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Our
film opens with some Glenn Miller, big band
swing that gets us "In
the Mood"
for the events to follow. The credits pan
over the latest issue of Fantastic
Action
-- an old sci-fi pulp comic, and they
conclude by telling us we’re somewhere in
Italy, circa 1944 -- and
those of us who paid attention in social
studies class will remember that the planet was
involved in a minor skirmish at the time,
better known as World War II. We find
a platoon of GI’s bivouacked near an
abandoned villa, and center in on a Private Verona (Vincent Van Patten),
who is thumbing through the same issue of Fantastic
Action
from the credits. While reading, he and Corporal
"Mittens" Mittinsky (Art
La Fleur) haggle over a chocolate for
smokes trade.
Famed
war correspondent Charlie Dolan (Biff
Manard) snaps a picture of them.
His reputation proceeding him, Dolan has to show off the Zippo-lighter
that General Patton gave
him (--
you
know, George C. Scott, and
I wonder if Dolan knows Ernie Pyle?)).
Dolan has joined the platoon to do a story
about their squad leader -- a Sgt. Stone. Having gained a
notable reputation for cheating
death -- on more than one occasion, Stone has earned
the nickname the Iron
Sarge. Not
one for publicity, and having enough
problems with his green Lieutenant, Stone (Tim Thomerson)
deals with Dolan by basically ignoring
him. He's more concerned as to why they can’t
raise anyone on the radio. In fact, all
the radio is picking up is some strange,
unearthly noises. (Plot
point! Plot point! Plot Point!) And
to top that off, no one’s compass is
working.
Magnetic
interference? Radio disruption? I’m
not sure what’s going on here, but
I’ve got a pretty good idea.
Unfortunately,
the Nazis are right over the next hill and
launch an attack. The squad is overrun and
massacred, except for Stone, Dolan, Verona
and Mittens. Taking cover, they return fire,
and Stone manages to out-flank the
Krauts and wipes them out with his
Thompson sub-machine gun. But one German
isn’t quite dead, and appears to shoot
the Sarge square in the back. Dolan fears he’s
lost his story, but Stone gets back up,
unharmed, and finishes the Kraut off. (And
the legend grows.)
Verona thought Stone was a goner for sure
that time. But Stone says that "Iron
Sarge" crap is a load bull. "It’s not luck, or magic, and no
guardian angel," just good old GI
steel and a steady head in combat. They
retreat into the woods and Stone
checks his compass; it still
doesn’t work. Verona wonders if it’s a
new Nazi weapon, perhaps a magnetic ray.
Sarge tells him to stop reading his comics,
and there has to be a rational explanation
for it.
But
something -- something inhuman, watches them from a
distance. We witness a furry claw, and see
things through a red-tinted POV for a
while, and then hear a strange gibberish
that convinces us the Nazis are assuredly
not behind the compass and radio problems.
This is confirmed when the GIs come under
mortar attack, and are saved by the clawed
creature’s futuristic weapon that
vaporizes a tree burst.
Maybe
the Iron Sarge has a guardian angel
after all.
*
* * *
I
first got the notion to review this film
over at the B-Movie
Message Board, when a topic asked to
list your favorite Full Moon Videos. And
even
though
Zone Troopers has all the earmarks
of Full Moon -- and the credits are polluted
with Full Moon regulars, this one came out
earlier, when Charles Band was over at Empire Pictures.
It was when the Italian financed Empire
went belly-up in the early 90's that Band
formed Full Moon Video, where he still provides
plenty of B-Movie fodder today. But none
of it can match the work he did for
Empire. I mean, there's no comparison
between the likes of Creepazoids
and The
Eliminators
to Subspecies
and Demonic
Toys -- am I
right?
Zone
Troopers
was slapped together by the writing and
directing tandem of Danny Bilson and Paul De
Meo. The two were also responsible for the
first Trancers film,
The Flash TV series,
and the criminally underrated movie adaptation
of The
Rocketeer.
These guys deserve big
kudos for a great script that is genuinely
funny -- and
dare I say, charming, with plenty of action to keep even the most
jaded viewer entertained. The budget obviously wasn’t huge,
but every red cent was spent, and spent well, and it shows on the screen.
It's films like
this and the first Critters
that show
with an intelligent script, good characters,
tight direction,
good set designs, passable special effects,
and a little ingenuity -- overcompensating
for the terminal lack of budget, you can produce a very entertaining film. If a
film is good -- or at least entertaining,
you don’t spend a lot of time noticing
the glue and duct tape holding things together...
That
night the GI’s take refuge in a barn.
