Vintage Trailer: The Astro Zombies (1968, Ted V. Mikels)

Paul Clark — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Continuing my weeklong salute to the recently-held Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon... one of the highlights of every Marathon, no matter what genre, is the vast array of classic and contemporary trailers that accompany the films. Every year, the Marathon showcases some of the most anticipated upcoming movies, but the real crowd pleasers are invariably the old-school spots for long-forgotten B movies. One Marathon perennial is the trailer for Ted V. Mikels' 1968 movie The Astro-Zombies. The trailer sells lead actors John Carradine and Wendell Corey, but for anyone who knows better, the movie's true star is former Russ Meyer leading lady Tura Satana, in her first post Faster, Pussycast starring role. Like another Marathon trailer favorite, Werewolves on Wheels, the Astro-Zombies trailer is so much fun that I'd prefer not to watch the film itself for fear that it couldn't live up to its trailer.

Vintage Trailer Roundup: Halloween Hangover Edition

Peter Smith — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Werewolves on Wheels

Here’s one of my favorite B-movie trailers, advertising "the most thrilling horror motorcycle movie ever made" — and as it turns out, the first. It seems that by 1971, just two years after Easy Rider, the motorcycle-movie well was running dry, so producers started jumping on gimmicks to liven up the genre. . . and bless ‘em for it. To be honest, I’ve never actually seen Werewolves on Wheels in its entirety, although by all accounts I’m not missing much. Then again, there’s no way anything could possibly live up to this trailer.

Torso

Here’s another classic, all the more so for how it tries to make itself look respectable by advertising itself as a production of Carlo Ponti, "the producer of Doctor Zhivago." After all, a bloated David Lean epic dovetails so neatly with classic giallo fare. Torso is an Eli Roth favorite, and it’s easy to see the film’s influence on movies like Hostel. But the teaser itself had to be an influence on Edgar Wright, who paid homage to the use of the endlessly repeated title in his Grindhouse trailer Don't.

The Shining

The greatest horror-movie teaser ever? Yes, it just may be. This goes to show that you don’t need to sell the story, or even show the actors’ faces, to effectively sell the movie. I love that Kubrick makes us wait for the blood — and that he was somehow able to convince the MPAA that it was actually rusty-colored water that came pouring out of the elevator shaft. Even if you don’t like the movie itself, the teaser is pretty stunning.

— Paul Clark

The Screengrab : werewolves on wheels

Vintage Trailer: The Astro Zombies (1968, Ted V. Mikels)

Vintage Trailer Roundup: Halloween Hangover Edition