THANK YOU, MR. MOTO (1937)

Director: Norman Foster

Writers: Willis (later Wyllis) Cooper, Norman Foster adapting John P. Marquand’s novel

Producer: Sol M. Wurtzel

Cast: Peter Lorre, Thomas Beck, Jayne Regan, Sidney Blackmer, Pauline Frederick, Philip Ahn, John Carradine, Sig Rumann, Nedda Harrigan, John Bleifer, Wilhelm von Brincken 

Japanese detective and international importer Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) has recovered one of a set of seven ancient Chinese silk scrolls. The complete set of scrolls would reveal the location of the tomb and treasure of the 13th-century Mongol emperor Genghis Kahn. Moto contacts Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) and his mother Madame Chung (Pauline Frederick) in Peiping, China. The Chung family has long been entrusted to safeguard the scrolls and keep the treasure’s location a secret. While Moto tries to encourage them to let him use their scrolls, there are others who will use any means to acquire all of the scrolls and take the Genghis Kahn treasure. 

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Peter Lorre will probably always be associated with unsavory characters ever since he achieved international fame playing a serial murderer of little girls in the German film M (1931). His small stature, unusual features, and soft Hungarian accent make him seem both harmless and distinctive. That impression abetted Lorre as a film menace. This is the kind of guy who would not seem threatening to most, yet the viewer finds him odd enough to be interesting and unsettling. That quality also made Peter Lorre a great choice for the devious and dangerous Mr. Moto. 

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) had been a big B-film hit for 20th Century Fox, which led to the series that the studio surely hoped for. The adaptation of novelist John P. Marquand’s popular Japanese secret agent maintained the character’s mystique and the popular formula of danger and mystery in exotic places. The main changes to the Mr. Moto film character made him a more central player in the story and his vocation became more international than strictly Japan-directed. 

Thank You, Mr. Moto was the second film released in the eight-film series. Once again Lorre’s Mr. Moto is the soft-spoken and enigmatic character that we join in the midst of an adventure, and we have to try to keep up with him for a good stretch of the picture before we know just what he is after. As in the first film, Mr. Moto seems vaguely sinister. For those who had not seen that first Moto movie, they may not be sure that he is supposed to be the good guy. He continues to nonchalantly dispose of people and, while they certainly seem to deserve it, we are not immediately sure of just how noble Moto’s objectives are. 

Also returning are Thomas Beck and Sig Rumann as different characters fulfilling more or less the same purpose as they did in the first film. Beck plays Tom Nelson, the male half of the young couple caught up in the danger. As Colonel Tchernov, Rumann is another baddie, though in a much smaller part this time around. 

In her first starring role, Jayne Regan plays Eleanor Joyce, the love interest of Tom Nelson. She would be cast as a different character in the very next Moto film to be released, Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938). 

Genre film favorite John Carradine appears as the shady antiquities dealer Periera. As was the habit in this film series, Carradine was another actor who would play a different character in a later entry. He shows up for a larger role in Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1938). 

The main heavy is Herr Koerger, a real bastard that is so intent on getting his greasy mitts on treasure that he’ll even resort to punching out an old woman. If Herr Koerger seems familiar, that’s because Sidney Blackmer plays him. Blackmer had been a prolific character actor appearing in films since 1914. He would also make many guest appearances in various television series. Blackmer memorably starred as another villain in “The Hundred Days of the Dragon,” the second episode of the classic science fiction television series The Outer Limits (1963-65). He is probably most remembered as half of the elderly, eccentric Castevet couple who room next door to Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). 

While the Mr. Moto movies were always fun, this adventure is probably the grimmest in the series. As the film approaches its climax, Moto makes a vow of vengeance to a dying man and the film ends on an unusually somber note.

