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Jerry Warren fans rejoice! When "Teenage Zombies" (1959) lurches through your television set, you know you're in for some seriously cheesy sci-fi. For those who don't already know and love Warren, this is the mastermind who brought us such bonechillers as "Man Beast" (1956), "The Wild World of Batwoman" (1966) "Frankenstein Island" (1981) and "The Incredible Petrified World" (1957), which has been featured on UEN SciFi Friday.
The plot of "Teenage Zombies" revolves around the adventure of four teens who stumble across the secluded island where Dr. Myra has been developing her plan to turn everyone in the U.S. into zombies. Dr. Myra prefers Elvira-style evening gowns to a labcoat and has a creepy hulking assistant named Ivan, but the teens follow her to her basement anyway (and end up caged to await zombification). Good thing their friends aren't sensible enough to let the grown-ups handle their disappearance: a motor launch gets "borrowed" and it's rescue time!
No doubt, Warren's teens were meant to make the film more appealing to his target audience—younger viewers—but the neurological manipulation Dr. Myra proposes on her youthful subjects invites us to consider the ways in which a human teenager's brain differs from that of a younger child or mature adult. Recent developments in technology have enabled researchers to discover that adolescence is a critical time for brain development and that the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and reasoning) isn't fully developed until about the age of 25. Might this explain the impulsivity of the kids in "Teenage Zombies"? And might it make them more susceptible to Dr. Myra's mind control—or does it turn out to be their secret weapon against her evil plot?
