Did I expect this to be an actual zombie movie? No, I did not. I might be stupid, but I'm not THAT stupid (sometimes). I saw this title as I was scrolling through Prime Video looking for my next viewing choice and I figured I might have some fun with it. It would at least be a bit groovy, surely.
Written and directed by Jerry Warren, who helmed about a dozen movies with similar titles that clearly promise more than is delivered, this is the tale of some bland teens who take a rowboat over to a small island and end up trapped by Dr. Myra (Katherine Victor). Dr. Myra wants to create an army of zombie slaves, but she also has a gorilla as one of her test subjects.
There's something mesmerising about this film, despite it being absolutely awful. The runtime feels a bit longer than the 73 minutes, the plot is akin to something Enid Blyton might have written down on a napkin during a Halloween fever dream, and none of the main actors are given enough to work with, aside from Victor. Warren clearly decided he would make a film, any film, and sell it to audiences based on a title alone, which is exactly what he did. I'm not sure if he ended up making any money from it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he saw a small amount of profit before everyone realised that they'd been enjoyably hoodwinked.
Don Sullivan, Paul Pepper, Brianne Murphy, and Mitzi Albertson play the four teens who initially encounter our entertainingly mad doctor, and they're soon joined by Jay Hawk and Nan Green (playing Morrie and Dotty, respectively, two friends who might just be able to save them). But show me headshots of everyone right now, moments after I have just finished watching this movie, and I wouldn't be able to tell you just who played who. They're not individuals here, rather one group of "teens". I might be able to recognise Victor though, and am not averse to checking out the rest of her filmography, including other Warren-helmed features. She may have made her acting debut in the dire Mesa Of Lost Women, a film I did see once many years ago, but can at least be very proud of her voice acting in the animated Godzilla TV show that first appeared in the late 1970s.
Would I recommend Teenage Zombies to anyone looking for a decent horror movie, or even just a decent movie? Of course I wouldn't. I would recommend it to those who can tolerate amusingly crude "home-made" film-making and entertaining whackiness though. There are some dull moments, but I've endured many films in this vein that were much more lethargic. And I suspect that's the same for many other horror movie fans out there. Although, and I cannot stress this enough as I end this review, this is not even remotely scary or atmospheric, which may be enough to entirely dissuade people to even consider it as a horror movie (but the zombiefication and angry gorilla are enough for me to acknowledge it under that very wide genre umbrella).
3/10
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