Zone Troopers (1985)

A group of American soldiers end up deep behind enemy lines in Italy during WWII. They're flabbergasted when they encounter some honest-to-God aliens and alien artifacts in the woods. The aliens are hard to read at first, not seeming to be on either side. Our heroes consist of the growling Sarge (Tim Thomerson) who clearly has as many lives as a cat, the earnest Joey (Timothy Van Patten), who digs pulp sci-fi magazines of the era, a corporal nicknamed "Mittens" (Art La Fleur), and war correspondent Dolan (Biff Manard).You know you're in for a good time when Hitler himself (Alviero Martin) shows up, basically so he can get decked in the face by Mittens. The actors are all very engaging and entertaining, especially the always amusing Thomerson, and "Class of 1984" villain Van Patten, who believes that the aliens must be from Mars. Granted, the characters sometimes do reckless and stupid things, but in a lark like this, that's not as much of an issue as it might ordinarily be. Co-writer / debuting director Danny Bilson maintains a fairly breezy tone, occasionally getting serious but never too, too serious. He and his co-writer Paul De Meo (their other credits include "Trancers" and "The Wrong Guys") have no pretensions about what kind of movie they're making, which helps. It's just amiable, straightforward, goofy fun.Visual effects are kept to a minimum, but the sets and props are nicely done, and the creature makeup (by John Carl Buechler and his team) is pretty good. A Charles Band production (his first to be filmed in Italy), it features a solid music score by Bands' brother Richard, and makes good use of the classic tune "In the Mood".It's hard not to have a smile on ones' face while watching this.Seven out of 10.

For some reason, IMDb does not list the estimated cost to make this film--something that they almost always give for each film. However, it doesn't take a genius to see that this film was done on the cheap--sort of like an Ed Wood or Roger Corman flick. You've only got a very small number of actors fighting for the Germans and Americans--even though it's supposed to be WWII (and this was a relatively large tiff). The acting is also only fair and the film didn't seem to go anywhere despite an interesting idea. Here's the idea--American and German soldiers are killing each other when, out of the blue, an alien lands! Now the idea of aliens disrupting WWII is a great idea and the writer Harry Turtledove did a wonderful series of alternative histories based on the premise. But in Turtledove's case, there are LOTS of aliens and lots of action, whereas in "Zone Troopers" they obviously had no budget, so you only get the bare minimum of everything. An interesting idea but nothing more.

An interesting flick from the 1980's that I am sorry to say I only watched for the first time today. I distinctly remember the cover art and recall seeing the VHS case several times while scanning the titles at my local rental stores over the years. I just never took the time to rent the film; always choosing some other flick - some good (Critters, Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead), and some not so good (Creepshow 2, Terrorvision, Spookies).A unique sequence of events led to me watching this film. A violent electrical storm hit early this morning and I was awoken to the sound of our dogs barking their heads off. I found myself unable to fall back asleep afterward so I decided to watch a bit of TV. I started scanning the guide and I happened to run across "Zone Troopers" on a local station and decided to finally watch it, and boy was I surprised. The movie was actually entertaining and I felt kinda bad for not giving it a chance years ago. Although the story is as far fetched as they come and the believability factor scores an 0.01 out of 100, I still found myself entertained and quite amused. 'Zone Troopers' is a solid 1980's Sci-Fi offering and is definitely worth the 1 and 1/2 hours it takes to watch it.

"Butt me Mittens" I loved this movie. Mittens woke up from his beating and gave Hitler one right in the kisser. It was cool. I love movies that are just plain fun. Don't over analyze this movie, just take it for what it is. Fun entertainment! Recommended schoppy7