#Z.P.G.

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Z.P.G. | 1972

[sesiondemadrugada]

Z.P.G. (Michael Campus, 1972).

[movie-titlecards]

Z.P.G. (1972)

My rating: 4/10

Too silly to work as a dystopia, with its ridiculous realdoll children, giant video phones, and air-dropped execution domes, but too dreary to really be enjoyable for its camp.

[cinemajunkie70]

The happiest of birthdays in the afterlife to the ultimate hellraiser, Oliver Reed!

[cinemaquiles]

O futuro bizarro e incrível de "É proibido procriar!" (1972)

[brummie-man-interests]

The World Council has nevertheless reached a unanimous decision. I quote: "Because it has been agreed by the nations of the world that the Earth can no longer sustain a continuously increasing population, as of today, first of January, we join with all other nations of the world in the following edict: Child bearing is herewith forbidden!" Z.P.G. [1972]

[coolmoviemanmike]

I just watched Z.P.G. (1972)

[krasnimeanzred]

"Z.P.G. Zero Population Growth (1972) Review"

[viewerace]

Z.P.G. ~ 1972

[60sgroove]

Geraldine Chaplin as Carol McNeil in Z.P.G.: Zero Population Growth (1972) dir. Michael Campus

[stillsmybeatingheart]

[trashvideofinland]

Dead Kids / Z.P.G. (1972) Alfa-Panorama Film & Video Oy https://www.videospace.fi/release/dead_kids_nauha_alfapanorama_film_video_oy_finland

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Catching up....

I saw:

The Butcher Boy- A boy growing up in 1960s Ireland, seems a frightening young bully, the sort that threatens adults towering over him when he feels like it, and acts charming if it suits him. He has a host of problems. His father is a drunk with a violent streak while his mother has only the most tenuious grip of her own sanity. Even after his mother commits suicide he still has one bit of grounding in his life. He has a best friend who not only joins him in his games but acts as a check on his increasingly disturbed state. The boy focuses his anger on the mother of another kid, and when he acts on it he ends a reform school like setting. There the question of what is real and what is his delusion becomes more and more clear. When released the boy will find his friend has befriended the son of the woman he hates. Loosing his emotional anchor while his father drinks himself to death will have devistating consequences.

Believe it or not, in some ways this was a pitch black comedy. It’s narrated by the adult version of the boy, offering insights to his thinking that are often humorous in their contradiction to what we see him saying and demonstrating the boy’s lack of awareness of reality. That can be funny and tragic all at once. Emphasis on the tragic though. Dark and bleak and brutal, with a protagonist it’s easy to pity but impossible to love, it’s an interesting film. He reminded me far too much of some bullies I endured for me to really enjoy it.  

Z. P. G.- The title stands for zero population growth, the goal behind the laws that are behind the central problem for the main characters. In the future the world has become hideously overpopulated to the point where people get oxygen rations and fight over extremely rare fresh vegetables. After considering options such as euthanasia for a portion of the population, it is finally decided to simply outlaw child birth for thirty years. Considering the nightmarish state of the world and the horrifying other possibilities, this seems quite a reasonable idea. 

Unfortunately I see two big problems with their methods. First, they institute a draconian punishment for violators, implimented lynch mob style, that includes not just execution of the parents but the child. Reasonable as “no kids because humanity is to stupid not to over procreate” is, murdering kids is just the thing to make the government the baddies of the story. Secondly, rather than requiring some sort of long term birth control implant or some such, they use the honor system and voluntary  use of in home instant abortion machines. Since the film came out just before abortion was legalized, I wonder if the use by the government seen as the bad guys is to equate abortion with “bad”. That would be a strange way to think since clearly the Earth is horrifyingly overpopulated and abortions would have been the merest drop in the bucket to solving the problem.

One of the ways this world copes with the situation is by selling ugly interactive child dolls to those with a parental need. Sure, the movie was made more than forty years ago so they didn’t know modern tech, but golly the Baby Alive doll I had a few years after wasn’t creepy like these. Well, until she broke and Pop did “brain surgery” on her only to finds the broken part too hard to replace and the glue didn’t work to fasten the scalp back on. I just played with a doll with a top of her head as a seperate piece. Still, these monsterous child subsititute dolls get away with it because shrinks do brainwashing on their patients to make them accept the “no babies so play with dolls” situation.

