After their screenplay for Trancers (1985) was turned into a hit by director/producer Charles Band, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo were rewarded with the opportunity of writing and directing their own film. With both men at the typewriter and Bilson behind the camera, Zone Troopers was financed by Band’s Empire Pictures and was the first of the many films produced by Band in Italy, making use of his recently acquired Castello di Give in Giove.

It’s 1944 and in Italy, a platoon of American soldiers led by the “Iron Sarge” (Tim Thomerson), a no-nonsense, hard to kill G.I., is ambushed by German troops. Only four men make it out alive – Sarge, green-behind-the-ears, science fiction nut Joey (Timothy Van Patten), the perpetually grumpy Mittens (Art LaFleur) and civilian reporter Dolan (Biff Manard). Stranded behind enemy lines, they struggle to stay clear of the many Germans patrolling the area as well as the battalion of S.S. troops stationed nearby. The latter have arrived to take delivery of a crashed spaceship and the alien passenger that survived. Mittens and Dolan are captured by the Nazi’s, Sarge and Joey turn up to rescue them taking the alien with them, and another group of aliens turn up in the nearby woods. Can Sarge and the boys keep the alien save, reunite her with her crewmates and stay out of the clutches of the Nazis?

Bilson seems to have a way with the typically meagre Empire budget, Zone Troopers looking a lot more polished and expensive than you might expect with lots of authentic looking period costumes and military hardware on display. Some of the battle scenes feel a little undermanned perhaps and John Carl Buechler’s special make-up effects look as plasticky and immobile as ever, but overall Zone Troopers is a very attractive looking film.

The script is a cut above too, full of great, snappy, tongue-in-cheek dialogue and lashings of comic book style. Bilson and De Meo knew they were writing an absurd B-movie and invite audiences to play along with them – yes, it’s a very silly film but that’s part of its immense charm. The literally indestructible Sarge, played by Trancers‘ Jack Deth himself, Tim Thomerson, is straight out of the more outré war comics that proliferated in the 50s and 60s (for example DC’s G.I. Combat or Weird War Tales), a tough-talking, square jawed Sgt Rock clone. The rest of the small cast are a lot of fun too, particularly Van Patten, La Fleur and Manard as the rest of Sarge’s diminished troop (Mittens clobbering Hitler (Alviero Martin) is a corny but undeniably funny moment).

Behind the camera, Band’s regular collaborators were well to the fore – it was edited by Ted Nicolaou (recently turned director himself with one of the stories in the anthology Ragewar (1984)), photographed by Mac Ahlberg and features one of Richard Band’s best scores (even if I does lift as shamelessly from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as Re-animator (1985) would lift from Psycho (1960)). As noted, Buechler’s bug-eyed alien is less than impressive and some of the optical effects have that cheesy 80s feel that you’ll either love or hate but overall this is a classier and funnier film than most of Empire’s very hit and miss output.

Special mention, though, should be made of the work of production designer Philip Dean Foreman who creates a full-sized crashed alien ship in a field and turns what is possibly an ordinary industrial corridor into a convincing and nicely lit interior. It’s a little miracle of low budget ingenuity that meets a spectacularly fiery end in a whopping great explosion.

Unashamedly pulpy, Zone Troopers isn’t to be taken seriously. It’s an affectionate throwback, an energetic and knowingly preposterous film that should keep you entertained for a harmless and fairly brainless hour and a half. It’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982) by way of The Dirty Dozen (1967) with a dash of Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971) (episodes of which Bilson’s father Bruce directed) and on that very simple level it works admirably.

Bilson and De Meo went on to write another 40s throwback, Joe Johnston’s under-rated The Rocketeer (1991) and then to create many genre television shows, among them the first small screen incarnation of DC’s The Flash (1990-1991), Viper (1994-1999), Human Target (1992) and The Sentinel (1996-1999). After a stint writing comics and helping to develop computer games (including several Harry Potter, James Bond, Command and Conquer and Medal of Honor titles) they returned to screenwriting with the script for Da 5 Bloods, finished shortly before De Meo’s death in 2018 and filmed by Spike Lee in 2019.