her convertible mustang returns home to fall prey to a martian who brutally attacks her and kills her. The movie proper, opens up in a secret government lab facility where some government agency types are enlisting the help of Dr XXXX to help find out who’s responsible for a series of killings. The film stars David Carradine and Tura Satana (also of Plan 9 fame).
Meanwhile Dr. Demarco, and ex CIA employee, has been running some strange experiments using corpses. One of whom is responsible for the aforementioned crime wave. DeMarco is attempting to put in memory chips into deceased humans to store their memories, electrically stimulating dead brain tissue back to life and whatnot. Can he control the people he’s bringing back from the dead? Can the government agency stop him? This would have been a fairly advanced concept at the time. I guess taking it a step in another direction from “Night of the Living Dead”. The doctor and his sidekick have a feeling about them that reminds me of Frankenstein and Igor. Makes me feel like I’m watching something familiar.
The Verdict
I’m not sure whether The Astro Zombies would have been considered violent by 1960s standards but the violence portrayed in this film is almost “cute” by todays standards. This has a bit more gore than most of the movies I’ve seen from the times, but its nothing on say “Bloodsucking Freaks” or the “HG Lewis” ventures. Still rather respectable for the times! Things sure have changed (not that I was even around at the time)!!!. The movie is instantly likeable if you’re looking for a cool escape from the world or even just current horror movie trends. Its not a gore fest by any means but still quite entertaining, and I really feel like this movie takes me to another time and headspace! The plot and flow of this film I have to say felt a bit disjointed but other than that I had fun watching it. This movie is by no means excellent but its a cool watch!
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