The Astro-Zombies.

Review #2314: The Astro-Zombies.

Cast: 
Wendell Corey (Holman), John Carradine (Dr. DeMarco), Tom Pace (Eric Porter), Joan Patrick (Janine Norwalk), Tura Satana (Satana), Rafael Campos (Juan), Joseph Hoover (Chuck Edwards), Victor Izay (Dr. Petrovich), and William Bagdad (Franchot) Produced and Directed by Ted V. Mikels.

Review: 

"Something that is hard to teach is creativity. You can teach people the technical things, how to cut, when to cut, why to cut, what to cut to and what to cut from. But if they don't have that creative touch, it may not work. They like to think that because they took a long time making a shot they ought to use it in the edit. It doesn't work that way."

When you cover watch over a thousand directors at least once in going through the road of movies, maybe eventually you will land on the road of Ted V. Mikels. He had been born in Minnesota but mostly raised in Oregon with Croatian & Romanian heritage that liked to do amateur photography as a youth before taking on the stage in the late 1940s. He started making his shorts and educational documentaries in the 1950s with his own film company while in Bend, Oregon before making his debut as a feature filmmaker with Strike Me Deadly (1963). He apparently decided after that to move to Glendale, California and move to a place decorated to look like a castle (for a few years, Mikels would have several women live in said castle, as they were aspiring filmmakers that I'm sure has no other implications). The development of what became his sixth film (after movies with such illustrious titles like Dr. Sex [1964] and The Black Klansman [1966]) apparently started around the time of his first movie, with Mikels writing this with Wayne Rogers (who he had worked with in the aforementioned Dr. film before becoming more known for his role in M*A*S*H). Mikels plugged away at directing/writing/producing movies (the next movie made after Zombies? The Corpse Grinders, which was about cats liking human flesh while one subsequent videotaped movie apparently featured Mikels casting himself as someone to get beaten up by women), which would include sequels to Astro-Zombies in 2004, 2010, and 2012. He was even the subject of a book (called "Film Alchemy") and a documentary in his lifetime prior to his death in 2016 at the age of 87.

It isn't easy to make an ugly puddle where barely anything of note happens with such "name" actors, but Mikels sure has accomplished it here. This is a movie that has a title sequence featuring toy robots and gunfire noises (the ending does just as much). The most interesting person to view is Satana, who you might recognize from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). It is a divine experience in boredom, languishing with little for one to really focus on in coherence that basically makes one want to yell at the clouds for having tried to spend 94 minutes of life on this. You get shots of a lady in a bikini that is tied up on a table that somehow never gets out of the table to go along with the schlock you might see coming from an opening that gives you that first shot of what the title character looks like: a guy in a mask and weird sounds. The best thing about the movie might be the portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson you can see in the background (he was the best President of the 1960s, what's not to respect?). This actually was the last film for Corey (who died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1968), who had appeared in a handful of character roles such as The Search (1948) and Rear Window (1954). It's sad to see him go out like this with a film that basically lets him go by the wayside in such flattering detail in camerawork and words to say into the ether. Pace may be the "lead" presence, but you might as well just replace him with a broomstick. At one point, one of the creatures holds a flashlight to his head to charge his cells, because of the solar power and stuff. Things just happen in the film with little to really draw it together until it actually happens on screen in a manner that doesn't have coherence. The movie may call itself "Zombies" but it basically cribs from Frankenstein with the whole digging for body parts and demented brain stuff to go along with some sort of spy plot fiddles around with Satana commanding the screen more so for the costume stuff (one time you see her in pink) than the actual character stuff. Carradine is a pro at just being there to say lines for the paycheck at an age where if you're going to be the evil scientist, you can say anything and it'll sound spooky enough. As a whole, this is a magnificently terrible movie that serves as the equivalent of watching static, filled with little promise and little reward.

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.

Next up: another new name joins the club with a movie all about love and weirdness with name actors...

....mother of God, Bolero.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Review #1420: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Cast: 
Tura Satana (Varla), Haji (Rosie), Lori Williams (Billie), Susan Bernard (Linda), Stuart Lancaster (The Old Man), Paul Trinka (Kirk), Dennis Busch (The Vegetable), Ray Barlow (Tommy), Mickey Foxx (The Gas Station Attendant), and John Furlong (The Narrator) Directed by Russ Meyer.

Review: 
"It was the usual thing with me. It's like being in the military. Everybody has to get up and do their jobs to get things together, and that's it."

If you need a film that sticks out for the 1960s in its exploitation value and provocative nature, one can't quite go wrong with a film like this. It should only prove natural that this came from Russ Meyer, who over the course of twenty years served as director, producer (with some of his early films being co-produced by his wife Eve), writer (with this being co-written by him and Jack Moran), editor and cinematographer (this film however was done by Walter Schenk) for a variety of sexploitation films involving either campy humor, violence, or powerfully imposing women that earned him the nickname of "King of the Nudies", although his films have been argued to feature feminist values with their empowerment of women at times. One could view his career from just the titles, ranging from his first in The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), to his "Gothic" period in Lorna (1964), to his brief association with 20th Century Fox in the immortal Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). He started doing films with a 8mm camera at the age of 15, and he served as a combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company in World War II, for which he made friends with people that would later ask to work on his films. After the war, he did industrial films along with still and glamour photography before moving his attention to doing cheap (but profitable) films to direct. With the success of his motorcycle gang film Motorpsycho (1965), a film that dealt with three men terrorizing the countryside, Meyer wanted do one with three women terrorizing the desert, with both films featuring Haji. Two working titles for the film were The Leather Girls and The Mankillers before sound editor Richard S. Brummer came up with the luridly memorable title that we see today. The film wasn't a huge success upon release, but it has endured as one of Meyer's most influential films with plenty of admirers. Fellow director John Waters called this "beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future." Satana gave credit to Meyer for how he "liked to make women strong, make them feel that they were empowered." Film critic and colleague Roger Ebert described him as "an auteur whose every frame reflects his obsessions. Like all serious artists, he doesn't allowed any space between his work and his dream."

This is an entertaining film, filled with plenty of entertainment value with its sly dialogue, brusquely charming characters, and roaring violence that make for a good time for those who seek something daring with passion for its time. One should expect something special from the opening narration, which welcomes you to violence (word and act), stating it as something that "doesn't only destroy, it creates and molds as well." At the helm is Satana, a dancer of Japanese and Native American descent that had just one other prominent role besides this with Ted V. Mikels' The Astro-Zombies (1968). She has an alluring power to her, one with rebellious spirit and conviction in all she sets out to do with manipulating others (men or women) that serve as a great curiosity to view. Haji, a fellow dancer-turned-actress that starred in numerous Meyer films along with making contributions to her own dialogue, proves adept in following along with the action on all the ends with care. Williams fills the last end of the uninhibited triangle with a careful carefree attitude. Bernard makes for a panicky debut that adds some tension to the dynamic between the other women and eventually the men, particularly with its climax. Lancaster (a fellow regular in Meyer films) makes a creeping adversarial presence with odd striking power that dominates among the other supporting parts of the half dealing with the desert. In the long run, one is watching a movie about people who know what they want and will do what they can to do so, whether that means violence or coercive passion that bubbles into a highly entertaining experience in a efficient 83 minute package. It deserves the cult following it has received in the five decades since its release as a neat little gem worth watching late at night for something different in independent cinema. It is a film with no bounds about how reckless and fun it can get with people in the right mindset for weird fun and a director efficient and focused enough to make such a passion come alive without becoming consumed by it.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.