Entry 99: Zone Troopers (1985)

Zone Troopers (1985)

Dir: Danny Bilson

"They take war to a new dimension"

   

Tonight, I'm in the mood for a war picture...but you can keep your goddamn Saving Private Ryans and your From Here to Eternitys; those movies don't have NEARLY enough laser guns and aliens in them!  Join me in the Basement of Sleaze as I journey back to the darkest days of WWII to spend a little time with the Zone Troopers!

Cut off behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Italy in 1944, legendary war hero "Iron Sarge (the always welcome Tim Thomerson, Trancers, Near Dark)" and his squadron (including Class of 1984's Timothy Van Patten, Cobra's Art LaFleur and Tancers' Biff Manard) come upon the remains of a crashed alien spacecraft.  Captured by the SS while exploring the vessel, our determined dogfaces meet their fellow captive: an insectoid, tobacco-eating alien creature being tortured and studied by the Nazis.  This dirty third-dozen hatches an escape plan and takes the E.T. with them, who manages to call down a raygun-packing rescue party (who, for some reason, look like boring albino humans).  Sarge convinces the aliens to have a team-up and they all enjoy a little Nazi ass-kicking together.  But will even this otherworldly firepower be enough to allow our boys to escape the border?  Oh yeah, even Hitler shows up at one point and gets punched in the face!

Goddamn, I LOVED this movie!  It's been criticized for being silly and comic bookish, but why is that a bad thing?  This plays EXACTLY like a bizarre Silver Age DC war comic (think along the lines of "The War That Time Forgot" or some of the more out-there stories in "G.I. Combat").  This film, from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, is 100% genre movie pleasure from beginning to end, with solid direction from Bilson and some great performances (Band regular Thomerson and Van Patten come off best).  Either Bilson is extremely talented at putting his entire budget up on screen, or this has higher production values than most Empire efforts, with great period-authentic costumes, weaponry and locations.  The primary alien design by John Carl Buechler is pretty boring/unconvincing, but that's a minor quibble.  Zone Troopers is rated PG, so you could happily enjoy it with the whole goddamn family, which isn't something I get to type too fucking often down here in the basement!  Co-writers Bilson and Paul DeMeo would go on to develop DC's The Flash into a short-lived television series a few years later.  Highly recommended; see it!