Au-delà du réel The Zanti Misfits (1963–1965) Online

Featuring probably the best remembered of all "The Outer Limits" monsters, "The Zanti Misfits" concerns Earth being forced to accept the criminal element of another planet. An arriving Zanti penal ship with it's hostile cargo on board is set to land in an unpopulated desert area. There the "misfits" will serve their time isolated from human contact. Then things go horribly wrong when two criminals of the human variety (a bank robber and his female accomplice) break into the restricted landing area. Taking this incursion as a threatening breach of their deal, the aliens attack both the bank robbers and later the military headquarters overseeing the operation.

The first half of the episode is quite absorbing as we learn the particulars of this strange interplanetary exchange, and the setup keeps us nicely on edge as we await a first glimpse of the aliens (hideous ant-like creatures with humanoid faces).

Unfortunately the pace slows to a tedious shuffle whenever the story switches to the bank robbers. The guy is a sleaze, the woman a tiresome, self-loathing drag. Neither character enhances the episode in the slightest except when the injured boyfriend meets a shivery end as one of the bugs slowly crawls up his leg.

Though the episode's premise is an interesting one, the wild little Zantis are the real attraction here. Ambitious for a TV show of that era, the nasty alien bugs are given the illusion of movement through the time-consuming technique of stop-motion animation. Kids who are used to more sophisticated computer generated effects might not be too impressed, but anyone who saw this episode back in the day is sure to recall how memorably disturbing these insectoid little reprobates were. The assault on the military HQ is also a highlight featuring lots of well-staged action and Zantis being blown away at point blank range.

It's not a perfect episode but it sure has teeth. Little razor sharp teeth.

"There is nothing wrong with your television set…"

In the appropriately named ghost town of Morgue, California, the "historian of interplanetary events" known as Prof. Michael Tolan (as Stephen "Steve" Grave) meets stone-faced Maj. Claude Woolman (as Roger Hill) to prepare for a penal spaceship from the "perfectionist rulers of the planet Zanti." Personnel at the military base hope the top secret landing will be peaceful, but the Zanti are not giving Earthlings any choice in the matter; refusing to allow "The Zanti Misfits" landing without incident will result in the "total destruction" of Earth...

Gen. Robert F. Simon (as Maximillian R. Hart) assures the Zanti they may land, but the aliens suspect trouble. "Do not betray us," they warn. However, boozing bank robber Bruce Dern (as Ben Garth) and his tightly-wound lover Olive Deering (as Lisa Lawrence) crash into the scene, with a wad of stolen money and an overheated car. Imaginatively directed by Leonard Horn and intelligently written by "Outer Limits" producer Joseph Stefano, with a wonderful soundtrack and one of the most memorable alien life forms ever seen on television...

"We now return control of your television set to you…"

********** The Zanti Misfits (12/30/63) Leonard Horn ~ Michael Tolan, Olive Deering, Robert F. Simon, Bruce Dern

Yet another winner from the original Outer Limits, The Zanti Misfits is an oddly plotted tale of the invasion of a secret military installation by creatures in a space ship who resemble bugs with faces and have an aggressive attitude. There's a minimum of scientific gobbledygook in the show, as it comes close to being a straight horror after a certain point, and the desolate desert setting (in a town called Morgue!) suggests the science fiction pictures of Jack Arnold from a few years earlier.

Into this setting drive criminal on the lam Bruce Dern and his upper class girlfriend, Olive Deering. Their encounter of the out of space misfits with the terrestrial ones is spooky, as everyone behaves badly, however the Zantis behave more badly. As things turn out the space ship is a penal colony sent to earth by the otherwise peaceful planet of Zanti, who are too kind to kill their own, so they send them to us, knowing that we earthlings are up to the job! The acting in this one is mediocre aside from Miss Deering, who portrays her neurotic Tennessee Williams-like character with relish.

