The Astro-Zombies

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Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

This laughably-bad mess stars ubiquitous Z-movie journeyman John Carradine as Dr. DeMarco, a loony scientist whose original concept to build a humanoid robot for space missions is fouled somewhat by his choice of a psycho-killer's brain for his first subject.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and retiring from the mad-doc profession, DeMarco chooses instead to build another robot to hunt down the last one.

His efforts are only slightly hindered by a moronic CIA investigation (led by a hung-over Wendell Corey, in his final screen role) and the meddling of a cabal of communist spies under the direction of slinky dragon-lady Tura Satana (of Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat!

Kill! Kill!), apparently for the purpose of exploiting the solar-powered astro-man for military reasons.

When the doc's lovely former lab assistant (she's since been replaced by a leering hunchback) is attacked by the first robot, he loses his solar cell and narrowly escapes destruction (by holding a flashlight to his head!), but in his hurried exit he leads the CIA right back to DeMarco's lab, where most of the surviving cast members bump each other off.

Taking into account the obvious goofy editing (characters are seen standing around waiting for the shot to end) and abominable performances all around, director Ted V. Mikels (of the Point-N-Shoot school of filmmaking) would later achieve such cinematic heights as The Corpse Grinders and Blood Orgy of the She-Devils.