Anyway, a woman gets all stupidly baby obessed, and without telling her hubby decides to have one. Her hubby is played by Oliver Reed, a guy that when a rare kid from the last generation bumps into him, he lifts the kid up by the shoulders and stares at him such that you wonder whether he plans to do something violent rather the probably intended stew of sadness. I wondered if his is naturally intense, aggressive, and cold masking fury demeanor were meant to indicate a sexist aspect of the society dominating the women, a specific indication of the dynamics of their relationship over turned by her unilateral choice of pregnancy, or simply a quirk caused by casting the then bankable star. Whatever the reason, it seems almost surprising when he decides the she let her carry the child to term, hiding her away in a forgotten bomb shelter under the guise of a marriage break up.

Basically, the parents so something incredibly selfish. Ignoring completely the greater society, think of the child. They want a baby, but they aren’t risking just their life. If anyone finds out about the child it will be killed. It will have to live hidden either in the bomb shelter or some other equally dark secret place. The child will have to live in utter isolation, without contact with any other human beings but their parents. Assuming once the prohibition on children is lifted they cease executing those that broke the law when it was in effect, they will not come into contact with anything beyond solitary confinement until they are in their 20s. And what kind of world will it be, where you have to wear gasmasks and boiler suits to go outside in the smog, all sorts of animals including pets are extinct, and food is the tasteless contents of toothpaste tubes. I dunno, but if you knew that misreable life you hate is the best case senario for the kid, maybe having a child just to make YOU feel better about yourself is a bad idea!

Anyway, the kid is born but unfortunately their best friends find out. That couple decide to use the threat of turning them into the authorities in order to get the baby for themselves. And despite the fact the parents never should have had the kid you have to hope they find a way to escape the situation for the sake of the baby.....

Very interesting film. I tend to like  early 1970s dystopias saying humanity is doomed, dated and unsubtle as they can be.

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 version Catalina Caper- A goofy henchman type steals an ancient scroll for a married couple who intent to scam a rich guy into buying it. They will give the rich baddie a forgery  and then return the original to the museum because these aren’t baddie baddies, ‘cause they need to stay redeemable. See they have a son who doesn’t like their naughty ways,  and he’s in the right late teens/early twenties age group to hang those young folk that are the other focus of the film. 

See a guy has just returned from home, accompanied by a guy from school, and there is partying to do. Right after a ferry ride where the ship board entertainment is actually Little Richard, that is. The guy may be the local stud, surrounded by a flock of girls at all times, but the pal is played by Tommy Kirk, probably recently fired by Disney and now stuck in films like this. So when one of them meets up with a Creepy Girl (Servo’s name) it’s the pal that gets the romance. I gotta say though, it’s kinda amazing since her opening words are to tell of an odd childhood encounter with a fish. Now while I have my own “little me meets a fish underwater” story, I’ve always figured it wasn’t the best way to introduce myself to guys. Of course I’m not pretty with a foreign accent, so maybe that makes the difference. But can he win the girl when she has a big bad boyfriend working for the baddie baddie? And does anyone care?

The movie is your average attempt at a 1960s comedy aimed at the clean cut youth of the day. Or at least the 12 year olds still fantasizing about being teens. It’s not to far from the rest the beach party films or the live action comedies Kirk might have made at Disney if it hadn’t been such a homophobic era. ** It’s not a particularly great example, it certainly isn’t memorable, but it’s definately typical. The guys give it a nice bit of mocking, with Servo’s love of Creepy Girl being particularly nice. 

Gotta say though, my favorite thing was the Mads invention exchange of tank tops. That is the tops of tanks as wearable item, a silly and wonderful idea. Here we have THE one sort of tank top I want in my wardrobe! LOL

**I believe Kirk is supposed to have been fired because his being gay had the potential of being made public. I might be remembering wrong, of course, since I can’t remember where I heard/read it. Probably NOT in an extra on a Disney DVD, that’s for sure.

[70sscifiart]

1972 movie poster art for Z.P.G. Zero Population Growth

[brummie-man-interests]

"Z.P.G." ("Zero Population Growth") is a Danish-American dystopian science fiction film inspired by the best-selling 1968 non-fiction book 'The Population Bomb' by the American biologist Paul R. Ehrlich (May 29. 1932).