THE HOWLING (1981)

Director: Joe Dante

Writers: John Sayles, Terence H. Winkless, adapting the novel by Gary Brandner

Producers: Michael Finnell, Jack Conrad

Cast: Dee Wallace, Christopher Stone, Patrick Macnee, Belinda Balaski, Dennis Dugan, Elisabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo, Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller, Slim Pickens, Margie Impert, James Murtaugh, John Carradine, Don McLeod, Kenneth Tobey, Jim McKrell, Noble Willingham, Herb Braha, Steve Nevil, Joe Bratcher, Bill Sorrells, Mesach Taylor, Ivan Saric, Wendell Wright, Michael O’Dwyer, Sarina Grant, Chico Martinez, Daniel Nunez, (and uncredited cast) John Sayles, Forrest J. Ackerman, Roger Corman, Michael Chapman, Mick Garris, Robert A. Burns, Robert Hammond, John Jensen, Jonathan Kaplan, Kelli Thompson 

Eddie ‘the Mangler’ Quist (Robert Picardo) is a serial killer that has been using Los Angeles as his hunting ground. He has a fixation on television news anchorwoman Karen White (Dee Wallace). In cooperation with the police, Karen agrees to meet with Eddie in the hopes that this will result in the killer’s capture. The dangerous encounter results in Eddie being shot to death and Karen being traumatized. To help recuperate from this disturbing experience, Karen and her husband, Bill Neill (Christopher Stone), take a vacation at The Colony, a country retreat for group psychological therapy. Karen finds more stress with some of the odd characters staying at The Colony, and the howling that she hears from the woods around her cabin frightens her. 

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Director Joe Dante’s previous fright flick, Piranha (1978), was his sci-fi variation on Jaws (1975). His horror follow up here is a modern spin on werewolves that reveals they are as susceptible to incompatibility with modern society as anyone else. In their case, those concerns are not just to achieve happiness but also to ensure their survival. 

Although this film is adapted from the original novel by Gary Brandner, director Dante was unsatisfied with earlier scripts that were more faithful to the source material. So, John Sayles was brought in to write an entirely new story using just a few elements from Brandner’s novel. Sayles once again concocts a fine mix of horror, humor, and quirky characters as he did for Joe Dante’s Piranha. Sayles also plays an uncredited role as the morgue attendant. 

Another of the talents from Piranha, special make-up effects artist Rob Bottin, created a lot of The Howling’s attention-getting buzz with a fantastic transformation sequence. His efforts result in the scene that set the creature effects standard for decades to come. Bottin’s expertise was noticed and he became a much-in-demand talent. He would continue to distinguish himself with his work in a succession of thrilling genre films, such as The Thing (1981), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), and many more. 

The Howling is a film that looks and sounds great. Cinematographer John Hora’s lighting enhances the mood of just about every interior scene and his views of the foggy forest have a nightmarish beauty. Pino Donnagio’s fine music score boosts the creep factor even higher. 

Ably assisted by these great talents, director Joe Dante once again expertly mounts a horror gem of many facets. The Howling flaunts humor that is never at the expense of the horror, which is a pretty tricky balancing act. Much of that humor is used to expose the pretense and crassness of media that caters to a cynical and apathetic audience. The film’s characters are not explored at any great depth, but they are all well realized with good performances. 

Anyone who can’t fall in love with Dee Wallace during this movie is heartless. As our heroine, traumatized newscaster Karen White, Wallace gives a great performance with her simply drawn character. Her sensitivity and vulnerability keep us loyally on her side every minute. Wallace had appeared in horror specialist Wes Craven’s classic The Hills Have Eyes (1977). She would soon star in the Steven Spielberg sci-fi blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). When Wallace got top billing in the Stephen King novel adaptation Cujo (1983), she was joined in the small cast by The Howling’s Christopher Stone. 

Dee Wallace’s soon-to-be husband, Christopher Stone, appears in The Howling as her character’s spouse, Bill Neill. He provides a nice, solid support to the traumatized sensitivity of Karen White. Bill seems like a stable and caring sort of guy and is responsible for prompting Karen to follow through on visiting the retreat to help with her emotional trauma. Unfortunately, Bill eventually becomes unreliable and creates even further stress for our troubled heroine. 