One of the most memorable, iconic episodes of the 60s series, Outer Limits, "The Zanti Misfits" concerns a quiet little guarded outpost in the desert, run by a select group of the American military, in a town once known as "Morgue, California" will serve as a "prison spot" for the planet Zanti's misfits and criminals, those that were unable to exist on their world in a humane or socially acceptable manner, exiled on Earth as punishment for their crimes or inappropriate behavior. Heading the outpost is the hopeful General Maximillian R. Hart (Robert F Simon), who firmly believes their operation can work without error as long as the quarantined area is maintained by the posted sentries guarding access. Right before the Zanti ship arrives, a couple on the lam—no-good crook, three-strikes-you-are-going-to-prison, Ben Garth (Bruce Dern!) and runaway adulterous married harlot, Lisa (Olive Deering, in a role portraying a woman attracted to danger and realizing too late the misfortunes of her decision to flee with Ben)—drive through a fenced area of the Zanti-zone, killing the guard, ultimately headed right into the direction where the Zanti prison ship is supposed to land. Soon, a Zanti alien is killed, as is Ben, with Lisa on the run. Worse even, the Zanti prisoners decide to land right into the location where the military is outposted, resulting in a battle Hart did not desire, fearing retaliation from the Zanti world who entrusted in them to keep their misfits safe from harm. It is only realized that there was other intentions by the Zanti world, in regards to our abilities as "practiced executioners". The story here does not hold the US in high regard when it pertains to what we are willing to do to criminals/misfits, those anti-social pariahs rather dysfunctional and unable to co-exist with the world around them in a suitable way. Bruce Dern's character is such an example—the fact he suffers a terrible fate to another kind considered just as corrupt from another planet is rather profound to me. Anyway, the visual image of the giant ants with human faces is rather unsettling; the stop-motion is thrilling. Even the shadows of them crawling down walls are enough to make your skin crawl. Good performances and a suspenseful final sequence where the military must fight off the Zanti misfits (the camera captures the look of sweaty anxiety and slowly-mounting terror on the faces of the soldiers especially well), and some strong dialogue (war correspondent, Professor Stephen Grave (Michael Tolan) speaking to Hart about having his moment in history, offering to work as an emissary in the hopes of talking the Zantis into not rushing into judgment about the break in quarantine, is such a scene) really heighten the quality of this particular episode of The Outer Limits. The desert location used in the episode is also a really disheartening sight as it furthermore illustrates the conditions for which we are willing to place those deemed not fit to function in society, Zanti or Human. "Morgue, California" written on a sign lain on the ground, a tumbleweed passing across it at the very end, just shortly after surviving soldiers are burning the remains of the misfits, is a chilling moment on this classic episode of The Outer Limits. Pay attention to dialogue when the Zanti planet's people speak of their inability to execute their criminals, a "perfectionist" group of lifeforms unwilling to tolerate malcontents, in relation to our system for handling things when they get out of hand...

The US military must deal with insect-type aliens.

I like this episode but I don't like way it is often mentioned whenever anyone brings up The Outer Limits series. There were several episodes of the series that were ten times better than this.

However, the nice contrast of alien insects, the US military and the drop out character played by Bruce Dern make this hour fun to watch.

The music is well matched to the hour and the location filming is pleasing to the eye.

If you like Bruce Dern in this I would consider tracking down QM's The Fugitive series as Bruce Dern appeared in that show FIVE times.

Earth is contacted by planet Zanti representatives that explains that they will bring outcasts from their society to be exiled on Earth. They do not want a war so they demand a place to land. The military puts the ghost town Morgue, in California, under siege and offers the spot to the Zanti. However, a car with a runaway wife and her lover breaks the barricades and stops near the landing area. What will happen to the Earthlings and the Zanti?

"The Zanti Misfits" is another silly episode of "The Outer Limits". The beginning is promising but the conclusion is terrible. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Os Desajustados de Zanti" ("The Zanti Misfits")

I remember seeing this for the first time and thinking those ugly little ant guys with their threatening faces were the stuff of nightmares. A spaceship is about to land with permission of the U.S. government. The alien culture has said that they are sending a group of prisoners and misfits to Earth. They are to be confined to a place in the desert. If Earth does not comply, God knows what they will do to us. A military installment has been put in a ghost town to oversee the arrival. Everything is fine until Bruce Dern, a bank robber, and his hyped up girlfriend break through a checkpoint, guarded by one guy. He is killed by their car and they make their way into the confined area. Their car overheats and they are stuck without water. Dern is nuts and has domination over the women. He becomes curious when he sees a tiny spaceship has landed on a rock edifice. When he goes to investigate, he is startled and falls into a crevice. Some of the aliens exit the ship. They are large ants with expressive faces, very threatening. An historian who has been writing about the whole process volunteers to check things out as the head of the operation tries to convince the aliens that the invaders are not part of the plan; that they have barged in on the scene. The little ants chase the woman and she is rescued by the historian and brought back to the control center. The story has to do with how we would confront such an unknown which threatens our way of life. The woman (who will probably be charged with being an accessory to robbery and murder) represents the cynical fears of the citizen toward the government. She seems to have nothing to lose and presents a sad subplot. It's obvious that she has never really taken a stand in her life and now that life may be over.

