Attack of the Moon Zombies is the sixth film by Christopher R. Mihm and the sixth film in the Mihmiverse Shared Universe. The film continues the story of Dr. Vincent Edwards from Terror from Beneath the Earth.
Set twenty years after Dr. Edwards' encounter with a bat-like creature in the radioactive cave system near Phantom Lake, Wisconsin, Dr. Edwards is preparing to start training his successor, Glen Hayes, at the Jackson Lunar Base in preparation for his retirement in one week. In the midst of this, he makes a remarkable discovery - a strange plant inside a cave on the lunar surface, which is the first evidence of alien life.
Unfortunately, the plant's spores prove decidedly toxic and the plant kills Glen Hayes after spraying him with spores. Worse yet, the spore's curious properties animate the bodies of those who are killed by them, causing them to continue spreading the spores as they infect more and more hosts. It will fall to Dr. Edwards and his colleagues to save the world from the so-called moon zombies before they find a way to get to Earth.
This film provides examples of:
- The Ace: Captain Frehley thinks he is one and asks people to call him Ace. No one does.
- The Alcoholic: Captain Frehley.
- Black Dude Dies First: Averted, as Dr. Huer is the last person to be killed by The Moon Zombies.
- Body Horror: People transformed into zombies by alien plants.
- Botanical Abomination: The Moon Zombies.
- Cool Old Guy: Dr. Edwards.
- Creator Cameo: Christopher R. Mihm plays Robert Ripley - The Administrator's husband.
- Credits Gag: No Moon Zombies Were Harmed During The Making Of This Film. Except Antony Kaczor. That punch was real.
- Cribbage: Glen Hayes is a master of the game, as it is his only hobby apart from geology.
- Double Entendre: Dr. Collins and Captain Frehley's discussion about docking rockets.
- Apparently Dr. Collins is a too rough with the stick. But he and Dr. Hackett both like it rough.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The movie is about Moon Zombies attacking people.
- Fantastic Flora: The plant that creates The Moon Zombies.
- Fantastic Radiation Shielding: The moon base has some kind of space radiation deflection system that can be powered off.
- Foreshadowing: "This man is dead and he is not coming back. If only it were possible..."
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Woman: Dr. Edwards slaps Dr. Hackett when she starts to shout about his plan to sacrifice himself to save the rest of the moon base team.
- Good Ol' Boy: Captain Herman Frehley.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Dr. Edwards
- Homage: The movie is basically a The '50s Science Fiction version of Aliens, with a character named Ripley and a space base under siege by hostile aliens.
- Honor Before Reason: Dr. Edwards says there's no point in getting angry at the alien plant for killing Glen Hayes.
- Later, even as his fellow scientists are being absorbed into the moon zombie collective, he says there's no reason to react with violence to a species attempting to reproduce.
- Interrupted Declaration of Love: Dr. Collins' efforts to propose to Dr. Hackett keep getting interrupted.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Dr. Tony Banks. He's a misogynist who asks his boss if she can requisition a leggy redhead who can cook for him and breaks into the confidential personnel records to read up on Dr. Deering, the one single woman in the moon base, despite her complete lack of interest. You'll likely cheer when he becomes a Moon Zombie.
- Ms. Exposition: Dr. HackettDr. Stephanie Hackett: As you know, it took most of my young adult life to earn my Ph.D..."
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Averted, as Dr. Hackett asks which doctor she should get when she is told to get a doctor after Glen Hayes falls ill after being sprayed by the alien spores.
- The Noodle Incident: Dr. Gabriel makes reference to having worked on something called The Genesis Project, with Dr. Phillip Collins working under him and Dr. Collins taking over the project after he quit. He does not explain why he quit, but his tone makes it clear he is not happy recalling the incident.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dr. Edwards is nominally British, but his accent fades in and out. This was, however, intentional.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dr. Edwards. While nominally just a geologist, he is said to have mentored Dr. Hackett, who is the chief botanist of the moon base. He also comes up with the theory that the alien plant lay dormant until it was exposed to the oxygen and heat inside the moon-base and that the zombies are the result of inter-species cross-pollination.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The moon zombies are the result of humans becoming infected by alien spores.