Belinda Balaski, who was so likable in Piranha, continues to win me over as Karen White’s best friend and co-worker, Terri Fisher. She is featured in two of this movie’s scariest scenes. 

The third beauty to grace the main cast is Elisabeth Brooks. She is unforgettable as Marsha, the most exotic resident of The Colony. Whether decked out in her provocative leather dress or much less, she manages to be both sexy and unsettling. 

Certainly the film’s most unsettling character is Eddie ‘the Mangler’ Quist. Robert Picardo plays Karen White’s fiendish fanboy to perverse perfection. His rendezvous with his favorite anchorwoman in the movie booth of a porn shop is the first of many creepy scenes in The Howling. We are introduced to Eddie as only a shadowy presence that neither Karen White nor the audience is allowed to get a good look at. Picardo’s soft-spoken dialogue is dripping with lust and menace that makes the audience squirm as much as poor Karen. 

One of director Dante’s favorite actors and cult film favorite, Dick Miller, plays yet another of his characters named Walter Paisley. This time around he is the proprietor of an occult bookstore. Miller’s character is this film’s brusque, modern answer to the Professor Van Helsing-type of folklore authority found in many traditional horror films. Miller has said that this was his favorite role and he really shines during his brief time in it.

The cast is rounded out with a lot of other great actors for fans of genre films and television. Patrick Macnee, John Carradine, Kenneth Tobey, Slim Pickens, and Dennis Dugan join Piranha’s Kevin McCarthy. Even Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine editor Forrest J. Ackerman makes an appearance. 

With such casting, it is apparent that director Joe Dante was indulging himself and other horror film fans. In addition to The Wolf Man (1941) playing on television, many of this film’s characters are named after directors of werewolf films. Despite this sense of fun, the film never lapses into meta-film contrivances that take us out of the movie. Dante still keeps us invested in the characters’ situations and concerns. 

“Repression is the father of neurosis,” states Patrick Macnee as trendy psychotherapist celebrity Dr. George Waggner. The effects of repression on individual behavior and society are evident throughout The Howling. We see the denizens of the sleazy side of town called “flotsam and jetsam” by Kenneth Tobey’s veteran cop, yet many of them are there just to partake of the disreputable delights of prostitutes and pornography. Repression by society does not quell those longings; it merely makes their indulgence more dangerous. 

While repression has been responsible for so many people throughout the ages being guilted into their hang-ups, society also recognizes that an individual’s amoral freedom can pose dangers to others. The Howling explores the sociopathy of hedonism. Releasing the most basic inhibitions may be a lot of fun, but lycanthropy demonstrates the worst-case scenario for such behavior. The abandonment of empathy and conscience results in a loss of humanity. It is this total disregard for others and ultimately the resulting destruction of a stable society that is the danger posed by everyone giving in to all of their innermost, selfish desires. 

The Howling also makes the sensual aspect of werewolves more overt than prior films. Lycanthropy is not treated as a curse but as a turn-on. However, turning into a werewolf is risky behavior. Civilization has a long and often shameful history of persecuting those not conforming to prevailing social norms, but stopping monsters that enjoy killing people seems to be a wisely accepted standard. The main concern here for those afflicted with lycanthropy is not being cured but to figure out how to keep getting away with it. As if that’s not deep enough for you, The Howling also answers the burning question: Do werewolves do it doggy style? 

1981 was a golden age for horror films. As a regular reader of the new Fangoria magazine, I had been really jazzed to see The Howling, and it did not disappoint. Its perfect blend of horror, humor, sex, and satire serves up a fun fright flick that is thrilling, touching, and just a bit thought provoking. The Howling was one of the best times this horror hound has ever had at a movie theater.