While Verona stands first watch, he hears
the alien gibberish but thinks it’s just
Mittens playing tricks on him. He
investigates and finds a large sticky egg
-- or
maybe a cocoon, and then spots what
hatched out of it. (Our brief
glimpse of the creature in the dark shows
us a cross between Chewbacca and Tsetse
Fly.) Shaken
by the sight, Verona rushes back inside
and burns all of his comics.
The
next morning, fearing that he's cracking
up, Verona confesses to Dolan what he saw.
The reporter convinces him that all he probably
saw was a moose. (Yeah,
a moose. That was a dang funny looking
moose.) Mittens
returns from his watch and says he spotted
a deer. Dolan promises that he can drop
the deer with one shot -- anymore will
allow the Nazis to pinpoint there location
-- and then they can
all have deer steaks for breakfast.
Mittens wants to clear it with Stone first,
but Dolan says to let him sleep. The two
leave, but instead of bagging some venison,
they stumble upon a German encampment.
Dolan recognizes it as an elite SS-squad,
so something big must be up if they’re this
close to the front lines. He wants to take
a closer look but Mittens won’t let him.
So he uses the old "got to take a
leak" gag and sneaks his way into the
camp. (I
don’t know about the rest of you but I
fall for that at least twice a year.)
Aside
from two radio-men, the camp is
deserted. Dolan sneaks into the command
tent and makes a startling discovery: all
kinds of maps and strange pictures are stuck up all
over the place, showing a huge,
unearthly air-ship that is severely
damaged and on its way down. He assumes
it’s some kind of new Nazi secret weapon,
and the SS is out field testing it. Dolan
lingers too long and is caught. Mittens saves
him, and they try
to escape, but the rest of the Nazis pick
that time to come back. They’re both
captured, stripped of their weapons, and the
new P.O.W.'s are tossed into the dog
kennels to cool their heels.
Stone
wakes up and finds Verona alone, playing
with his baseball cards. He becomes
enraged when he learns that Dolan and
Mittens went on a safari behind enemy lines.
Ordering Verona to mount up, they start to
search for them but only find metal
debris, strewn throughout the forest, that
is inexplicably cold to the touch. Verona
says something cryptic: that the forest
reminds him of an old spooky fairy tale. (Curiouser
and Curiouser.) Following
the trail of wreckage, Stone and Verona find signs
that something big crashed through the
treetops. Stone sends the motor-mouthed Verona to scout on
ahead, so he can think in peace. The young
boy from Jersey (at
least he ain’t from Brooklyn) heads
over the hill and then stops dead in his
tracks. He calls for the Sarge to come up
and take a look, because he’ll definitely
want to see this: a crashed spaceship,
augured deep into the ground -- the same ship in Dolan’s
pictures.
As
they cautiously approach the wreck, Stone thinks it’s some kind of Nazi
super-zeppelin, but Verona has a hunch that
it isn’t local at all -- and the only
way to find out is to get inside. They
find a hatch and manage to pry it open.
Despite Stone’s protests, Verona jumps
in. Stone goes in after him, and after
several harrowing turns, the two become
more convinced that the ship is
extraterrestrial in origin. This is
confirmed when they find the cockpit and
the corpse of one of the pilots (and
it looks just like the moose Verona saw
the night before.) Verona starts pushing
buttons and manages to get the lights on, but
then accidentally
trips the doors, sealing them inside the cockpit.
While Stone fiddles with
the controls to open the hatch, Verona manages to sneak
something off the alien corpse. (Man,
that’s just rude.)
Stone
finds what looks like a periscope and spots a caravan of
SS troops closing in on the crash site.
The Germans
secure the area and move toward the hatch.
Trapped inside like a couple of
sitting ducks, Stone locks and loads,
preparing for a firefight. But Verona starts
thinking like a Martian and finds an
escape hatch, allowing the two GI’s to
slide outside to safety. Just in time, as
they overhear
that Dolan and
Mittens have been captured. While the Nazi
commander jumps onto his motorcycle and
heads back to camp to interrogate the
prisoners, the rest of the Germans go
inside the ship.
Not
wanting the alien ship -- or whatever it
is, to fall into German hands, Stone drops a grenade down one of the
engine exhaust ports. The ship explodes, taking
all the Germans with it.
Night
falls.
The
SS troops that weren't blown up have managed to catch and cage Verona's alien/moose. In the command
tent, Mittens is
getting his face pounded in by a large
Nazi, but refuses to talk. Dolan
won’t talk either, so Mittens is beaten
unconscious. Aware of who he is, the German commander takes
Dolan to see the space critter. The
reporter denies any knowledge of the alien,
but the Germans don’t believe
him. (Here
we
finally get a good look at the monster, and
frankly, it’s kind of cute.)
