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Teenage Zombies

Watch Teenage Zombies on YouTube

Shambling from The Locker this week is a fetid Jerry Warren offering from 1959.  You may remember Jerry Warren as the one responsible for Frankenstein Island and The Wild World of Batwoman.  It mainly stars Don Sullivan as Reg (of The Giant Gila Monster  and The Rebel Set fame) and Katherine Victor (Dr. Myra) who we later get to see “go-go” it up in the over-the-top campy  The Wild World of the Batwoman!  Almost seems like the holy grail of bad cinema here!

Teenage Zombies begins with a rather innocent group of kids going out to go skiing near a local island, which everyone seems to have forgotten was there and to which NOBODY ever goes.  They arrive on the island (sans skis or bathing suits.. just an observation) and while wandering around see Dr. Myra wandering about in her prom gown, which serves as her ONLY costume in the entire movie.  She either doesn’t own anything else to wear or, like Wilma Flinstone, has 20 of the same dress in her closet.  When they very rightly decide to go back to the boat.. its gone!  They search the island in a very edge-of-your-seat “walking the beaches” manner but come up with nothing.  The two guys go talk to Dr. Myra in her home on the island and while Captain Observant and his sidekick, Oblivious Boy chat with Dr. Myra, the girls  get abducted and put in the dungeon.  The guys are subsequently detained likewise. 

Meanwhile, back on the mainland, two young friends of the now-detained kids go to a house..er…the “Sherriff’s office and request help.  After fruitless searches the kids are not to be found.  On their own, the two kids decide to go to the island on a Scooby Doo style hunch.  They arrive and quickly run into Dr. Myra.  They leave to see two guys arriving, who are secret agents there to push Dr. Myra’s experiments up.  See, she isn’t only a prom dress wearing zombie-herder.. she’s a scientist!  I know this because she wanders into her lab and puts on a white lab coat.. over her party dress.  After “gassing” some poor sot in a gorilla suit into submission with her subjugation gas, she declares that she is almost ready.  There is an odd cutaway to two military types in the pentagon and then back to the kids again asking the local Sheriff for help.  He takes them to the island and, quell surprise, hands them over to Dr. Evening gown.  When the kids escape and make it to the lab, the Dr. uses her gas to enslave the girls.. that’s when this completely outrageous and silly fight scene begins.  Seriously, you have to see it to believe it!  After the tables turn a couple of times, the kids escape in the boat while capturing the Dr. and one of the agents.​

Whew!  As I mentioned, I think this was filmed over a day or two at someone’s house who was a friend of the director.  The dungeon where the kids are kept looks suspiciously like the  front area of the Sheriff’s office which looks like the pentagon office as well  These “wandering” the beach scenes checking out the island, looking for the boat, the second set of kids looking for the first, the kids looking for the boat again… are VERY gripping and pad the film out very well.  The wardrobe budget was nonexistent as everyone wore the same thing.. even though this took place over several days.  And don’t be fooled!  The boys escape the dungeon at one point and go wandering the beaches looking for their boat, another boat, or raft-makings.  As they wander around.. IT’S NIGHT…NIGHT, I tell you!  I promise!  Pay no attention to the sunlight or shadows.. it’s night.  Multiple “zombies” are seen initially and then take a vacation because they are never seen again.    There are also some really odd directing choices in some of the lab scenes.  The actors stand in line with each other and look over their shoulders at the impending action going on behind them.  It looked very unnatural as most people would turn and look at what’s going on.  Here, it seemed like they would not move the camera, yet, in the next shot, the camera is moved and they are still standing there, like they were.  There was some continuity to it, strangely enough, but looked highly unnatural.  Had this been a stage performance, I could have understood the directing, but not in a movie where you move the camera for different angles. 





Anyway, Teenage Zombie was fairly aweful, cheaply made, and of massively inferior quality.  We get to see other attempts by these actors… and the fare is not much better.  Just check out Wild World of the Batwoman to find out.  Take care, fellow dwellers of The Locker, and as always, enjoy!k here to add your own text and edit me. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.​

Wait.. this ISN'T what ladies usually wear around zombie island?

Hello.. Mr. Warren?  I called to tell you that your fashion sense for leading ladies in crappy cinema is a bit lacking in the extreme!  

Cheapest police station EVER!!!!

Look!  We have a poor schmo in a rented gorilla outfit! Stand back!  I'm doing SCIENCE!

Damn!  Bitch in the Prom Dress don't fight fair!

If these two grown men can's WAX the floor with this spritely little guy wisp they deserve to get bitten!

Christ!  I've seem Sid and Marty Croft puppets get into nastier fights!!

BIFF!  WHAMO!  CRUNCH!  SMACK!

Hey Don Sullivan.. I'm waiting for ya?  Where are ya buddy? It's me, your old friend the Giant Gila Monster!

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"Teenage Zombies"

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