SHOCK WAVES (1977), aka DEATH CORPS

 

Director: Ken Wiederhorn

Writers: John Harrison, Ken Weiderhorn, Ken Pare (uncredited)

Producer: Reuben Trane

Cast: Brooke Adams, Luke Halpin, John Carradine, Peter Cushing, Fred Buch, Don Stout, D.J. Sidney, Jack Davidson, Clarence Thomas, Jay Maeder, Talmedge Scott, Preston White, Sammy Graham, Mike Kennedy, Reid Finger, Donahue Guillory, Gary Levinson, Robert Miller, Wayne Hood (uncredited) 

Four people vacationing on a rickety charter boat at sea encounter a strange disturbance in the sky and the water. Later that night, a derelict freighter strikes the boat. The next day the charter boat captain (John Carradine) has disappeared. The boat has run aground on a reef, so the first mate Keith (Luke Halpin) and the cook Dobbs (Don Stout) take their passengers ashore in the dinghy to a nearby island. Unfortunately, the strange disturbance of the day before has roused water-breathing zombies in Nazi uniforms from the ruins of their derelict World War II vessel. The undead soldiers head toward the island to stalk the castaways. 

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Shock Waves is the simple story of a small cast of characters stuck in a remote place with a very strange threat to deal with. It relies on a sense of isolation and atmosphere to generate almost all of its interest. It does not rely on character arcs and back stories for any of its characters except for Peter Cushing’s island hermit. Aside from their personalities, we know almost nothing about any of the people in this story. The movie’s greatest assets are the isolated locations and the Nazi zombies. This minimalist approach provides much more of a you-are-there vibe than more costly and expansive films can usually achieve. 

There seems to be a real split of opinion about this film. There are those, like myself, that can appreciate its unique menace and atmosphere. Then there are those who think that everything about zombies requires lots of explicit gore, cannibalism, and a ton of kills. Does the world really need anymore Romero rip-offs? 

Director Ken Wiederhorn made his feature film debut with Shock Waves. It became a late '70s and early '80s television and videotape staple. Wiederhorn says that he has no great affinity for the horror genre, and that may explain why he created something unique with this film. It does not give you what you expect or comfort you with its characters. These characters are all in over their heads, and no one is going to suddenly become an improvisational warrior to save the day. 

Richard Einhorn provides the synthesized score that emphasizes the eerie isolation of the setting and the inhumanity of the Nazi zombies. He would go on to provide more horror film scores for Don’t Go in the House (1979), The Prowler (1981), Blood Rage (1983), Dead of Winter (1987) and compose again for director Wiederhorn on Eyes of a Stranger (1982), Dark Tower (1989), and A House in the Hills (1993). 

Alan Ormsby creates some fine make-up for his Nazi zombies. With their shriveled gray skin, peroxide blonde hair, black goggles, and SS uniforms, these aquatic beings are quite striking when marching underwater or rising from the sea. They are incapable of expressing any emotion except through physical violence. 

Brooke Adams, as Rose, has her first leading role in this film. Like everyone else in the cast, her character is not given any depth. She still manages some charm and provides the film’s best special effect in her yellow bikini. 

My favorite performance is by crusty, old John Carradine as the charter boat captain Ben Morris. He makes the most of his limited screen time by being cantankerous and funny as he berates his young first mate and brushes off the mounting concerns of his passengers early in the story. He also provides a nice shock a bit later. 

That other horror movie stalwart Peter Cushing is also memorable as the island hermit that provides some important exposition to the other characters and to the audience. Let’s get something straight right here and now: Exposition is not always a bad thing. When you have the one and only Peter Cushing to deliver it you can’t go wrong. 

Speaking of exposition, the opening narration to this film efficiently and compellingly establishes the modern mythology this story deals with. That documentary-style declaration of weird World War II history followed by the synthesized music stinger and the film title stamped with a swastika immediately hammers home a sense of dread. 

Shock Waves is another fine example of the minimalist approach to horror in the '70s that made that decade an era of unique and unpredictable independent fright films. Like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), this film uses its location to isolate its characters and stresses how average and vulnerable all of those characters are. It quite honestly reflects how most of us would fare in such a situation. That may not be the only effective approach to horror, but it involves an audience that is not looking for the cinematic equivalent of a video game.

THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944)

Director: Reginald LeBorg

Writers: Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher, Brenda Weisberg

Producer: Ben Pivar

Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Robert Lowery, Ramsay Ames, Barton MacLane, George Zucco, Frank Reicher, Harry Shannon, Emmett Vogan, Lester Sharpe, Claire Whitney, Oscar O’Shea, Jack C. Smith, Jack Rockwell, Carl Vernell, Stephen Barclay, Dorothy Vaughan, Mira McKinney, Bess Flowers, Caroline Cooke, Eddy Waller, Fay Holderness, Ivan Triesault, Anthony Warde, Peter (Pietro) Sosso, Martha MacVicar, David Bruce

Yousef Bey (John Carradine), an Egyptian High Priest of Arkham, travels to the town of Mapleton in America to find the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Bey’s mission is to reunite Kharis with the mummy of his ancient lover Princess Ananka. They try stealing the mummy of Ananka from a museum, but it disintegrates because Ananka’s spirit has been reincarnated in a living woman. That woman is Amina Mansouri (Ramsay Ames), an Egyptian exchange student at the local college in Mapleton. Bey and the Mummy seek her out and kill anybody that gets in their way.

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The Mummy’s Ghost was the third of the four Kharis Mummy films from Universal Pictures. Although all of the Kharis films, except this one, used footage from the earlier film The Mummy (1932) for flashbacks to Kharis’ origins, that Boris Karloff starring film is an unrelated story. The continuity through the four film Kharis series was always pretty shaky. In this film, when the Mummy makes his first appearance, he just comes shambling from out of the countryside. No explanation is given for how he survived the fire that should have destroyed him in the last film, nor is there information regarding his whereabouts since then. This is a less egregious oversight than the time warp that must have occurred between the previous two Mummy films to cause two characters to age 30 years, or the relocation from New England to Louisiana bayou country another 25 years later in the next installment!

Critics of the Mummy films often cite the repetitive plot points. Many of them are to be found in this entry, as well. All film series hinge on some sort of formula, and the Mummy films can be more restrictive than most, but I enjoy them. The fun is in returning to the same circumstances that generate the conflicts and seeing what new elements are introduced. The reincarnation concept is lifted from the unrelated film The Mummy, but it is played out in a much different manner that makes this film quite distinctive.

I consider this the best of the three Mummy films starring Lon Chaney, Jr., as Kharis. There is no heavy-duty drama going on here, but the interaction between all the main characters seems livelier in this installment. I think a lot of the credit goes to John Carradine as the villainous Yousef Bey and Robert Lowery as Tom Hervey. Carradine’s voice and the fanatical gleam in his eye make you pay attention to his scheming and never forget that he is as much of a menace as the Mummy. Robert Lowery is a welcome relief from the utterly bland young heroes of the other two Chaney Mummy films. Some have noted that his performance is a bit surly, but I welcome that bit of character. Lowery’s Tom Hervey is probably possessive of his beautiful girlfriend Amina and also worried about her. He is frustrated with anything that can feed Amina’s seemingly irrational dread that stems from the spirit of Ananka reincarnating in her.

Ramsay Ames as Amina Mansouri is more decorative than dramatic. She is very beautiful and looks great in that silvery nightdress she wears, but her acting has drawn criticism from many. While I don’t think she hurts the film, she just doesn’t make us feel as deeply as we should for the fear and confusion her character is suffering. In her defense, I will say that even Meryl Streep would probably have a tough time bringing conviction to lines like “Isn’t it wonderful? I can laugh again.”

Lon Chaney, Jr., seems a bit more animated this time around as the Mummy, perhaps too animated for some members of the cast and crew of this film. According to director Reginald LeBorg, Chaney really throttled elderly actor Frank Reicher. Later when killing the museum guard (Oscar O’Shea), Chaney purposely broke a large pane of real glass in a door when the prop department did not supply the breakaway glass on time. It is a bit unclear whether the take seen in the film was the instance when the real glass was broken. If so, it was incredibly dangerous, as Chaney was dragging actor O’Shea into the glass when it shattered. We see O’Shea clutching the back of his head after the glass breaks before he succumbs to the Mummy’s strangling grip. Is this good acting on O’Shea’s part, or a real physical reaction to shards of real glass pelting him? If the glass was real, it is awfully impressive of O’Shea to stay in character in that shot and continue to allow Chaney’s strangling to finish him off. Chaney is supposed to have gotten some glass stuck in his hand. There are dark spots on the Mummy’s chin in that scene that some have speculated are blood, perhaps from Chaney’s injured hand. It appears that those spots are also on his chin as he approaches the guard before breaking the glass. It would not seem that this is part of the Mummy make-up, as we don’t see those spots in any other scene. If they were indeed blood, it would be reassuring to know that they occurred in an earlier take that did not endanger O’Shea.

