The Killings At Outpost Zeta

Year releasted: 1980

by Keith Phipps
October 24th, 2001

Objects of horror tend to draw more heavily on the familiar than the strange, and tend to make more sense in the context of history. What is Godzilla, after all, if not a manifestation of Japanese anxiety in the aftermath of the atomic bomb? Attempting to exploit an untapped fear in 1980's The Killings At Outpost Zeta, directors Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler (who previously teamed for Death: The Ultimate Mystery, among other films) needed to look no further than their recent pop-cultural past. What is more familiar, after all, than rocks, objects so beloved that many consumers followed an urge to take them in as pets in the 1970s? But what if the rocks felt less fondly toward us? In a future not so distant that Space Invaders-quality computer graphics have become obsolete, peace has been secured by an organization called Starfleet, whose logo depicts a hand making the "okay" sign. But everything is not okay on Outpost Zeta, so Starfleet sends a motley crew of space explorers to learn why communication has broken down. Their first discovery: Outpost Zeta isn't such a great place. Its harsh conditions prompt one crew member to recite a few lines from "an early Earth poet named Danty," who was apparently inspired heavily by Dante. Their second discovery: The outpost's previous crew had discovered living rocks, which they'd proceeded to keep as pets. Soon, one crew member after another falls victim to the angry, blood-devouring rocks, but captain Stanley Wojno Jr. is quick to offer helpful advice. "Don't dwell on it," he suggests. With his wise words in mind, the survivors begin to devise anti-rock schemes that meet with no quick success. "We're rabbits trapped in a hole with the dogs sniffing all around us," one despairs. But Wojno is again quick to put just the right spin on the situation. "Even rabbits," he says, "have teeth." True enough, and before long the murderous alien pet rocks meet a fate familiar to their terrestrial counterparts, as Wojno lures them into a deep, dark pit, never to be seen again.