Zontar: The Thing from Venus

Badfilm addicts all have that one special piece of drek which is their personal favorite awful movie. For some, it will always be the Godzilla, Gamera, and Starman movies. Others will have that soft spot for The Thing With Two Heads, In The Year 2889, or Creation Of The Humanoids. And naturally, badfilm devotees are devout members of the cult of Ed Wood, for whom viewings of Plan Nine From Outer Space are a religious sacrement. But for myself, my one special badfilm has to be Zontar: The Thing From Venus.

Perhaps it's because this film was one of the movies I grew up with. Zontar was a staple of the local Sunday Morning Movie program on TV which I watched religiously as a kid. Words cannot quite describe the "quality" of this movie. It can only be experienced. Zontar was evidently made in somebody's home, a local high-school, and a shopping mall in a small town situated near a cave by low-budget schlockmeister Larry Buchanan. It's not that Zontar is an exceptionally bad movie made by exceptionally awful no-talent hacks. Simply, the various elements of this movie just happen to combine in just the right way to make Zontar a classic of Grade-Z cinema.

The "plot" goes something like this: Zontar, a giant three-eyed, bat-winged mutant lobster from Venus, hitches a ride on a satellite to takeover Earth with the aid of ex-high school science nerd Keith Ritchie (Anthony Houston). Only the brave but relentlessly wooden Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) stands in its way. Zontar takes over various humans with its injectopods; small creatures who fly with the aid of some guy holding them on the end of a stick. Mrs. science-nerd (Susan Bjurman) whines about the victims losing their personalities, only it swiftly becomes evident that only after being taken over by Zontar do any of the people in this movie even have personalities in the first place.

Zontar begins the takeover by imposing massive Republican-style energy deregulation like they now have in California, which soon shuts down everything --electricity, gas, cars... Everything. This causes the townspeople to run about like brainless sheep through the shopping mall car park. From here, the plot thins. Curt and Keith debate philosophy over the phone. While Keith stays by his plutonium crystal radio-set, Curt barely manages to avoid becoming a Zontar zombie himself, which means he gets to remain the same lovable drone he's always been. Curt then proceeds to solve the problem of Zontar as any true red-blooded American would --by shooting everybody. He goes to Keith's house to have one more debate with his old friend before shooting him. During this, Mrs. science-nerd, having gone to the caves, is killed by Zontar, after which Keith switches sides. Curt shoots some more people, and Keith takes his handy homebuilt plutonium laser and kills both Zontar and himself. Victory for the Earth, however, means the survivors (and audience) must endure a boring monologue by Curt Taylor about the nature of mankind.

Most badfilms were made by directors devoted to their particular conception of "art" (e.g. John Travolta's and Roger Christian's Battlefield Dearth). Some are conscious ripoffs of higher-budget and better quality movies (e.g. Roger Corman's Star Wars knock-off, Battle Beyond The Stars). Zontar manages to surpass the "standards" of this genre by being not only a bad movie in its own right, but also by being itself a direct line-by-line steal of Roger Corman's low-budget schlock classic It Conquered The World (1962). For this alone, Larry Buchanan has to be hailed as a schlockmesiter of the first rank by taking cinematic incest to new dimensions and in the process managing to mutate ICTW, merely a typical piece of drek, into a true Grade-Z psychozen experience.

Zontar is a being from Venus who has been communicating with Keith--telling him about the pending invasion of the Earth. However, instead of trying to stop him, Keith aids Zontar with promises that he'll make the Earth a paradise for all. The invasion involves turning off all human machines as well as injecting key officials with little pins in the back of their necks--making them slaves to the will of Zontar.

I am a "bad movie junkie"--I love watching grade-z horror and sci-fi films of the 50s and 60s, so it's natural I'd watch ZONTAR. However, even for a bad movie, this one is really, really bad--B-A-D, bad!! Most of the reason for this is that it was apparently directed by a monkey, as it got the absolute worst performances from everyone. Rarely will you hear and see more robotic acting--with many "actors" clearly having difficulty reading their cue cards!! Keith, the idiot who works for Zontar and is the key actor is particularly inept. His delivery is just bizarre--like he's reading and has no idea what the context is--with no emotion or conviction. The General ain't much better--as, once again, he's clearly reading from a script and it's badly dubbed over his actions on several occasions. It's sad when perhaps the best acting is done by John Agar--the uncrowned King of Bad Films. He overacts and yells some of his lines, but at least he had emotion and energy--some things that few others in the film showed. The only other emotional actor is Keith's wife, who seems to think she's playing Ophelia from "Hamlet"--as she makes little soliloquies and behaves as if she's stark raving mad! As for the rest of the film, the plot has been done better many other times (especially in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and an episode of "SCTV"), the sets are cheap, the "monsters" look like stuffed owls and the entire project has the look of a film made for YouTube by 12 year-olds! The only reason to watch this film is if you LIKE bad movies and want to laugh and marvel at the total ineptness of the film. Also, try watching Peter Graves in IT CONQUERED THE WORLD. ZONTAR is a remake of this earlier film, but it, too, is pretty silly stuff--and you have to see the monster to believe it!!

Seems like this is a little muddled. AIP-TV needed some truly inexpensive features to pad out a syndication package, and Buchanan ended up with the job. Reports vary, but they apparently used scripts that were "readily available", with the following results:

It Conquered The World - Zontar, The Thing From Venus

Invasion Of The Saucer Men - The Eye Creatures

Pajama Party - Mars Needs Women The She Creature - Creature Of Destruction

The Day The World Ended - In The Year 2889

Pretty mindbending to experience these, when unprepared. I was dozing in and out of "Zontar" the first time, and I woke up thinking I had dreamt most of it.

I'll have to accept the common thought that much was filmed around Dallas, but I have to say that it sure looks like Bronson Canyon much of the time...heh

--Judex.1--

Zontar comes to Earth, hides in cave and communicates with a confused scientist who can't act. Bat like creature then implants mind control devices in people's heads. Good scientist, who can't act either, thwarts Zontar's carefully laid plans. There's actually a scene where one of the characters tells Zontar- "I hate you guts." Incredibly, this is a remake of a 1950's movie of the same name.

Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1966)

* (out of 4)

Incredibly bad science fiction film has an alien attaching itself to a scientist in hopes of taking over the world. Will it or will John Agar save the day? This thing has a pretty big cult following but I can't see why. The film is just downright bad without any of the laughs that usually come from these types of films. Poor acting, poor special effects and just an overall poor movie. I'm sure some kids enjoyed this when they watched it on television back in the day but nothing in it holds up today. This film belong in Uranus, not Venus.