Chaney’s recklessness has been attributed to actor’s zeal, too much alcohol, or a macho bit of showing off. He is also said to have been trying to impress director LeBorg, whom he hoped to be joining on more films. Another contributing factor was probably Chaney’s frustration of being stuck in the monster rut at Universal. He desired more human roles, and he could get pretty irritated with the lengthy and uncomfortable make-ups that his monster characters required.

The most distinctive thing about this film, which not only sets it apart from all the other Universal Mummy movies, but also makes it quite special among most horror films prior to the 1970s, is the very tragic finish. Aside from some of producer Val Lewton’s horror films at RKO Pictures and Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941), there were not many fright flicks of this era that would wrap up their horrors on such a downer. Director LeBorg is said to have pushed for this ending and I am glad that he did. A lingering aftermath makes the horror matter. Even if we forget about the victims that died during the story, there are still consequences for the survivors. Other lesser films often forget that.

THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES (1968)

Director: Ted V. Mikels

Writers: Ted V. Mikels, Wayne M. Rogers

Producer: Ted V. Mikels

Cast: Wendell Corey, John Carradine, Tura Satana, Tom Pace, Rafael Campos, Joan Patrick, Vincent Barbi, Joseph Hoover, Victor Izay, William Bagdad, Egon Sirany, Jean Pirie, John Hopkins, Janis Saul, Wally K. Berns, Vic Lance, Lynette Lantz, Rod Wilmouth, Barbara Richards, Ted V. Mikels, Wally Moon

The CIA is investigating a series of mutilation murders that are being committed by an astro-zombie (Rod Wilmouth). It is a creation of Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine) that has run amok. DeMarco was fired from the U.S. Space Agency because of his unorthodox experiments with humans. He continues to work in private as foreign powers are competing to acquire the secrets to his experiments.

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It just occurred to me that this schlock classic from director Ted V. Mikels has a very similar central idea to that of my all-time favorite sci-fi horror brain bender, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965). A partly synthetic being can perform dangerous missions, such as space exploration, and have data transmitted to and from its electronic sensor-filled brain. Not such a crazy idea. In our society of can’t-have-enough-techno-conveniences zombies, it’s just a matter of a few years before most people proudly line up to get computer chips stuck in their heads. Half of them are already choosing their own reality on social media anyway, so why not let someone’s version of reality be fed directly into their empty noggins? I will tell you why this is a bad idea: Because those idiots would run amok to kill sexy women, and I just won’t stand for it!

Now that I have justified my retro pop culture obsessions by pointing out that they hold the key to saving the world, let’s deal with the artistic merits of The Astro-Zombies; it shouldn’t take long.

The Astro-Zombies director, Ted V. Mikels, pours as much as he could into the plot to try to make a low-budget cocktail of exploitation lively and seemingly complex. So we are served a mix of James Bond-inspired cold war enemies, space race concerns, CIA operatives, a sexy night club dancer’s routine, and a mad scientist right out of a '40s Monogram Pictures movie making murdering astro-zombies for the space age. It’s a wild concoction that will buzz the brain, even if it tastes like it has a little too much vermouth.

