Languages: English
Comments: See Teenage Girls Thrust Into the Weird Pulsating Cage of Horror!
Summary: I didn't give much thought last night to my choice of films as I picked out Teenage Zombies (1959) off the top of my ever-growing `to be watched' pile of DVDs. Imagine my apprehensiveness as the opening credits indicated this thing had produced, written, directed, and edited by none other than Jerry Warren (he also did the musical scoring)...if you're not familiar with this auteur of cinematic crud, know that he's responsible for some real doozies including The Incredible Petrified World (1957), Curse of the Stone Hand (1964), The Wild World of Batwoman (1966), and Frankenstein Island (1981), to name a few. When not spewing forth his own homegrown celluloid stink bombs (always on the most minimal of budgets), he could be found hacking the holy hell out of imported, low budget, foreign films (usually from Mexico), splicing in his own, ill-fitting footage as he saw fit, often creating a miasma of pain for those unlucky enough to be drawn in by his shlocky and lurid promotional advertising. Appearing in is `feature' is Don 'Banjo Man' Sullivan (The Giant Gila Monster), Warren alumni Katherine Victor (Mesa of Lost Women), Paul 'Dr.' Pepper (Rabbit Test), Brianne Murphy (Man Beast), Mitzie Albertson, Jay Hawk, Nan Green, Mike Concannon (Terror of the Bloodhunters), and Chuck 'I can see for' Niles (Face of the Screaming Werewolf), as Ivan, the mute, hunchback, zombfied lackey.
As the film begins we meet some teenagers (I guess back in the 1950s if you were in your mid 20s, you were still considered a teen) at a local hangout, including Reg (Sullivan), his girlfriend Julie (Albertson), and a nerdlinger named Morrie (Hawk), as they make plans for the day. Seems Reg's got his boat fixed up, and is planning on taking Julie and another couple, Skip (Pepper) and his girlfriend Pam (Murphy), water-skiing, while Morrie and his girlfriend Dotty (Green) are going horseback riding. Morrie splits and here comes Skip, with information about a little known island, which, apparently, is extremely easy to find, he heard about he thinks would be perfect for a picnic. We next see the foursome on a beach, and they decide to explore the island, finding a group of odd-looking men along with a dark haired woman. The two couples split, but find their boat has since disappeared. This brings about a lengthy walking along the shore sequence (one of many), as they look for Reg's boat, to no avail. Eventually the girls get caught, as do the boys, as the dark haired woman, named Dr. Myra (Victor) is some sort of spy (who only dresses in evening gowns...who says you can't combine fashion and evil?), working on a secret formula intended to turn the inhabitants of the United States into mindless zombie workers. When his friends don't show, Morrie contacts the local authorities, fearing something bad may have happened, but the Sheriff (Concannon), doesn't seem all that concerned, which I could understand because Morrie's a really annoying, little weasel type and I wouldn't put it past people to purposely avoid him. Anyway, there's some scenes with Ivan the hunchback lurching around, Reg and Skip escaping (leaving the girls behind), a man in a gorilla suit who goes ape on some of the characters (feel the wrath of Konga!), some guns, another sequence of people walking along the beach (with enough footage of feet to make you think you're watching a Doris Wishman feature), some spies, an extensive discussion about locks, yet another walking along the shore sequence, a shocking betrayal, a couple of ridiculous fight scenes, and so on...
Given the title of this feature, made prior to producer/director Warren's mining cinematic gold from south of the border, one will notice two glaring inconstancies while watching the film...there are no teenagers (the actors depicted as teens are obviously not within the age range), and there really aren't any zombies, at least of the teenage variety...there was a brief scene where we saw some men who were supposed to be zombies, but who could tell? Apparently Ivan the hunchback was supposed to be a zombie, but that seemed sort of overkill...I mean a zombie AND a hunchback? It was difficult to discern where the hunchback part left off and the zombie part began. By the way, stuffing a pillow up under an ill-fitting coat does not a hunchback make, in my book. At one point a couple of the girls were turned, but the effects didn't last. Essentially this thing ends up playing out like one of those old Bowery Boy comedy/mystery films, without any of the actual fun or kooky characters (they were more asinine here than kooky). The acting wasn't as bad as I would have expected, in most respects, as it was obvious the script, written by Warren under the pseudonym Jaques Lecotier, was the real drag. There are any number of scenes where characters go on and on about the most insignificant effluvia, for example when Reg and Skip manage to break free from their chicken wire cage by fiddling with the padlock...they try to free the girls, who are in a separate chicken wire cage, but are unable as the padlock securing their cage is much sturdier. Thus we get a lengthy piece about padlocks indicating perhaps Warren either received some monies for the production of this feature from The National Padlock Association, or was just insane (I'm opting for the latter). As I said, the acting wasn't that bad, given the extremely low budget nature of this feature, with the exception of Jay Hawk, an obvious drop out of the Jerry Lewis School of Comical Performing, who played the character of Morrie. In the annals of annoying characters, Morrie ranks in my top ten. If I could trade my left gonasticle to have the ability to actually enter a film for the sole purpose of throttling a character, I would have gladly done so to give this odious nerdlinger his just deserts. Apparently when Warren instructed him to act all anxious, as his friends went missing, Hawk misinterpreted this as meaning constipated. Take a good look at his character near the end, as when he doesn't have any lines, he can be seen making all kinds of idiotic facial expressions, and generally distracting from the focus of the scene. To top things off, his final line, which is the last line of the film, qualifies him for a beat down of monsterous proportions. Understandably, the locations for shooting were strictly chosen for availability, but what was the deal with the sheriff's office? The desk sergeant was stuck behind a wall, with only a small rectangle hole, surrounded by a picture frame, from which to interact with visitors...so very odd and uncomfortable looking. All in all, this is a generally tedious and muddled feature, with some unintentional wackiness, generally passable performances, an oddball plot, and an irreparably flawed script...and a guy in a cheap gorilla suit.
There are a few DVD releases of this film, but the one I have is the Retro Media version, featuring a kind of cool looking giant eyeball on the DVD cover art. The fullscreen (1.33:1) picture on this version looks decent and is watchable, but it does suffer from lines and various other forms of print damage. The quality of the audio, on the other hand, is very strong, dropping off slightly around the middle. As far as extras, Retro Media includes interviews with both Katherine Victor (6:40), who played Dr. Myra, and Chuck Niles (6:42), who played Ivan, the hunchback, along with a trailer that seems to indicate the film might have been called Teenage Torture at one point. Also, as is the case with a number of Retro Media releases, there's a opening bit with Fred Olin Ray, one that features some nekkidness, and isn't really appropriate for kids.
Cookieman108