JasparLamarCrabb A fairly depressing view of a future in which having a child is punishable by death. Oliver Reed & Geraldine Chaplin decide to have one anyway. As expected, that proves to be a bad idea. Best friends Don Gordon & Diane Cilento blackmail them into "sharing" the child. There's a good central idea here that's actually quite frightening & the actors, particularly Chaplin & Cilento convey a real sense of misery as wannabe mothers forbidden to give birth. Their desperation and utter sadness is palpable. Unfortunately, the movie is directed with little finesse by Michael Campus. Additonally, this sci-fi thriller suffers from very poor art direction and very dark cinematography...there are times when it's nearly impossible to tell what's going on. Not exactly a dud, but no classic either.

Matthew Carlin I wrote the plot description for this on IMDb a million years ago. I tried to demonstrate how horrible this movie was with my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek, while giving an accurate description, and not making it a review. Some comments compared ZPG to Logan's Run???? Logan's Run is brilliant and a frightening "what if" scenario for the human race. How about comparing it to 2001: A Space Oddyssy or even Citizen Kane while you are at it? And Soylent Green, though not brilliant, SG is a far better movie than this one, and a more plausible future. This movie should have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000--only on that show would it have been worth watching. Avoid this film like the plague!

ystava78 When I bought this film from a secondhand videoshop I was amazed by the quality of this movie. The use of cameras, music and plot were wery artistic. Twisted utopia genre is allways interesting (like Zardoz), and this movie is no exeption. This movie is a must see 70's scifi gem.

SanDiego If you are a fan of Logan's Run this film is an interesting must see since it plays as a decent prequel (story wise) to that better known sci-fi film. Since LR was made after ZPG I suppose one should say LR plays like a sequel to ZPG. ZPG takes place in an over-populated future so polluted that people wear gas masks outside (we eventually find out it is war related), animals are found only in a museum (stuffed), and food is found only in paste form. The edict: no more babies (or face death), so those born to already pregnant women have an invisible BE (Before Edict) scanned onto their foreheads. In Logan's Run, much later in the future, babies have small crystals placed in their palms that light when the human turns 30. In ZPG we are introduced to a couple (Oliver Reed and Geraldine Chaplin) who work and live as a 1971 typical swinging couple exhibit in the museum along with another couple (best friends/neighbors). When the couple decides to have a baby anyway they are forced to share it with their neighbors or face certain death. There is a scene where Oliver Reed is checking out premature births in a futuristic library very reminiscent of the scene in Logan's Run where Logan researches Sanctuary. Both films deal with escaping the restrictions of a society so messed up it restricts life itself. Eventually the film becomes an escape picture much like Logan's Run. I can't help but think the baby grows up to be the Peter Ustinov character in Logan's Run. Just a thought.