Nova CarltonCINEMAS

There are mad scientist movies, and then there are mad scientist movies where John Carradine builds solar-powered supermen out of stolen corpses in his basement, only for them to escape and go on a killing spree while Tura Satana tries to steal the secret formula. Welcome to THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES - the perfect companion piece to our screening of TURA!, Cody Jarrett's scintillating documentary on groundbreaking exploitation icon Tura Satana. Disgraced aerospace scientist Dr. DeMarco has a plan to create an artificial human capable of surviving the rigours of space travel. Unfortunately, his experimental Astro-Men have developed an unfortunate tendency to escape the laboratory and tear vital organs out of unsuspecting Los Angelenos. With the CIA investigating the growing pile of mutilated bodies and a foreign spy ring led by the formidable Satana closing in on DeMarco's research, things rapidly descend into the kind of outrageous scientific nonsense that only a budget of $37,000 and late-'60s psychedelia could provide. Written, produced and directed by exploitation legend Ted V. Mikels (The Corpse Grinders, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils), THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES has everything you could possibly want from bargain-basement science fiction - John Carradine delivering absolute gibberish with Shakespearean conviction, Tura Satana being Tura Satana (and looking damn good doing it), a laboratory full of army-surplus electronics and ridiculous plot lines that make no sense and go nowhere good. Perhaps most bizarrely, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES was co-written and co-produced by Wayne Rogers, years before he found fame as Trapper John on M*A*S*H, and was partially shot in the home of Columbo himself, Peter Falk. It has since been regularly cited as one of the worst movies ever made - a distinction that, more than half a century later, feels less like a criticism and more like a recommendation.