The Killings at Outpost Zeta

I saw this film on television back in the mid-80s when my local FOX affiliate was airing "Bad Flix." In other words: the network (and viewers) recognize this as a bad movie, yet like a car accident, people can't help watching. This is such a bad movie, it's entertaining!

The plot is very similar to "Aliens," with a group of space travellers landing on a barren planet in order to learn what became of an earlier expedition team. The answer (also like "Aliens") is that they were killed one-by-one by a deadly creature... and the same fate awaits the latest band of spacefarers!

Bad sets, bad costumes, a derivitive storyline, and particularly bad special effects (the laser guns our heroes use are pathetic). Yet, like "Aliens," this film is very suspenseful at times; you find yourself wondering who'll be the next to be killed and under what circumstances. (Come to think of it, isn't that why we also like Mob movies?)

Worth watching, provided you go into it knowing it's a "bad flik" and just enjoy it as campy sci-fi fun. Look for Jackson Bostwick, who played superhero Captain Marvel on the first season of TV's "Shazam!"

Rather than a cheap fifties or sixties sci-fi picture set in 1980, here we have the novelty of one actually MADE in 1980, which of course now looks if anything even more dated; and paradoxically less futuristic than if it had been made fifteen years earlier (fuzzy sound, awful haircuts, they all wear ugly Ugg Boots and drink from big, chunky brightly-coloured plastic coffee mugs, and there's a grating synthesiser score by co-producer/director Robert Emenegger).

It's all played commendably straight however, and must be one of the last Z-budget sci-f's not done as a parody of earlier ones. The plot is obviously borrowed from 'Alien' (and visually the exteriors also recall 'Planet of the Vampires'), the cheesy sets and costumes reminiscent of 'Blake's Seven'. Although there are supposed to be two of them it always looks as if there's just the one stalker.

The Robert Emenegger/Allan Sandler directing team are back for YET another science fiction movie. It seems that over the course of four or so years that they made every type of science fiction film possible, and a few impossible. This is one of their more straightforward outings, a straightforward riff on ALIEN with astronauts being taken down by a mysterious alien creature.

The problem with the output of these guys is that their films just don't have the budget to convince for a second and that remains the case here. THE KILLINGS AT OUTPOST ZETA has a cool title and that's about it. Otherwise we get poor scripting, an almost total lack of suspense, and a final reveal of the menace that'll have you laughing rather than frightened.

The cast is headed by Jackson Bostwick, who was equally poor in the same team's ESCAPE FROM DS-3, and Jacqueline Ray, who later starred in the equally abysmal BEYOND THE UNIVERSE. While I continue to admire the efforts of these guys to churn out sci-fi fare on a non-existent budget, there's no denying that the majority of their films are simply rubbish.

I know this was made in 1980, but crimeny.. they made ALIEN in '79, and it was at least scary and felt like a "space documentary"... KILLINGS AT OUTPOST ZETA feels like a nice, long, painful root canal. Unbelievably slow, with a two-note soundtrack played on a xylophone, this movie is good for degreasing engines and killing brain cells. The only high note is watching TV's SHAZAM and Paul Comi (Lt. Stiles from Star Trek) stumble through reams of boring dialogue while wearing motorcycles and moon boots that apparently double as "spacesuits"... most of the movie takes place in one room made of painted sheet metal! Avoid at all costs.

Another 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.