- Plant Aliens: The Moon Zombies.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Administrator Ripley predicts this is what will happen to everyone who knew about Glen Hayes' death in order to keep them quiet regarding the existence of alien life.
- Retirony: Dr. Edwards
- Science Hero: Most of the cast, but especially Dr. Edwards.
- Self-Deprecation: Upon being told how Glen Hayes died, Dr. Collins says "It sounds like the plot of some bad drive-in movie."
- Shout-Out: Several.
- Captain Frehley's nickname is a nod to the original lead guitarist of KISS aka The Spaceman.
- The record that Dr. Hackett is dancing to in the opening scene is labeled as being from Saint Euphoria Records - a nod to the Mihmiverse production company.
- The song on the record is titled "A-Rocking, A-Rolling, All-The-Way-A-Rambling" - the song from The Monster of Phantom Lake and the record label says it was recorded by "Professor D. Jackson."
- Administrator Ripley has a daughter named Ellen - a reference to Ellen Ripley from Aliens.
- The moonbase uses interocitors as communicators.
- Like Captain Picard, Dr. Edwards' favorite tea is "Earl Grey. Hot."
- One of Dr. Edwards' retirement gifts is a cookbook titled To Serve Man.
- Much like Mr. Spock, most of the scientists keep describing the horrifying things that happen as "Fascinating."
- When talking about things as unlikely as plant life on the moon, Administrator Ripley jokingly suggests there could be "Cave Women on Mars".
- When Administrator Ripley is about to tell Dr. Edwards when to meet her the next morning, he guesses "eight o'clock." She replies "I was just going to say 'eight o'clock." in a nod to Ghostbusters (1984).
- Later, in another nod to Ghostbusters, as Dr. Edwards and Administrator Ripley are putting their plan into action, they say farewell by paraphrasing Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz's farewell - "See you on the other side, Administrator."/"Nice working with you, Dr. Edwards."
- The film has multiple references to the band Genesis. Five of its characters (Dr. Peter Gabriel, Dr. Stephanie Hackett, Dr. Tony Banks, Dr. Rutherford, and Dr. Phillip Collins) take their names from the group's classic 1971-75 lineup, and the "Genesis Project" mentioned above is a reference to how Collins replaced Gabriel as the face of the band.
- The Silent Bob: Glen Hayes.
- Straw Misogynist: Dr. Tony Banks, who somehow thinks it's a good idea to ask the woman in charge of the moon base to recruit a leggy redhead who can cook to replace the outgoing Dr. Edwards.
- The End... Or Is It?: At the end, one of the Moon Zombies isn't quite as inanimate as it looks.
- Token Religious Teammate: Dr. Edwards, shockingly enough. Though a man of science, he affirms his belief in an afterlife and repeats Psalm 23 as he is preparing to make his Heroic Sacrifice.
- The 'Verse
- The setting is the Jackson Moon Base (Est. 1976) and it was named in honor of a "no-good peace-nick President."
- Dr. Vincent Edwards, who previously appeared in Terror from Beneath the Earth, will go onto appear in The Giant Spider and The Late Night Double Feature.
- Dr. Stephanie Hackett and Dr. Vincent Edwards have a father/daughter relationship. He described her as the closest thing he has ever had to a daughter. She says that her father died before she was born and Dr. Edwards was the only father she ever knew.
- Glen Hayes is the son of Deputy Hayes from Terror from Beneath the Earth. He reportedly got promoted to Sheriff at some point in the past 20 years.
- Dr. Edwards confirms that his niece, Rosemary Bennett, got married to Stan Johnson after the events of Terror from Beneath the Earth. He has an old picture of her with her step-children on his bedside table.
- Dr. Gabriel will go on to appear in The Giant Spider, The Late Night Double Feature. and Demon with the Atomic Brain.
- The doors of the moon base are said to be made of "Jacksonium-reinforced plasti-steel" so apparently Professor Jackson had an element named after him or discovered one he named for himself.
- Dr. Gabriel says he and Dr. Phillip Collins worked on something called The Genesis Project and that Dr. Collins took over after Dr. Gabriel quit, for reasons he never gets to explain.
- A young Phillip Collins was the abducted boy in The Late Night Double Feature.
- When Elders Attack: Administrator Ripley. She goes out punching the Moon Zombies as they swarm her.
