Ted V. Die!!!: Mark of the Astro-Zombies

Oh dear God, what is this?!?  Ted V. Mikels has never been a Director known for making good films.  However, the budgets and quality have gone down even further in the last fifteen years or so, ever since he decided to make a comeback.  Did someone demand this?  This led to a number of sequels, including this film and The Corpse Grinders 2.  Believe me, I want to do that film- it's just that Netflix doesn't carry it right now.  Why make a sequel to the film after 34 years?  It clearly could not have been a work in progress for that long, given the end results.  The worst part- the late Tura Santana is back for this film!  She's also in Astro Zombies: M3- Cloned (albeit in stock footage).    Great- now I have to be mean to her!  I'll try to focus my rage on Mikels, who is in Post-Production on, wait for it, Astro Zombies: M4- Invaders from Cyberspace.  Please don't ever come out, movie!  Can this movie be worse than Female Slaves Revenge apparently is?  That's an extremely-low bar, so look for Ted and his silly mustache to slide under it.  After you see this review, your world will be changed forever!  No bad movie will ever look quite as bad!  You're welcome.  Read on...

The film begins with a Star Wars-style text crawl, only laid over a bad CG background and with at least two typographical errors.  Finding them is like Where's Waldo...if every drawing was just of Waldo waving at you in an empty park!

These evil aliens attack the Earth via their asteroid home.  They make the Astro-Zombies to kill us.  They look...

...like crap.  Seriously, this is awful.  Those are just rubber masks!  Worst of all, a good chunk of this movie is made up of them randomly-killing people- who are just credited as Astro-Zombies Victims.

Tura *sigh* is here playing a variation of her character in the original.  She's not bad.  What is bad is Ted's idea of simply having a text crawl run across the screen and explain her actions.  SHOW, DON'T TELL!

John Carradine- R.I.P. - was dead when this movie was made in 2002.  In his place, a paper mache head designed to sort of look like him.  My soul hurts.

A bunch of murders in Las Vegas...I mean, all over the world, draws the attention of the United States Government.  Nice of Ted to go a local A.V. Club to make this plaque for him.

There is way too much shit to cover in this movie.  I'll have to brief here or this review will go on for several pages.  Another group of aliens shows up and talks about how they are more advanced than us, but are willing to help us stop the evil aliens.  Dig that fake lens flare?

Are you ready for an amazing pair of Anti-Climaxes?  Well, in Plot A, Tura is faking the Astro-Zombie formula to make some money, since 'Carradine's' head wouldn't play ball.  She plans to kill off this FBI Agent and his reporter girlfriend...

...but his partner shows up and shoots the fake Astro-Zombie, who stumbles right into Tura and stabs her to death.  So much for that story.

Oh and those evil aliens?  The good aliens show up, say two lines and just melt them.  They also blow up the machines, killing the Astro-Zombies.  They call up 'The White House' to say that they did all the work.  Film over.  The End.

Even if you want to laugh, this movie hurts.  I saw one reviewer on IMDB compare this to Plan 9 From Outer Space.  It's rare that I'll say this- don't disrespect Ed Wood like that!  Was this movie made as a comedy?  I doubt it.  If we're trying to spin it as such a la The Room or Birdemic, I cry foul.  Budget issue aside, Ted V. Mikels has no clue how to make this movie.  If I can buy 'The White House' being represented by a generic, conference room, I still can't excuse the giant sign for a Las Vegas company (or a 'rabbit-ear' TV) in the background.  If I can excuse the silly text intros for characters like 'Professor Kroeger- Cloning Studies Board,' I can't ignore the order suddenly being reversed for 'U.S. President- Ward Pennington.'  I really can't ignore crap like a fake newspaper headline saying 'Ted V. Mikels For President.'  I wouldn't trust him to film a kid's birthday party, let alone control our nuclear stockpile!  There are just so many terrible, terrible things in this movie.  Here's one- our Reporter is called and told to meet a source at the back of the T.V. Station.  One- the establishing shot of the Station is behind some bushes, making me think that they didn't have their permission.  Two- the shot of her 'out back' is clearly in a neighborhood cul de sac!  Three- Tura is in the initial car shot, but I'm fairly sure that she's not in the car later.  The bottom line: this movie is far, far too awful to be good and far, far too incompetent to be funny.  I like Ed Wood films, but, you sir are no Ed Wood!  Take us away, woman who wouldn't quite agree to be naked on camera...

Next up, a film starring a slew of B-Movie actors that I like.  Unfortunately, it's also a kung-fu film by Albert Pyun.  Stay tuned...