The Killings at Outpost Zeta

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.

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.

I've been reminiscing lately watching 70's and 80's sci fi movies. The score is interesting in that I hear a lot of Star .trek and Space 1999 type sounds. The synth score is enough for me to turn the video off on my iPad and just listen to all of sound effects and the score. In that regard I give it a 5. The rest is forgettable. I'm told I need at least 245 more characters to even post my review... oh well, what else can I say about a show that's just a 5 other than what I've already said. I know, I'll use some long, archaic words... pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicolvolconoconiosis. Damien! 9 more characters... cool! I made it! Fini.

Have 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.