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.
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udar5515 January 2011
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bigfootmurf-7230426 October 2020'The Killings at Outpost Zeta' has corny dialogue spoken by bad actors in scenery from low budget British TV SF and is made worse by an intrusive and terrible electronic music score. The plot is essentially that of 'Alien' and they use 'Starfleet' as the authority behind the mission. I guess Star Trek has no copyright on the name 'Starfleet'. Really, it's no worse than many a 1950s B Movie and it passes the time. One for fans of corny, bad science fiction and sort of loveable on that level. I saw it on Talking Pictures which is a great source for old movies both good and bad.
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richardchatten24 September 2019Rather 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. -
DanielKing9 July 2011If 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. -
axeman-920 July 2004I 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. -
Milk_Tray_Guy16 May 2021Unbelievably bad Alien knock-off (made just a year later). Everything is bad; the script, the acting, the effects, all bad. Yet for some reason it still has charm. There's an innocence to it that almost makes you feel, 'Bless 'em, they tried!' Not enough to save it from a 4/10 though.
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Leofwine_draca9 December 2015The 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. -
paul_haakonsen2 July 2021Well, I remember watching the movie back in my childhood, and I remember it as being a rather good sci-fi horror movie. One that definitely left a mark on me, because I recall the rock-like creatures killing people. So as I had the opportunity to sit down in 2021 and watch "The Killings at Outpost Zeta" again, of course I did so.
Turns out that my memory was not as accurate as I wanted it to be, because "The Killings at Outpost Zeta" was not a great movie. It was, at best, a campy low budget space horror sci-fi.
But they were using moon boots and motorcycle helmets, for the love of... And then there were their laser pistols, which were essentially little more than just long hollow tubes.
While "The Killings at Outpost Zeta" had spirit and drive, it wasn't an outstanding movie. And I was actually sort of fearing that my memories of the movie would be a lot better than the movie actually turned out to be. And that was the case. I suppose I should have left it with the good memories.
The acting in the movie was bland, and the wasn't much of any overly great things to experience here as the actors and actresses stumbled through pretty poorly-written dialogue and had a very simplistic storyline to work with, actually.
The creature design was just downright laughable actually. They were rather simplistic and poorly made, if you take a step back and look at it objectively.
And the visuals when the spacecraft was flying around in space was pretty laughable and bad to look at. So "The Killings at Outpost Zeta" doesn't harvest any points for having great visual effects either.
Pretty interesting that three writers could collectively manage to come up with so little. I can't fathom what writers Peter Dawson, Allan Sandler and Robert Emenegger were thinking here.
My rating of the 1980 movie "The Killings at Outpost Zeta" lands on a mere three out of ten stars.
So much for fond memories of a once-thought to be a great horror sci-fi from my childhood, huh? -
plan9917 May 2021Terrible script, acting, sets, props, music and costumes so 3 stars. As a film that's so bad it's good it gets 10 stars. The "space helmets" were obviously just crash helmets with a bit of rubber tubing and a wider black visor added and as they were not attached to the "space suits" in any way they were of no use at all.
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barryalanmarshall12 July 2006Everything about this film is bad, as other posters have mentioned: the script, acting, special effects, set design, plot, etc.
And yet, it has a certain charm. If you enjoy terrible movies you will definitely like this one. But for some the film will have even more significance as a still from the film provides the cover for electronic duo Boards of Canada's 1995 EP "Twoism".
One Christmas a few years ago my girlfriend and I were watching the Horror Channel on UK satellite TV. Without knowing anything about the film we watched it, laughed at how bad it was and decided to watch it through.
About 10 or 15 minutes into the film, though, I noticed that the insignia on the helmets of the space crew looked familiar. I grabbed my copy of the CD and compared: lo and behold, I'd found the source for the strange picture of a male and female astronaut embracing before they face some terrible danger.
I set the video to record after that.
In the end, the film was not too bad - the soundtrack features a familiar Boards of Canada-style drone. Unfortunately the film accidentally got taped over and so I have never been able to check if they'd actually sampled any of the music. -
rdfranciscritic29 January 2023To find this old, Saturday afternoon UHF-TV ditty -- as well as it's "sequel," Time Warp -- on Tubi after all these years is a shock! Fans of the production values of Filmation's Jason of Star Command, Space Academy, and Ark II for CBS-TV Saturday mornings, strap in, for it was the year of George Lucas.
It was a time of the Italian knockoffs with Star Crash, The Humanoid, Escape from Galaxy III, and Star Odyssey, Canada's cheap jack The Shapes of Things to Come, and NBC-TV's chintzy Buck Rogers and dual, plastic-Star Wars hopefuls The Martian Chronicles and Brave New World.
Cue Allan Sandler and Robert Robert Emenegger of Gold Key Entertainment to the set.
So, with 20th Century Fox cashing the Kessel Run checks, Gold Key pumped out clones between 1980 to 1981. Emenegger is the point man on these, as he wrote (most of) them, directed six, and by Atari and Casio, scored them all.
As far the order in which these were made or released: your guess is as good as ours. It's possible -- since it's the best looking of the nine films and has the stronger, best-known cast -- Lifepod was probably the last film produced (and was the best-distributed). We'll defer to the order in which the IMDb lists each.
