I was originally going to do a review here for the 1969 Ray Bradbury adaptation The Illustrated Man. However, with my recent sorcerer problems and feeling that movie might be a little highbrow for this website (and because I used a cheap, defective DVD to burn my copy to), I decided on a last minute pinch-hitter: Zeta One. What's so amazing about the movie that I just HAD to review it? Meh, it just so happens that I downloaded a copy of it last month and it's one of the only other 1969 movies I have immediate access to. It was this or What Happened to Aunt Alice?, and since I'm always looking out for movies that begin with 'Z' (preferably that don't start with “Zombie”) this was the perfect choice. Come away with me now as we plumb the depths of deep space and deeper “spaces” in the British sci-fi sex comedy, Zeta One!

Zeta (pronounced “Zee-tah”) is the queen of an outer space Amazon colony called Angvia (pronounced “stupid anagram for the female sex organ”) with a very trippy and very catchy Barbarella-esque theme song (which spells out the main character's name in case we weren't able to read the DVD case or the title card). No surprise given that this sexy sci-fi comedy based on a comic strip was released the year after that sexy sci-fi comedy based on a comic strip. But, before we can get to all that Zeta stuff, we've got to meet a bumbling secret agent not-so-subtly named James Word (you know, cuz his word is his bond... *rimshot*). With a fake mustache half-glued to his face, Jimbo returns home from his latest mission to discover that his boss W's (harhar) personal secretary Anne has broken into his home to... wash his dishes!... and cook him dinner! Oh the horror.

Wielding the libido of a Miss Moneypenny but lacking the self-control, Anne's really there to bed the bold young bachelor secret agent. Before the bumping of not-so-uglies though, the blond bombshell wants to hear all about Jimmy's latest mission in Scotland... yeah, nothing more erotic than sharing secret government information with a shady slut of a co-worker. Those wacky British and their foreplay! But first, there's the most uninteresting game of strip poker to be played! The words “gratuitous runtime padding” come to mind. That, or I'm guessing the makers of the movie had no real script or plot to go by, so they just decided to throw these two actors together in an apartment and told 'em to make it up as they went along until the writers finally came up with something to make the actual movie about! When a movie start with TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES OF POINTLESS FILLER, my immediate thoughts are that the next hour and a half of my like are going to wind up in the “I wish I'd done something useful with my life” section of my memoirs, somewhere between the chapters about how I wasted a year of my life in community college and how I've spent a decade building a website that nobody cares about...

After a 2 hour game of strip poker (during which the dinner probably burned into a pile of inedible shit 45 minutes in), Anne finally wins and gets her wish: James tells her about his mission to Scotland... but only as a substitute for pillow talk after he shoots her Octopussy with his Golden Gun. Either way, we FINALLY get to some semblance of a story! It'd be impossible for me to care less about it at this point though, so I'm just going to go do a few shots and take a nap. Don't forget to lock up on your way out. Oh, and don't steal any of my porn while I'm asleep either!

Okay, you got me. I'd be a worse reviewer than I already am if I started reviewing movies I didn't finish, so I'll do this before I get buzzed and pass out. You happy now? Well, you won't be by the time this movie's over... According to Slim Jim, Angvia is like an intergalactic ant colony populated by space lesbians. They have a caste system over which Queen Zeta is the big-hair having chick in charge. Because there aren't any 'Y' chromosomes in the colony, it's impossible for Zeta's people to reproduce. Instead, they go to Earth, kidnap women, then bring them back to the Pink Planet as new “recruits”. And if you try telling me that “just because they're a bunch of women living together doesn't mean they're lesbians!”, try explaining why they all dress in sexy little outfits and wear makeup if they're not trying to look good for each other? Exactly. Proving that Captain Kirk isn't Earth's only galactic poon hound, some villainous type named Major Borden apparently has designs to take over Angvia. To foil the Major's plot, James's agency put a tail on Borden's lackey Swyne (as played by the nervous little nuisance who played Yellowlees in The Terrornauts) who himself is tailing a pair of Zeta's henchbabes who all have '60s bimbo hairdos, knee length orange coats, and white go-go boots... and kinda look like dudes... though most '60s British women looked like drag queens to begin with, so I guess that helps them blend in.

Borden tries to find the location of Angvia by getting to Zeta's next target first and turning her into a double agent for him. The girl, a stripper whose friends call her Ted, falls for Borden's story that he himself is the government agent and he needs her help to save the world from being overtaken by a population of women... who will all sync up their periods and unleash a literal wave of terror on the planet? How they intend to take over the world isn't explained, but whatever the case it looks like Ted's fallen for Major B's scheme. James is tasked with intercepting Ted to interfere with Borden's plot, but gets sidetracked when one of Zeta's ladies materializes from nowhere to have sex with him... Don't get me wrong, I'd be lying if I said I'd reject a horny blond go-go chick, but I think my brain would outrank my prick if said go-go chick random materialized behind me out of thin air in my apartment! That, and the fear of something like Space AIDS eating through my condom and killing me would make me have to REALLY reconsider putting my pecker where no man has gone before.