A
heavily escorted caravan arrives, and a very
short -- and very familiar, mustachioed
Nazi gets out of the main car. The little
Nazi walks in and orders them
to -- (and my German is a little rusty, but
the gist of it is) -- take the
monster back to Berlin, immediately. He
inspects the prisoners dog tags and makes fun of
Mittens' Polish heritage. Mittens picks
this time to wake up and clocks the little
German right in the face. (Leading
to the films funniest line -- although I
have a feeling Mittens would have been
shot on the spot.)
After
the little Nazi and his entourage leave, the SS starts to break camp.
Dolan and Mittens are back in the kennels,
and the
alien is loaded up on a truck. A guard approaches
them and we realize its
Verona in disguise. The big Kraut who
beat up Mittens checks on the prisoners, and grills
Verona, in German, about his shabby appearance.
(Verona’s
answer to everything is "Ja" -- the
only German he knows, which leads to high
comedy.)
The conversation quickly goes nowhere, so Verona knocks him
out. He releases the
others and tells them to head for the
truck the alien's on, which Stone has
already commandeered.
Dolan and Verona climb in back and toss
out the German scientists. Mittens
climbs in front and starts
blasting the camp with his machine gun. (His
first target is the big Kraut who beat him
up.) They
drive around and demolish
the camp, and then make for their escape.
But
before
they can get clear, a German bazooka man draws
a bead on them. Seeing this, the alien grabs the weapon
Verona stole from the corpse, turns it
on, creating a force field, and the
projectile bounces off harmlessly. After
going a safe distance, the GI's abandon
the truck and head into the woods, where
they
find a cave and hole up for the
night.
Stone
asks Dolan to take a walk with him. With Dolan’s timely
arrival coinciding with the discovery of
the spaceship, Stone
smells a conspiracy. He thinks SHAEF, Ike, and
Roosevelt has to know what’s going on
here; but Dolan swears all he was here to do
was a story on the Iron Sarge.
When
they
head back, Stone asks,
"What’s this crap about Mittens
clocking Hitler?"
Back
in the cave, Verona and Mittens discover
that Bug (the
aliens new pet name)
likes to eat cigarettes. They trade their
last smokes for a device that projects
mental images. Verona projects a stunning
brunette and starts to make out with her.
Not wanting to be left out Mittens takes
the doohickey and tries to think up a
blonde, but overloads it, causing the other
illusion to disappear. Dolan
and Stone come back and see that Bug has Verona’s
gun. Stone
thinks they should tie the creature up, but
Verona won’t let him, saying Bug is just
scared; it’s in a strange place, where
everyone’s trying to kill him. He asks
Stone if that sounds familiar. They all
read it loud and clear. That said, they
all settle down for the night.
The
next morning, they find Bug's hibernation cocoon empty and the alien gone. It
couldn’t have gotten far, so they gear up
and go looking for it. They don’t go
very far
before spotting another alien ship,
but it's empty. (This
time it landed safely. I assume the other
one was shot down by the Nazis.) From
out of the woods, Bug and four other,
taller aliens,
masked in large metal helmets, approach
the GIs. Sarge asks cautiously, "What
army are you guys with?" Bug tells
the other aliens to lower their weapons,
and the soldiers do the same. The other aliens remove their helmets, and
aside from the powder blue skin and white
hair, appear almost human. (I
knew the Blue Man Group wasn’t from
around here.)
One of them sticks a gizmo in his ear. Verona
figures out that it’s a translator and asks
where they’re all from, but the aliens
ignore him and start to board the
retrieval ship. Mittens asks if they have
any female Martians with them. The head alien points to Bug, and says
--
in
surprisingly good English,
"The Thrackian is a female."
Mittens and Verona stare at her
dumbfounded. Stone
asks if they can fly them
back to friendly lines; but blue-boy gives
them the old Prime Directive excuse. (We
can’t interfere, blah, blah blah...It
never stopped Captain Kirk.)
As the aliens strap themselves in, a
Panzer rumbles into view. Stone orders
everyone to to take cover. The other aliens bail
off but Bug is frozen. Verona leaps to her
rescue, just as the tank fires. Bug
survives the shell's impact -- Verona doesn’t. The
blue-aliens quickly disintegrate the tank.
While
the aliens repair their ship, Stone and
Mittens bury Verona. Keeping watch, Dolan
spies an entire platoon of SS troops headed their way. Stone
again asks the aliens
for some assistance, but they won’t help the
humans kill each other. Mittens tries to
convince them there’s a big difference
between them and the Nazis, but they
won’t listen. Despite
all this, Stone doesn’t want the Germans
to
get their hands on the aliens, or their
ship, and promises to hold them off
until they get launched. After
the GI's leave to face the rapidly
approaching enemy, Bug
starts to plead with the other aliens.