The things that I am most amused and perplexed by with each viewing of this flick are the time wasting bits of business that contribute no plot, character development, thrills, or interest of any kind. Why does this film open with a very sexy woman (Jean Pirie), in one of those fantabulous late '60s outfits that flaunt what she’s got, driving her Ford Mustang around for at least a minute before she pulls into her garage? I could watch her for the movie’s entire 94 minutes, but I don’t need to look at her car radio, suburban streets, more car radio, more streets… Why do we have to watch an unsavory character (Egon Sirany) with a reel-to-reel tape recorder rewinding a spool of tape wasting another minute while he is being driven to a meeting? Why are conversations among our CIA agents brought to a crashing halt to devote the camera’s full attention to each new person attending as they open the door to enter the room, close the door, and then walk into the scene? Worst of all, why do we have to watch John Carradine, as Dr. DeMarco, fiddling endlessly with his lab equipment and blather on eternally about his procedures to his mute assistant (William Bagdad) who probably doesn’t understand a word of it? In the case of the Dr. DeMarco lab antics, the writers are valiantly trying to convince us that there is something scientifically ingenious going on. However, having to watch Carradine use a screwdriver to loosen three screws that lets him open a small drawer in a boxlike gizmo, then drop a loose piece of a circuit board into the drawer, close the drawer, and then use his screwdriver to turn the three screws back into place, wait for blinking lights and sound effects to perform some unfathomable analysis of the loose piece of circuitry, and then have to unscrew all three screws again with his screwdriver to retrieve the circuit is both maddeningly tedious and hilarious. 

The nightclub dancer scene, apparently at the only nightclub in town as both the good guys and the bad guys always hang out there, is a time waster of some interest as there is a sexy dancer, wearing little more than her head-to-toe body paint, twirling around to a congas drum beat. There is no point to it in the movie but to waste more time, yet I suppose it comes close to giving us some production value. That’s good enough for a lecher like me.

The most uncalled for bits in the movie are those ongoing shots of a Visible Man model that was all the rage in the '60s. We not only see a series of close ups of this toy in this important government lab, but we see an important government scientist putting it together; our tax dollars at work?

Another time-wasting bit is CIA agent hero Eric Porter (Tom Pace) using his lab worker girlfriend, Janine Norwalk (Joan Patrick), as bait to lure the murdering astro-zombie to the government lab to trap it. We watch for at least a minute as we see Janine look tense and pretend to be working as the camera shows various corners of the empty lab late at night (LOTS of Visible Man footage, folks!). The plan doesn’t work and our hero provides a false scare opening up the lab door to take his girlfriend home. I rather like this failed attempt to catch the monster. It wastes more time, which was probably the whole point, but it is also refreshing to see heroes in a movie run into a dead end once in a while. But then the astro-zombie somehow manages to get after Janine in her home when it only knows where she worked, not where she lived. Huh? 

Why do I still like this flick? I need only say two words: Tura Satana! Yes, THE Tura Satana, star of the 1965 Russ Meyer classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! In The Astro-Zombies she is the dragon lady type, also named Satana, that flaunts her fine form in a crazy dress that has many slits and openings while smoking her cigs in a long holder and pumping plenty of bullets into government agents.

Satana bosses around a couple of bickering and murderous henchmen. One of them is Juan (Rafael Campos). He has the most obnoxious fashion sense of any enemy agent in movie history. Check out his fake fur cap and polka dot shirt. Is this guy a spy or a carnival ground pimp? Best of all, he has an orgasm when he knifes somebody. He gives the best performance in this thing, except for Tura’s legs. The other thug, Tyros (Vincent Barbi), cold-bloodedly wastes a couple guys early in the movie, but later inexplicably questions Satana’s order to kill a captured CIA agent (Wally Moon). Oh well, it gives Satana a chance to be badass and blast away at her captive.

The only one that shows a lick of sense in this film is Dr. DeMarco’s mute and greasy assistant, Franchot. If you’re going to be a mad scientist’s lackey, take advantage of the situation and use the good doctor’s facilities to experiment on a bikinied beauty (Barbara Richards) strapped down good and tight. I think Franchot wants to create his own curvaceous astro-zombie that will perform acts a lot more fun than random slaughter. Maybe he really does understand Dr. DeMarco’s scientific gibberish, after all.