It runs 1 hour and 32 minutes of Dali time, scored 4.4/10 from 212 friends and relatives of the producer on the IMDB.
Outpost Zeta is a crucial toehold in a vital part of the galaxy. OK. The original garrison went off the air. A rescue mission went in, and it, too, went silent. Then a second. Still nothing. Gulp! Whatever is going on at Zeta, it is not good.
DVD cover.
A third rescue team of volunteers is assembled, who then dutifully make last wills and testaments. That is a sobering beginning to this low budget creature feature. They are five in number or is it six. They are slain one by one. No wonder, to defend themselves from the unknown and unseen menace they have caulking guns! Still less do they wear any body armour or space suits. The tip jar did not run to such accoutrements but the local hardware store had caulking guns on special.
When arriving at Zeta, they find a space buoy with a message from one of the benighted rescue teams warning them off. Needless to say, this warning is disregarded and they land.
Mercifully we get no backstory for these volunteers. One pales to think what this screen writer would have done with that. Mawkish, adolescent, trite, these are the words the come to mind. Yet none of them strikes this viewer as the volunteering type, pursed lips or not. They are too young to be fatalistic. They are so unlined and unwrinkled, do they have the experience and cool heads to survive where others have, evidently, not.
The squeamish medical doctor is a woman and there is not one demeaning, derogatory, or sexist remark from the Sensitive New Age Soon-to-be-Dead Men. There is also a woman scientist who squawks about the hindrance of security. Yes, one would belittle security after eighteen mysterious deaths. Sure. She is the first to go, and ‘Good riddance!’ shouted the fraternity brothers.
The team does show interest in this strange and alien world. This fact is worth noting because in many B Sy Fy entries the explorers of new worlds show no interest in the new world. These six do. There are a couple of other things to like mentioned below.
The acting is pursed lips, furrowed brows, open-mouthed stares, and many blank looks. The directing is leaden. The production values are homemade. We get a few creature’s eye view that lets the air out of the mystery too early. There is also much heavy breathing. Much.
But the surface of Zeta is eerie and forbidding with an orange filter on the lens and I got to like their red jumps suits and visored white crash helmets. I liked the landscape because it did look strange, unlike so many of these Z movies where the alien world is the producer’s backyard, and looks it. I liked the visored helmets because they were used, not opened for close-ups. It put distance between the viewer and the players with some verisimilitude. Contrast this latter point to ‘Arrival’ (2016) where the safety mask is removed almost immediately for close-ups thereafter. Such is the ego of actors.
The fashion on Zeta
Moreover, I liked the creature, some moving hot rocks. Why like murderous hot rocks? Because they are the descendants, surely, of the Horta from ‘The Devil in the Dark’ of Star Trek the Original Series in series one in 1967.
This film, however, lacks the mystery and the compassion of the Star Trek episode. It is played strictly as a hot-rock-creature feature, not an existential rumination on sentience, consciousness, communication, and compassion.
No surprise to see that none of those associated with this film have substantial CVs on the IMDb.
Skip to content