Low
on ammo, Stone and the others set up their ambush up and
wait. They start blasting away when the
enemy gets close, and make a
good accounting of themselves, but are
quickly down to their last grenade. But
Stone has one more trick up his sleeve: he
surrenders, and asks to palaver with the
Nazi commander. Stone leaves his weapon
and ammo belt behind, and puts his hands
behind his head -- where he cradles the
last grenade. The Nazi commander promises
them safe passage back to their lines if
they take them to the alien. Stone says
they have a deal and wants to shake on it.
But instead of shaking, he stuffs the
grenade down the Nazis coat and the Kraut commander blows up real good.
Unfortunately, the Sarge is caught in the
explosion and falls. (Did
they finally get him?)
The
other Nazis close in on Dolan and Mittens,
and it appears to be the end for everyone, when
suddenly, the crack Nazi troops start
disintegrating in flashes of blue light.
Bug rushes to their side and hands out a
bunch of atomic death-ray guns. The
earthlings
quickly figure out how to fire them and
start blasting away. The tide turned, the Nazis quickly
discover that they are the ones who are
surrounded as the other aliens close the
pocket and annihilate the Krauts.
After
the
smoke clears and things settle down, the
aliens mount their ship and prepare to
leave. Mittens
nudges Dolan and points to the tail
fin. Dolan laughs at the "Killroy Was
Here" doodle. The ship launches and
the aliens safely get away. Mittens implores Dolan to write about what
happened. Dolan says he can’t because
there's no evidence -- and no one will ever
believe them. And fearing a Section-8 for
his new friend, he also warns Mittens not to
tell anyone about punching-out Hitler. Mittens
still thinks the story should be told, to honor his fallen comrades, and then
suggests Dolan sell the story to one of
Verona’s sci-fi comics. Dolan thinks
that sounds like a good idea.
As
the
two remaining GI’s head down a lonely
road
(hopefully
towards their own lines),
a shadowy figure appears
in
front of them. It couldn’t be a Kraut
because he would have fired at them -- and
Mittens quickly recognizes that silhouette.
It’s the Sarge! Alive and kicking, and
dying for a cigarette. (Man,
those things will kill you.)
The
big band swing kicks up again as we fade
to the latest issue of Fantastic
Action.
The cover shows a familiar ship, alien, and soldiers,
and the feature story is by Charlie Dolan,
and titled Zone
Troopers.
The
End
Well,
not quite:
Buy
War
Bonds.
Available in the lobby of this
theater.
The
End
Man,
do I love this movie. It ranks about an
eleven out of ten on the old fun-o-meter.
Affectionately known as Saving Private
Chewbacca in my household, the film
combines two of my favorite genres: the
gonzoid alien invasion flicks and the
gung-ho war movie, and it does this deftly
and surprisingly well, once you realize
who's all involved.
I
really like the retro-
style they used to match the old sci-fi
pulp comics of that era. The ships are big,
multi-colored monstrosities that are
aesthetically pleasing, but scientifically
impossible. The death- ray guns are big and
clunky, and the aliens wear those huge
honking helmets. The
F/X hold up pretty well -- even the critter costume is first
rate. And there
are no real big gaffs in the military
department, either. The Germans fire German guns,
and the GI’s fire GI guns. The uniforms
are authentic, and the combat sequences,
while not spectacular, aren’t
embarrassing either. (I
kept expecting Sgt. Saunders, Littlejohn,
Caje and Kirby to show up and lend a
hand.)
I'll
also take a quick aside to point out
that there are a couple of great sight gags in this
film, and the best has to be when Stone and Verona find the crash site. It appears to
be a forced perspective
shot with a scale model, but as Verona and Stone run
toward it -- and keep going and going and
going -- you realize they built the
mock-up to full scale!
The
film also stars two of my favorite
character actors of all time: Tim
Thomerson and Art La Fleur. If either of
these guys are in a film, I'll watch it. (And
these
two more than make up for Vincent Van
Patten.) Back in the day, Thomerson was
kind of a poor man's Bruce Campbell. And
he always had that great look of bewildered
befuddlement that endeared me to him. La
Fleur is one of those guys that's in
everything, and you
recognize his familiar mug but you can ever
remember his name. A kind of actor I like
to affectionately call "That
Guy."
Hollywood
can definitely learn a lesson here. It
takes a lot more than sensory overloading,
computer-generated F/X shots that drown
out the fact that you're overcompensating for a
lousy script to
make a good sci-fi movie. These old
gonzoid movies
had a sense of fun, and they had heart;
something sorely lacking in most sci-fi films
today.
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