I’m still finding movies from the 80s that I missed as a kid, this time Zone Troopers (1985), which was mentioned recently and I had to find it.
In most sci-fi, alien, monster movies, it’s always the humans against the alien, aka, Predator, but what if the humans teamed up with the alien to fight a bigger evil, say the Nazis? This is the basic plot of Zone Troopers, with the official plot being:
In Italy, during World War II some American soldiers find an alien UFO.
It stars Tim Thomerson, Timothy Van Patten, Art LeFleur, Biff Manard, and William Paulson. It’s written and directed by Danny Bilson, who wrote Trancers 1 – 5.
Firstly, this movie is bad, but one of those so bad I found myself giggling all the way through at how stupid it was. In the opening scene, about half the company of soldiers is killed off, leaving just the main players to find the UFO and the alien.
The shootout between the US guys and the Nazis was about as convincing as a shootout by the A-Team, in fact, some of the weapons didn’t even fire, although they had the budget for the sound effects.
They end up camping out and one of the guys sees an alien, which scars him much, he burns one of his sci-fi, which he seems to have in the middle of a war.
The guys find a German camp and also photos and film of a UFO of some description, which they then go on to find. I have to admit, the production design was actually pretty good. The crashed ship was massive and must have cost a fortune.
Two of the US team get inside it, which was laughable the way it was done since the Sarge didn’t want to go near it, but the other guys says:
“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
They find the charred remains of an alien body inside the ship, escape as the Nazis enter it, and then blow it up. I don’t know, what is it with Americans and blowing things up?
There is a scene where the Nazis hatch an alien egg, what was great about the scene was how the little alien inside hatched with a full set of alien overalls. I proper lol’ed.
Even Hitler himself turns up to see the alien, only to be punched by one of the US guys and then Hitler just leaves. From other movies, I thought he would have been more angry about a punch.
The rest of the movie is entirely predictable, sort of, but overall, I found myself entertained by how bad it was. There are other aliens in this, they are just humans painted blue with silly helmets. It turns out, the other alien, which they save, is the female of the species.
The actors are OK, they do a decent job with the script they are given, but I wouldn’t see any Oscars being handed out afterward.
It’s a terrible movie, but it’s a great movie to sit with friends and drink every time when something stupid happens, you’ll be legless in about 25 minutes.
Zone Troopers is a classic of the 80s that I missed, but I’m glad I’ve seen it now. I will probably put it on again, just for the giggles.
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