Captive (1980)
PSI Factor (1980)
The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)
Beyond the Universe (1981)
Escape from DS-3 (1981)
Lifepod (1981) -- I reviewed this space-take on Hitchcock's Lifeboat in full at B&S About Movies (linked on the film's IMDb page) and go deeper into all of Gold Key's films.
Warp Speed (1981) -- Adam West, stars!
Time Warp (1981) -- Adam West, returns!
Laboratory (1983)
As you watch these films -- based on their syndication and quick VHS releases and common-cast actors throughout -- there's plenty of stock prop, set, costume, and footage recycling. If Roger Corman can do it with Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxy of Terror, and so on, and Glen Larson can with his Battlestar Galactica-Buck Rogers plastic-verses, why not?
Now, deeper into The Killings at Outpost Zeta, we go!
This actually sounds a lot like James Cameron pinched it for his later film, Aliens (1986), but, ah, while Star Wars is pinched in the Emenegger-Sandler canons, don't forget Alien (1979) birthed from Star Wars.
A co-ed rescue team is sent to the barren Zeta to investigate what happened to two colonization expeditions establishing a base to expand Earth colonies in the uncharted galaxy. Yes, xenomorphs -- aka anthropoidal "Rock Monsters" -- are responsible. Yes, rocks that walk. Yes, the rescue team is picked off one by one.
If you've seen the popular British BBC-TV series Blake's 7 or Red Dwarf -- and sometimes Doctor Who, when the Doctor clashed with the Cybermen or the Daleks -- and accepted the bargain television production values, you'll be fine. If you're okay with Sunn Classics' Hangar 18 and Ed Hunt's goofy underwater pyramid alien bases in Starship Invasions, you'll be fine.
Those who can't: They'll criticize the sets and costumes as "cheesy" -- and we are obviously somewhere in the '70s, even though the verse is the 22nd century. Yes, the costuming department breaks out the old motorcycle helmet trope with flexi-hoses capping off questionable space suits fitted with then groovy-trendy "Moon Boots." The guns look like a spray painted, empty paper towel tube clued onto something else to look like a gun.
Regardless of the sets, the costumes, and the questionable thespin', once we get on Zeta, the outdoor sets and cinematic atmosphere is actually effective, as it reminds (just a little bit!) of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires' (1965) lens filters, fog and mood lighting. While the dialog is poorly delivered, the script -- in all of the films, actually -- have a burst of intelligence that rises above John Carradine's Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970; my zero-star choice). But not as good as Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) or Angry Red Planet (1959).
Yeah, I loved this, then. Now, all these Tubi-years later: not so much. It's pretty bad, but not as bad as the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) cash-in that is Starforce (2000). Yikes! So, Zeta trumps that. For that: my pushing-it one-star jumps to two-stars. Oh, mind you: Space Mutiny (1988) is my zero-star barometer, here. -
In the future an elite team head to a barren planet to investigate mysterious deaths at Outpost Zeta. And find rock monsters! If Ed Wood was making films in the 1980's then I imagine this science fiction/horror hoot would be the type of thing that he's been making. As an honest review I'd score this film 2/10, but I found it highly entertaining, hence my 6/10. Incredibly bad sets and special effects, awful lines spoken by cardboard actors, it's a bad movie lovers delight. Before the mission is put together a commander says "I'm going to have to pick out some people who don't mind getting themselves killed on that god forsaken planet!" Hilarious! Part of the spacecraft's interior looks liked it had been filmed in a kitchen. Apparently Zeta is devoid of any life yet we can clearly see plants, and the clouds look identical to what we have on Earth. I was really hoping to see a motor vehicle or house in the background. Set in the 22nd Century the technology is most definitely 1970's looking. The costumes are laughable, as are the plastic tubes used as laser guns. An attractive blonde called Linda does provide a little love interest. Had never heard of this film before being screened on TV, and can find no trace of it in my movie books but I enjoyed it. Very, very bad but in a charming way.
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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.
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MarkD-1930 July 2003I 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!" -
Weirdling_Wolf19 April 2022This deceptively entertaining, competently acted lo-fi /sci-fi thriller by capable film-makers Robert Emenegger / Allan Sandler happily plays out like a doomier, feature-length episode of 'Blake's 7' wherein ominously heavy-breathing, pseudo-anthropoidal Monolith Monsters have done unspeakably alien things to the first and second round of spacers who were tasked to make a comprehensive report on misbegotten planetoid Zeta's suitability for human colonisation. After a prolonged, unsettling radio silence, and fearing the worst, a final, highly-trained 'Suicide squad' arrives at the benighted, far-flung outpost only to soon, er, become the desperate quarry of ferociously flesh-absorbing ambulatory charcoal! Zeta is a truly forbidding environment, seemingly antithetical to organic life, with its excessive gravity, noxious, highly toxic atmosphere, and while its indigenous igneous inhabitants look hella dumb, they are stone cold killers and grimly go through the elite Spacefleet squad like a dose of especially nasty rock salts! Aye! It might be fair to add that the more 'spaced-out' Sci-fanatics of Don Dohler, Norman J. Warren and Fred Olen Ray should deffo dig on 'The Killings at Outpost Zeta', and another grungy, pleasingly minimalist electronic score by Emenegger lends the ambitious, cheap n' cheerful proceedings some additionally zesty Atari 800 groove!
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yelahttam15 June 2002I 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.
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ottaky25 June 2004Have 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.