I’m still finding movies from the 80s that I missed as a kid. This time it was Zone Troopers (1985) which was mentioned here on the site by somebody, so I had to go and find it.
In most sci-fi, alien and monster movies, it’s always the humans against the alien such as 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. The official blurb says:
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 from 1 – 5.
Firstly, lets just get this out of the way. This movie is bad, but it is so bad that I found myself giggling all the way through at just 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 aliens.
The shootout between the US guys and the Nazis was about as convincing as a shootout in the A-Team. Some of the weapons don’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 scares him much that he burns one of his sci-fi comics , which he seems to have in the middle of a war.
The soldiers find a German camp and some photos and film of a UFO, so they set out to find it. 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 despite the Sarge not wanting to go near it. His objections are bypassed by a soldier simply saying:
“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
They find the charred remains of an alien body inside the ship, but the Nazis arrive, so they escape and then blow it up. What is it with Americans and blowing things up?
There is a scene where the Nazis hatch an alien egg. The best thing about this scene is how the little alien inside hatched with a full set of alien overalls. Lol.
Even Hitler himself turns up to see the alien, only to be punched by one of the US guys. At this point Hitler just leaves. I thought he would have been more angry about a punch? He seems more angry in other movies I have seen him in.
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 afterwards for this.
It’s a terrible movie, but it’s a great movie to sit through with friends and drink every time when something stupid happens, you’ll be completely drunk 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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