I sort of know The Astro-Zombies by reputation. It eventually comes up in most conversations about notably terrible films. So naturally, because I have a problem, I have always wanted to see it. And when I saw there was fancy remastered Blu Ray coming out courtesy of Kino Lorber (including a Rifftrax commentary, as well as commentaries from writer/director Ted V. Mikels and Horror Cinema Historian Chris Alexander), I pre-ordered it and waited with bated breath.
And now, having watched it, I would say it's reputation as a contender for one of the worst is more or less earned. The Astro Zombies is a dull mess a lot of the time. But there's also a certain charm to it. It's definitely no good, but I would say that I half-enjoyed it.
I think Astro-Zombies is a little different than some other "worst movie ever" contenders. Something like Manos: The Hands of Fate just feels inept, but you get the feeling that Astro-Zombies is willfully so. You get the idea that Mikels has a general idea of what's supposed to happen in a feature film, and visually he grasps how to tell a story. But either he didn't have the resources to make it happen, or just didn't care. So what you get here is a *lot* of time killing, the most garbagey of movie-garbage science, and a tremendous amount of padding. Scenes just drag on and on with no contribution to the overall narrative - I don't remember the last time I've seen a film with so much dead air.
My Synopsis: Rouge scientist Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine) has successfully accomplished two of mad science's greatest goals - bringing someone back from the dead, and mind control. All in the name of science, of course. His zombies are intended to be super astronauts with the combined intelligence of all of earth's greatest thinkers. (I think he can save knowledge to a disk and transmit it to the zombie's brain?) But the side effect is that it turned this one subject into an unstoppable killing machine. ("MUTILATION MURDERS CONTINUE!" scream the headlines.) Government agents are trying to stop the killings, and some other shady characters are trying to get their hands on the technology. It's a race against time, as we hang out to get the film to feature length!
Elaborate Genre: Cheesy sci-fi mad-scientist zombie, with a little dash of slasher
Overall: Pretty bad, occasionally good-bad. Way slower than it needs to be though.
The opening scene is actually pretty good. This lady is driving home and parks her car in the garage, only to find an astro-zombie (a dude in a creepy looking pseudo-skull mask) hiding in the corner. He promptly kills her with a hand-held garden rake. It's not all that gory and you only see the silhouette of if it, but there's some blood and it's a little more tense than I expected from a GP (General Patronage - essentially PG) film.
Cut to: Robot toys and tanks, overdubbed with war noises while the credits roll. I had a feeling that these few minutes would not pay off in any meaningful way... and yeah, they don't. It's weird and pointless, but at least sets the tone for the meaningless/meandering stuff to follow.
Including, but not limited to: Suits explaining how a mind-transmitter works (apparently you just stick an antenna into a brain), a really long scene featuring a topless dancer with body paint (again, GP?), a lot of downtime in Dr. DeMarco's lab filled with (admittedly cool) bleeps, bloops, and other far out noises, and some brutally bad day for night shots.
There's no real reason to break down what doesn't work here. Because nearly all of it doesn't work. But if you like old cheesy movies and have a little patience, you could have some fun with it, But again, the dull times are *really* dull. Don't watch it when you're tired.
The new Blu-Ray looks good. The picture is crisp and really detailed. You can even tell that they didn't bother to wash the windshield while filming a needlessly long driving scene. But there's a recurring issue during some scenes, where each frame of the film will be a slightly different tone in color. This is especially noticeable during the daylight/outdoor scenes. It's a little distracting, like the world's weakest strobe light. I don't know much (okay, anything at all) about film restoration, but I'm going to guess the source material was in pretty rough shape.
But overall it looks good and is easily watchable. I kind of love that these old Z-grade movies are getting remastered and re-released in on Blu-Ray. What a time to be alive. The Astro-Zombies is probably only for people who enjoy old crappy movies. But if that's you...
I would probably recommend this film.
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