The British production company Tigon, which enjoyed success from the mid '60s to the mid '70s, has a lot to answer for. As well as acclaimed classics like Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL and Polanski's REPULSION, they released a glut of B-movies in the horror and exploitation genres most of which are must-sees for the British cult fan. ZETA ONE is one of their sexploitation efforts and generally an appalling movie, only to be watched for nostalgic purposes. The story is plot less drivel, lurching from one scene to the next with no continuity, and the lame sci-fi additions to the story simply consist of supposedly alien women (the only alien thing about them is their dress sense!), who stand in a darkened room with silly-looking sets and lighting and spout nonsensical drivel about alien invasions which never happen. It's hideously dated of course, whether in the garish attire or in sequences in which people float around in dark rooms with lava-lamp footage superimposed over the top.
The paucity of the budget is very much in evidence in the first twenty minutes of the movie, which consists of two characters sitting in a flat, flirting a lot and finally engaging in a silly, never-ending game of strip poker which will test the patience of even the most hardened bad-movie lover. After this timewasting footage finally grinds to a halt, we get lots of interconnected characters like a secret society of sadists; aliens kidnapping earth women and the "hero" of the piece, a wannabe James Bond spy who spends all of his screen time bedding naked women (I don't know why they bother - he's pretty repulsive). The fact that his moustache appears and disappears throughout the film suggests some kind of post-production problems and tampering with footage.
After endless scenes of naked and half-naked women wandering around aimlessly, the finale arrives, an action sequence set in the woods in which loads of alien women (dressed in VERY skimpy clothing) arrive and zap the male bad guys. Well, I say zap, but really all they do is stretch out their arms and the men fall down dead, with an appropriate sound effect superimposed over the action. It's so cheap that this scene is laughably incredible. All of the female cast (aside from Dawn Addams, wasted as the alien queen) lose their clothing for various silly reasons, and the camera is always on hand to capture them crawling through air vents or being stripped in a makeshift torture chamber! Robin Hawdon is the spy, and I think it's pretty fair to say that he's a very bad actor indeed - perhaps one of the worst I've seen! Amateurish at all times and totally incompetent...it comes as no surprise that he was never heard of again. Two 'big names' have been drafted in to give the film some kind of status. The first is James Robertson Justice who sleepwalks through his performance and picks up the cheque at the end, and the second is the inimitable Charles Hawtrey who has some of the funniest sequences in the film and is a delight as ever - in fact he's one of the main reasons to watch and he makes an effort too. Don't you just love the man? Most of the female cast are unknown and can't act (for obvious reasons), but B-stars Valerie Leon and Yutte Stensgaard are a welcome sight amongst the rest of the heaving naked female flesh. Sometimes fun, mainly dull, this inexplicable offering is for those fans who are VERY forgiving for their movie's lackings - I don't think anyone would claim that this is a good film at all.
The paucity of the budget is very much in evidence in the first twenty minutes of the movie, which consists of two characters sitting in a flat, flirting a lot and finally engaging in a silly, never-ending game of strip poker which will test the patience of even the most hardened bad-movie lover. After this timewasting footage finally grinds to a halt, we get lots of interconnected characters like a secret society of sadists; aliens kidnapping earth women and the "hero" of the piece, a wannabe James Bond spy who spends all of his screen time bedding naked women (I don't know why they bother - he's pretty repulsive). The fact that his moustache appears and disappears throughout the film suggests some kind of post-production problems and tampering with footage.
After endless scenes of naked and half-naked women wandering around aimlessly, the finale arrives, an action sequence set in the woods in which loads of alien women (dressed in VERY skimpy clothing) arrive and zap the male bad guys. Well, I say zap, but really all they do is stretch out their arms and the men fall down dead, with an appropriate sound effect superimposed over the action. It's so cheap that this scene is laughably incredible. All of the female cast (aside from Dawn Addams, wasted as the alien queen) lose their clothing for various silly reasons, and the camera is always on hand to capture them crawling through air vents or being stripped in a makeshift torture chamber! Robin Hawdon is the spy, and I think it's pretty fair to say that he's a very bad actor indeed - perhaps one of the worst I've seen! Amateurish at all times and totally incompetent...it comes as no surprise that he was never heard of again. Two 'big names' have been drafted in to give the film some kind of status. The first is James Robertson Justice who sleepwalks through his performance and picks up the cheque at the end, and the second is the inimitable Charles Hawtrey who has some of the funniest sequences in the film and is a delight as ever - in fact he's one of the main reasons to watch and he makes an effort too. Don't you just love the man? Most of the female cast are unknown and can't act (for obvious reasons), but B-stars Valerie Leon and Yutte Stensgaard are a welcome sight amongst the rest of the heaving naked female flesh. Sometimes fun, mainly dull, this inexplicable offering is for those fans who are VERY forgiving for their movie's lackings - I don't think anyone would claim that this is a good film at all.