The Alien Dead!

I will not waste a whisper of breath attempting to convince you that Fred Olen Ray's 1980 science fiction horror flicker The Alien Dead is a good movie. It ain't! But it is a splendid example of cinema that is so blisteringly bad that it goes out the other side of the continuum and becomes entertaining. The movie is really an amateur effort marked first and foremost by the presence of (even then) vintage sci-fi icon Buster Crabbe. It was Crabbe's presence that got me to sit through it the first time and it's partially because of my adoration for his long history of work that made me buy a dvd loaded with extras that tell the story of how this movie came to be. 

First it was made in 1977 and 1978 by Fred Olen Ray in the Orlando, Florida area using local venues and such as sets. Most of the action takes place out of doors freeing the company of worrying overmuch about lights and other technical limitations. The movie also is clearly the product of different production period with different kinds of access to equipment. There's one section which was shot as proof of concept which is incorporated into the movie, and several others shot after the final production concluded to lengthen it and to spice it up to meet the expectations of movie going crowds. 

This movie is the kind that's supposed to supply gore and perhaps softcore sex, but don't worry as there is precious little of both if those things make you blink at this kind of flick. If they are selling point for you, then the lean efforts to supply a few naked breasts are curious and the gore is limited significantly by budgets, or the lack of same. 

The plot is dead simple. A houseboat of Yankee partiers is hit by a meteor or spaceship (this is uncertain) and the resulting dead populated the rivers and such munching on alligators for sometime. When that resource dwindles to near nothing they seek sustenance on land and that's when the movie begins. We follow our intrepid reporter hero and his girlfriend as they ramble about encountering variations of the threat all the while the local sheriff (Buster Crabbe) and deputy manage to miss nearly all the action. 

There are echoes of Night of the Living Dead of course, but also the flavor of older 1950's movies from the heyday is evoked as well. There is a great deal of tragedy and the ending is a bit of a puzzler, but I cannot tell if that was intentional or not. This is not a movie for those who like good quality cinema, but it is a movie for those who revel in watching eager amateurs attempt to make something entertaining and failing often but succeeding more than you'd expect. 

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