Teenage Zombies

Director Jerry Warren chooses to tell his story "Teenage Zombies" via the master shot. There are about two close ups in the entire film. This allows Warren to fully exploit and reveal the mise- en-scene of every scene. This technique also allows the actors to roam the frame and use their body language to develop their multi-dimensional characters. In particular, Chuck Niles is able to portray a fully fleshed out Ivan because of Warren's deployment of the master shot. It's a brilliant performance that overshadows all the other actors in the movie. Mitch Evans also gives us a subtle and nuanced performance as the gorilla. My one complaint about the film is that we don't see any water skiing. I like films with water skiing in them and I suspect Warren could have cut together an intriguing water skiing montage if he had been so inclined.

Four youths take a boat trip to a remote island where they encounter terrorists developing a gas designed to turn the American population into mindless zombies (insert obvious gag here). The foursome are captured and held prisoner, but their plucky pals Morrie (Jay Hawk) and Dotty (Nan Green) realise that something is wrong and attempt to find their friends.

As the title suggests, this is one of those quickie B-movies from the '50s that was targeted at a teenage drive-in audience. It's a cheap and amateurish film, with a dumb plot, dismal direction and dreadful acting that makes American International's teen horror films (I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Blood of Dracula etc.) seem like great works of art by comparison.

Of course, a film this awful actually proves fairly entertaining as a result: Jay Hawk puts in an excruciatingly bad performance that has to be seen to be believed, there are some poorly executed scuffles between the kids and the baddies, and writer/director Jerry Warren even throws in that mainstay of old B-movie horror films, a wild ape on the rampage (played by a man in an unconvincing gorilla costume).

Honestly, I really shouldn't rate the film any higher than the 1/10 it deserves, but I enjoyed its complete and utter ineptitude enough to give it a couple of extra points.

"Teenage Zombies is a must see for the simple reason that Katherine Victor stars,the number 1 creep lady.The head zombie is hysterical and it,s fun to see victors cool calm demeanor in dealing with the frantic teens.The plot is typical and there are a few scary scenes but other than that it,s silly and fun.Lots of denim and bad acting but watch it anyway for its typically B movie style.

If I were a millionaire, I would pay the staff of MST3K to reunite JUST to rank on this movie. It is perfect! It has everything!

Zombies 1950's teenagers A Gorilla Communist Spies Bad Rock and Roll Corny dialogue

This movie is so BAD it's GOOD. If you like "Plan 9" or "They Saved Hitler's Brain", you'll love this one!

Six all American Eisenhower era kids decide to go water-skiing or at least four of the six do. When the four fail to show up, the other two go looking for their friends.

The two who are searching come across this island in the middle of their lake inhabited by a strange scientist woman, her Igor like companion and a bunch of mindless men walking around in a trance. It's those zombies that no doubt they've seen in several horror flicks when they've gone to drive-ins. And could their friends be becoming Teenage Zombies?

It's a lot worse than that because our lady scientist who's a poor woman's Gale Sondergaard is a Russian agent. She's experimenting with nerve gas and a way to deliver it in quantity so that they can turn New York, Boston, or Chicago, etc. into a city of zombies, though some might argue that's already happened. In fact she's begging her superiors for more time because the Russians are getting ready with an H-Bomb attack, but her method would be so much neater and would leave all those nice cities intact with a population of slaves.

Teenage Zombies has a no name cast most of whom I won't mention because you've never heard of them. I've seen better acting in junior high school productions, especially from the young folks. The sound quality is horrible and the film looks like it was shot from my father's old Bell&Howell.

But Katherine Victor who played the lady Russian scientist was a real hoot. This was her second film, she was in another science fiction travesty, Mesa of Lost Women first. If anything Teenage Zombies was an improvement.

It says here that the film was released in 1959, but when I saw the film the credits clearly said 1957. The fact that it took two years before the producers inflicted it on the movie-going public should say volumes.