If I were forced to hazard a guess as to which episode of "The Outer Limits" was the absolute favorite amongst viewers, I would say that it was episode #14..."The Zanti Misfits," which premiered on 12/30/63. Not that this would be MY personal pick--for me, that would be "Corpus Earthling," with "The Invisibles" being a close second. I have always had a huge liking for "The Zanti Misfits," of course, and indeed, any "OL" fan or any fan of science fiction in general really would have a hard time resisting this classic outing. In a recent "TV Guide" survey of the "100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time," "The Zanti Misfits" placed at a very respectable Number 98, an indication of its impact upon generations of viewers. Still, I have long felt that this episode's appeal lies mainly in its oh-so-memorable creatures rather than in any inherent qualities of the episode itself. Last night's rerererererewatch, for me, has served to upgrade my opinion of this beloved ep, although I am still not ready to place it on my personal Top 10 "Limits" list.

In this episode, an historian named Stephen Grave (played by Michael Tolan) arrives at the ghost town of Morgue, California. He is there to record for posterity a truly epochal event. The rulers of the planet Zanti have forcefully coerced the U.S. government to set aside a cordoned-off section of desert to be used as a penal colony of sorts for some of their condemned criminals. The tiny spaceship lands (I've always thought that this ship should have been a bit larger), and all seems to be going well, until psycho bank robber Ben Garth (Bruce Dern, here at the very beginning of his most impressive career) uses his automobile to crash through one of the perimeter gates, killing a sentry in the process. Garth is accompanied by a runaway wife, Lisa, who is portrayed by Olive Deering and who many may recall from her roles in such films as "Caged" (1950) and the 1956 version of "The Ten Commandments" (playing Moses' sister Miriam). The couple's intrusion into the forbidden area leads to the emergence of the Regent of the Zantis, and thus, we get to see one of the alien race for the first time: antlike (actually, they look something like the Cootie bugs of the popular 1949 game), foot-long, goggle-eyed, small-toothed, and whiskered (!) little demons who emit a horrendous buzzing sound whenever they appear. Garth is killed by the Regent (how is never quite adequately explained; do the Zantis bite their victims with their teensy choppers, or inject a poison, or merely scare their victims to death?), and Lisa is pursued through the desert by the Regent afterward (not the most suspenseful chase in screen history, as these Zantis are hardly what you'd call fast moving; I had a water bug in my apartment once that moved around 20 times more rapidly). Ultimately, the Zanti prisoners escape and engage in a pitched battle with the forces of the U.S. Army back in Morgue, leading to one ironic twist ending, indeed.

To be fair, the look of those darn Zantis is so very unique, so imaginative, that they are absolutely unforgettable; truly, one of the greatest alien creations in a series that provided the viewer with so very many. They are brought to life with winning stop-motion animation, and the four Zantis who we see in close-up look fantastically convincing. That said, however, it must also be reported that this episode also sports some of the LEAST convincing FX in the series' 1 1/2-season run. I am thinking especially of the scenes toward the end, where we see the Zantis climbing down a wall and engaged in battle. In these scenes, the stop-motion technique apparently could not be utilized, and so we witness what looks for all the world like little toys being pulled around on a wire. The sight of the Zanti spaceship coming in for a landing in the desert also looks extremely unconvincing...almost like something out of "Plan 9." Another disappointing element of the film is that most of the characters are undeveloped, especially Ben Garth, who only gets around five minutes' worth of dialogue before he is dispatched. Still, as I say, the episode has much to offer. It is never better, strangely enough, than in its early scenes, in which we see the soldiers nervously awaiting the Zantis' arrival and listening to their very strange communications coming from space. Character actor Robert F. Simon is very fine as the commanding general in charge, while someone named Claude Woolman offers terrific support as a very nervous major. Joesph Stefano's script is an interesting and mordant one, replete with that twist ending, while director Leonard Horn (who had previously helmed the "OL" classic "The Man Who Was Never Born" and would soon direct another first-season "OL" ep, "The Children of Spider County") provides us with some interesting close-ups and oddly angled camera setups, such as that POV shot from within the Zanti spaceship as Garth tries to peer inside. A good part of this episode was filmed at the Vasquez Rocks area outside of L.A., where, in another three years or so, somebody named James T. Kirk would engage in pitched battle with another grotesque life-form, the Gorn. And this ep features the best use of a woman screaming the name "Ben!!!!" in screen history...other than, of course, Katharine Ross in the 1967 classic "The Graduate." In all, a truly memorable if not particularly top-grade "Outer Limits" hour, but one that is deservedly beloved and remembered for those darn Zanti misfits. If only they weren't so nasty, I feel they would make for some pretty cool pets....