While Agent Word is contracting radioactive pubic lice the size of jumbo prawn, Teddy gets kidnapped by Zeta's agents, transported to Angvia courtesy of one of their magic teleportational UPS trucks, then run through some kind of clothing dissolving LSD washing machine spine cycle. Back on Earth, things take a turn from the “wacky and sexy” to the “exploitive and dirty” when Borden gets his hands on one of Zeta's scouts. Stripping her to her outer space undies, they drag her to Borden's attic of sadism and put her on the rack. Zeta reassigns Word's space whore out to save her comrade from Borden's torments, meanwhile Ted tries to escape from Angvia via scenes of her crawling through ventilation ducts. When that doesn't work, she lassos a pair of Zeta's “elite” fighting lesbians. Well, if Earth only needs one stripper for every two Angvians, I guess we're pretty secure against this global invasion the Borden was talking about! And to think, some people actually look down on women taking their clothes off in dives for money as a way of filling in for the lack of parenting they received as kids! I always said that strippers would one day save the world, and I was right. I'll take my apologies in tens and twenties thank you.

Ted then crawls through some more ventilation ducts before trying to attack Zeta. She immediately gets knocked out (THOUGH HER EYES ARE WIDE OPEN!) by a judo chop from another Angvian, has her memories wiped clean, then gets dropped off back at her apartment. Back at Borden's Torture Shack, the Major continues interrogating his captive about the location of Angvia, repeatedly mentioning that Zeta has been ruining his plans for a long time and he's had enough of her... what exactly these plans are or how Zeta's been foiling them is never mentioned of course, just adding to the reasons that this movie should've been aborted like an incest baby well before it made it to the post-production phase. Whatever your stand on pro-choice or pro-production, the captive girl escapes and falls from the roof of Borden's pad, dying instantly. Space whore teleports the captive girl's body back to Angvia, but gets herself snagged in the process. Instead of putting her up on medieval torture devices in her skivvies though, Borden gives her the “Most Dangerous Game” treatment and goes fox hunting with space whore as the fox. Instead of just teleporting her out the same way she was teleported in, Zeta initiates “Action 69” and sends in her elite fighting dominatrices (fresh out of any comic geek's Wonder Woman fantasy) to save the day. I always enjoy when a woman initiates a 69...

Space whore (whose dress jumps back and forth from varying degrees of dishevel every time we see her) is saved as the killer dominatrices wipe out Borden's goons with their “exploding judo chops of doom” (which have to be seen to be... well... you still won't believe it once you've seen it!), the captive girls turns out to be alive somehow (and also wielding exploding judo chops of doom which she probably should've used when she was caught in the first fucking place!), and Agent Word shows up in fishing boots just in time to hunker down with space whore one last time. Cutting back to the whole story with Anne (yeah, they're actually going back to the worst part of the movie), of course it turns out that she's also an Angvian sent to seduce James and take care of the one person left on Earth who knows about their race ... by kidnapping him and harvesting his man chowder to make start making Angvian babies... while a hippie chick does the “I'm having violent seizures! Please call for help!” Elaine Benes dance nearby for no real reason. And for all of us who suffered through Terrornauts, we get the satisfaction of watching a St. Bernard take a bite out of the Swyne's ass. Finally, vindication!

Sadly, I didn't get boner one from watching this movie, so as a cure for Congo sorcerer black magic penis curses, I'd say try the little blue pill instead. Zeta One tries to be a sexy comedy with British wit, but it’s just not very funny. It’s actually pretty hard to watch for the first hour or so. There's a talking elevator gag when Word checks in with his superiors at secret agent headquarters that's kinda funny, but that's about as close as we get to something resembling a laugh… up until those amazing 3 minutes of the dominatrix thunderball fist explosion party that is, but even that isn't enough to make this a recommendation. The story is the definition of the term “clusterfuck”, forcing us through a maze of pointless crap and plot holes to get to a piece of cheese that just isn’t much of a reward. But, since I’m such a great guy to the few readers we do amass here, I’ve posted the movie’s few worthwhile minutes in a YouTube video you can link to through the trusty ol’ rolling head graphic at the bottom of the page. Guaranteed to be several of the most surreal moments of your life or your money back!... and since you paid nothing, you get nothing, so keep that in mind when you’re filling out the feedback form below with stuff like, “You suck! That wasn’t funny, it was just repulsive!” or the always popular “ur a mayjer fagut lolz go bak 2 ur traylur!”. Cheers!