Teenage Zombies

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.

i just saw this movie yesterday, and to tell you the truth, I can't stop thinking about it. Every aspect of it was god-awful... the writing was painfully dull, the acting was nonexistent, and the plot was so thin and contrived it was hard to believe it wasn't an hour-long inside joke that I was regretfully unaware of. But strangely enough, it was so bad it was almost good. the man in the cheap gorilla suit? classic! the pseudo-sexual brawl between the voluptuous young teens and the evil scientists and politicians? Strangely arousing. While the corn level was high and the horror level as low as I've ever seen in a wannabe creature feature, there is something oddly appealing, and most definitely unforgettable, about this 1959 piece of crap

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.

Are they going water skiing or are they going horseback riding? Are they going to be zombies or aren't they? I love these movies. The acting is so stiff. The characters deliver lines and then wait a second or two. The dialog is so pointless that it really doesn't matter. There's this huge island in a lake with a hugre research facility on it. But the people in the town don't seem to know it's there. Still a couple of kids can take a little rowboat with a ten horse and make it to the island. The research that is being done concerns a kind of nerve gas that will turn all Americans into blathering idiots (it's probably too late for that anyway). There's a gorilla running around, a couple of boring spies, and a kind of dragon lady scientist who locks the kids up for future research. The kids have the usual silly nicknames. The sheriff is on the take, so he won't help. My favorite scene is the last minute. I won't spoil it, but it's priceless.

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!