Here are some little-known but unverified facts about this episode :)

* The given name for the Planet Zanti is Zant; Zanti is actually a nickname. Zanti was chosen as the planet's name to make it less than obvious that the planet was named for an ant. It's also because it rhymes with "auntie", as in "Zanti Mame". The large mounds of earth and rock near the Zanti spaceship are known as "zanthills".

* The inspiration for the humanoid faces on the Zantis was the 1958 horror film "The Fly", which featured, near the end of the film, a fly with the head and arm of a human being (Al Hedison). However, the fly even sounded human ("Help me! Help me!"), having exchanged atoms with a scientist, whereas the Zantis only buzzed, disturbingly so. "The Fly" then evolved, or de-evolved (either word is correct depending upon your point of view) into the 1986 film version, in which the entire scientist becomes a hybrid of a fly and a human being.

* Ben Garth, the Bruce Dern character, didn't use the gun in the glove compartment to attack or defend against the Zanti Misfits, because he knew it wasn't loaded.

In California we have giant flesh colored ants called Jerusalem Crickets. The first time I saw one, it seriously creeped me out, to the point that I couldn't pick it up to put it outside, as I usually do, but instead I hit it with a shoe. That was a mistake, as it was very fleshy. Anyway, this episode reminded of my first encounter with a Jerusalem Cricket. I kept saying, "Put down that gun and take off your shoe!"

What is a lot more disturbing today about this episode is the way it resonates with current politics. A foreign power is sending us it's undesirables. Criminals and malcontents are lumped together. Both categories can only be dealt with by execution. How many of the 'misfits' were communists, I wonder. And the solution is to shoot wildly!

In the desert town of Morgue, California, an assembled group of military and scientific personnel await the dreaded arrival of an alien ship carrying exiled prisoners from the planet Zanti, whose leaders have communicated to Earth officials that they had better let it land, or risk severe retaliation in response. They cooperate, but a runaway car carrying two wanted criminals breaks the barricade and crashes near the ship, which may lead to disastrous consequences...or will it matter at all? Famous episode because of the memorable design(and sound) of the Zanti creatures, which are larger ants with distorted human faces! Effective for its sheer audacity, though does teeter a bit to the comical at times. Nice(if obvious) end twist as well.

How frightening? Well, I saw it just once, 55 years ago, and still sort of shudder when I recall those horrible little ant-things crawling on people.

Prescient? One of the themes of this episode is drone warfare - which, of course, did not exist yet at the time. But the issues that drones would raise were somehow understood. At the beginning of the episode, they're bragging about "A new kind of army - machines. The big advantage is, they don't bleed." Then at the end of the episode, after the army sees the mess it's made: "I've studied history. Something is missing unless the clean edge of participation is there."

And of course, I shuddered again upon re-watching the episode and saw the horrible ant-things getting massacred, and their leader says, "We knew that you would not live with such aliens in your midst."

I wonder what sort of series "The Outer Limits" would have been like had it had a decent budget. I've heard interviews with several of the guest stars (such as Robert Kulp) who said that the show had a shoestring budget and the props department had to make aliens out of the likes of paper cups and the like. As a result, sometimes the aliens looked darned stupid--especially when seen today. So, while "The Zanti Misfits" is a pretty good story, the alien creatures are amazingly dumb and really take you out of the story.

The episode finds that Earth and the Zanti home world have contacted each other. And, it seems that the Earth has agreed to take some of the Zanti prisoners (their 'misfits') onto a small base in the desert. However, these misfits turn out to be homicidal little cootie toy-like beings and they seem bent on killing. So what are the poor humans to do?! I'd say more but it might spoil the show.

Overall, incredibly original and clever. BUT, also incredibly silly. Sometimes the Zanti look decent enough (when they are moving via stop-motion) but most of the time they are just big bugs being pulled by strings--and it's very, very lame. Worth seeing but unintentionally funny.