Teenage Zombies (1959) Review

By Edward Staiger

Produced and Directed by Jerry Warren
Starring Katherine Victor, Don Sullivan

Teenage Zombies is magically inept. Only something as insubstantial as magic could keep one watching long after the realization that there will be no thrills, no chills, and because much of the film is set in a subterranean lab, only bargain-basement suspense. It’s also this paring down of expectations, an almost documentary realism - this can’t be “the movies,” only “real life” is this shoddy. The sci-fi element, as it emerges, becomes reassuring - the menace of old-fashioned communism producing a race of slaves as conjured up by a wicked vamp, a Dr. Myra (Katherine Victor), who seems to have accessed not the x-files of the FBI but the closet of Marlene Dietrich. She’s creating zombies while wearing cocktail dresses. Looking back from 2008, or even from 1988, Teenage Zombies may be exactly how we’ve “always” pictured the American 1950s - this waiting around for Elvis Presley or James Dean (or Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello) to show “them” (these teenage zombies) the way forward. The teenagers in Teenage Zombies don’t need Dr. Myra: they already were zombies (and archetypes of lost innocence/idiocy we can instantly feel affectionate towards and superior to).

Of course, it’s all a lot less complicated than that. The “story” doesn’t merit following. What to do with free time when there’s always another tomorrow just like today - horseback riding or water-skiing? Two couples at the “malt shop” called Campus House. Plus a wiseacre nicknamed “Half-pint.” June Lockhart and Lassie just a phone call away. Water-skiing rules, with the promise of a deserted island to picnic “way out where the water’s too rough to go skiing.” Of course, nobody’s ever heard of this island - like referring to something that may or may not exist on the other side of Lake Superior. Film editing prevails and we’re soon cast upon a beach staring up a hill at the ominous-looking remains of a gazebo, which begs investigating. This gazebo acts as the gateway to the world of Dr. Myra, and we’re now on the verge of the best image Teenage Zombies is going to serve up.

It’s zombies on parade! “They look doped or dead or something,” says one teen. The zombies shuffle along, many in oversized hats, owing nothing to the zombies to come in the equally low-budget, yet truly frightening masterpieces, Carnival of Souls (1962) and Night of the Living Dead (1968). Then appearing on the sidelines, as if walking her pets, is Dr. Myra decked out in a stunning low-cut black gown, dangling earrings and two jewelled bracelets clutching her upper arm like pythons. To complete this ensemble, some kind of long wrap is also looped around her and when she notices the teenagers staring at her in disbelief, she raises her hands towards the other group (the zombies) and they all instinctively freeze. Dr. Myra’s in some kind of control - and this is ultra-comic camp gothic. The teenagers immediately do what the audience can’t: they run for their lives.

As schlock history would have it, their boat’s already been snatched and the boys (leaving the girls trembling in the sand) end up knocking on guess-who’s front door. Though Dr. Myra informs them in her standard flat I-want-to-be-alone inflections that she’s “been here all day,” stressing how “no one leaves the island,” she nevertheless has a fridge full of “soft drinks” on hand. The boys are suspicious, but boys will be boys, and what boy (in 1959) would turn down a “soft drink?” This intimate exchange is rudely interrupted by screams coming from below. Along with the boat, the girls have also been snatched by Myra’s assistant, the zombie Ivan doing the Igor shtick. One boy snaps, “What kind of a creep joint is this?” which sets Myra up for one of her grand moments. As she majestically explains in her outfit which lends itself to this kind of majesty, “It’s a place for research and discovery - free from the interference of stupid politicians.” And that gets the whole group of them locked up in cages to be experimented upon - they’re next in line after the gorilla.

The gorilla scenes have their own kind of glitter, literally. Myra’s dolled-up for guests in a new dress, which may be red (this is B & W, but I believe red would be her second choice after black), and it’s got glittering sequin trim . She’s a sight, but she needs to come down to earth and explain her progress to visiting communist agents. Her passionate update - “I hope to complete Phase 3 this week” - appears to impress nobody. When they threaten to employ the “H-bomb” instead of her “capsules” (which only poison the water, thus drugging the population into slavery), she launches into a rather-historic anti-bomb tirade, which somehow proves, by today’s standards, that communist terrorists can also be politically correct. In a final, desperate appeal for acceptance, she cries, “You couldn’t possibly drop the pellets, in the way they now exist!” Hence, out comes the gorilla as a guinea pig. Though he’s pacified and zombified after only seconds of breast-beating inside the zombifying chamber (with gorilla-proof glass), Myra’s descriptive enough with the before-and-after prattle one now expects, “He teems with rage!” One can’t imagine sitting through Teenage Zombies without her.

Working with low-budgets often means kinks in the works. For example, for no apparent reason (except for the kinks in the editing room), Myra appears once again in her black gown - after she had already been unveiled in the “red” one. Who knows what was left on the cutting room floor - were there two visits by the visiting agents? Were there two days spent haggling over pellets and “paralyzing agents?” The producer-director (and sometimes writer) Jerry Warren has a long list of forgettable low-budget credits, and Teenage Zombies is certainly his most (in)famous creation. So much so, by 1981, its cult status growing, it spawned his own remake (and his last film) called Frankenstein Island, starring that horror relic, John Carradine. Necessarily, there’s a 1950s happy ending here. Our “teenage zombies” overtake the communists (although they fight interminably - like a free-for-all wrestling match) and indomitable Dr. Myra goes down quite rapidly - a mere shove from one of the girls seems to put her into a daze. Our gang continue on their merry way to the Whitehouse for citations as Jerry Warren takes his own step forward in zombie movie history towards Herk Henry’s Carnival of Souls and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. On second thought, make that one step forward, two steps back.

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