If you can get past the bargain basement costumes and sets, there's the germ of an interesting story here. The premise - an elite team heads to a remote planet to investigate a series of deaths - is a good one; so much so in fact that you wonder why more sci-fi films haven't used it. Admittedly the plot does then develop along predictable lines but some thought at least was given to dreaming up an unusual monster and there's perhaps more science than you'd expect from such a cheapo production. The alien landscape is pretty good too and shows what can be achieved with a red filter, a smoke machine and a bit of imagination.On the downside, the aforementioned sets and costumes are pretty laughable: everything is red or white, or red and white. Some of the acting is pretty shocking too, although it must be said they don't have much to work with. The last half hour drags pretty badly, after a sprightly opening.So, in summary, certainly no classic but not a total waste of time either.
... View MoreAnother one of those "SOS because monsters are attacking us" low budget sci-fi flicks. Starfleet sends a rescue team to the barren planet Zeta after two exploratory teams go missing. This mission is of the utmost importance as they were hoping to begin colonization on this Earth-like rock within two months. Once the team of six (four men and two women) get there, they discover everyone dead due to some weird rock monsters (to be said in Fred Schneider voice). In the post-STAR WARS age, it is weird to see something this cheap on screen. Co-directors Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler certainly seemed ambitious, but only had enough money to create some cheap space suits (motorcycle helmets) and maybe three sets. The monsters are most likely paper mache and are never given a good glimpse. The surface world stuff (shot in some desert) is actually pretty well done. Emenegger and Sandler had an extremely prolific two years after this film, producing close to a dozen cheap-o sci-fi flicks (with titles like LABORATORY, LIFEPOD, TIME WARP) before disappearing in 1981.
... View MoreI have seen this piece of excrement only once, but as with everyone else who saw it the memory will remain with me for ever. This was screened late one night here in the UK and I swear to you even the continuity announcer of the station was laughing and apologising in advance for what they were about to show. Take the best bits of Alien, Space 1999 and Star Trek, combine them into one movie and then throw that away, because it sure as hell wont be needed in this complete waste of celluloid.Ploughing the age-old furrow started by such classics as 'The Thing from another World' and 'It, The terror from beyond space' we have a group of people trapped in a confined space with a killer they know nothing about. One by one they go off by themselves and get murdered before they finally figure out what's actually going on and try to take action. At this point I should tell you there's a spoiler ahead, but that's a redundant phrase where this crummy movie is concerned. The killer/s turn out to be small boulders, which chase our heroes around their portacabin village on strings and suck the very talent from them. I laughed my ass off.This is a really bad movie, but if you can see past the moon boots, Space 1999 apparel and bad acting you will be rewarded by the stupidest alien monsters ever. So bad it's funny, but then again I've watched so many terrible movies now that maybe my taste may be a little warped. Well, you wont know until you watch it.
... View MoreHave you ever watched a film that is so bad you end up thinking "If that film got written, funded, produced and made, just how bad would a script need to be to be rejected?" (see: Congo)Killings at Outpost Zeta will not answer your question, but it does lower the bar for bad film making to an altogether new level.This film seems to be the result of taking the worst aspects of Dr Who and Space:1999, combining them into some kind of soulless monster and then stretching the already thin premise out to near monomolecular extremes. Imagine a film student's first attempt at a movie, and then take away any spark of creativity.Just awful. Avoid at all costs.
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