"THE ZANTI MISFITS" (THE OUTER LIMITS).......BRUCE DERN VS. REALLY ILLEGAL CRIMINAL ALIENS

"The Zanti Misfits" (The Outer Limits, Season 1, Episode 14) (1963)    How could we have had this blog running for over 2 years without covering this........our all time favorite episode of TV's most memorable, beloved sci-fi series........

                 What more could you ask for in 50 minutes of television........Bruce Dern at his scuzziest......playing an on-the-lam crook who stumbles into a top secret military base......

                  Real bad news for Bruce........our top brass at the base has cut a deal with the planet Zanti,  agreeing to incarcerate their worst hardcore convicts.........alien criminals way, way worse than the hordes of mythical Mexican rapists that Trump warned us about in 2015.........

                  Even more bad news for Bruce....(along with all the clueless military).......these outer space MS-13 gang members are repulsive ant-like creatures with particularly nasty humanoid faces, scuttling about via stop-motion animation....(an expensive, time-consuming effect rarely seen in 1960's television....)

                  Not much of a spoiler to tell you that Bruce comes to a bad end as he's overrun by the insectoid bad-asses.....(this episode falls somewhere in between Dern getting bludgeoned to death by a child in "Marnie" and having his head and hand cut off in "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte"....)

                Wilder fun ensues when the ant-creeps stage an all out violent prison revolt against their would-be human jailers. For sci-fi-horror-fantasy fans, the episode's climax is a little bit 'o classic heaven........

                 While we dearly love all the "Outer Limits" episodes, "The Zanti Misfits" earns an extra special 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS........any show that combines Bruce Dern at his Dern-siest and killer stop motion bugs is a glorious dream come true.......