'Girl, what do you think you're doing in that water?'
'what do you mean?'
'Didn't you hear about that blood-thirsty gator everyone's hunting for?'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘I think I’ll pass’
The Alien Dead is the second film of bad movie legend Fred Olen Ray
and at first glance it’s bad as The Tomb or any of the others of his we’ve reviewed.
‘Oh it’s terrible’
The plot is similar to Roger Corman’s Attack of the Giant Leeches
and Ray originally intended the alien monsters to be leeches
but that proved too expensive so they went in another direction.
Your basic zombie.
Although it was clearly a pretty quick rewrite.
‘The way the veins were collapsed it looked as if the blood was sucked out’
‘But these things look like people’
The town’s Sherriff is played by 30s serial legend Buster Crabbe.
‘What I think son is that it’s none of your concern’
Who played Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Tarzan,
and this would be one of his last roles.
‘This better be important now’
Even in long johns he has certain charismatic swagger, totally lacking in the film’s hero reporter,
‘Please, I’m Tom Corman, I’m with the local newspaper’
One of many names paying tribute to Roger Corman and his films.
‘Something got her out there but it wasn’t no gator.’
Tom gets involved when an alligator hunter reports his wife missing to the police.
‘I’ve got to check into this. Come on, let’s go’
Err… would any of the police like to come along?
‘Want a rematch?’
Tom races to the swamp.
I’ve been doing Dark Corners for more than ten years now
and I know that isolated stretches of water are a magnet for women bathing in the altogether.
‘You gave me quite a fright!’ ‘Well I’m sorry.’
'Your otta be creeping u[ on people like that.'
Well I was half right, kinda curious why she’s swimming fully dressed,
but more importantly; a B movie without topless swimming when the opportunity was right there,
this is insanity.
‘So what?’
The girl’s name is Shawn and she takes Tom to meet her pappy.
‘I guess you want to know about the big one’
I’m not sure I do.
He has his own theories about what’s been going on.
‘Loosely translated it means giant possum’
I am so lost.
‘This conversation is getting us nowhere’
That is accurate, this is not really an investigation where you follow the steps,
nor is it really a story where you follow the plot.
‘I really don’t know what we’re doing out here’
It’s Tom and Shawn wandering through a series of bizarre vignettes.
‘She’d deader than mother’s day at an orphanage’
involving women in hot pants. ‘You can just kiss my ass’ and men in big hats. ‘It’s a pretty big hat’ while the living dead pick off the townsfolk and no one does anything proactive like suggesting that now might be a good time to stop swimming. Thank God for that, B movie sanity is restored. There have been hints as to where the zombies came from. ‘Ever since that big houseboat sunk in the swamp, well nothing’s been the same around here since’ since then the alligators have vanished; a serious blow to what seems to be a largely alligator based economy. ‘So what happened
‘You can just kiss my ass’
and men in big hats.
‘It’s a pretty big hat’
while the living dead pick off the townsfolk
and no one does anything proactive like suggesting that now might be a good time to stop swimming.
Thank God for that, B movie sanity is restored.
There have been hints as to where the zombies came from.
‘Ever since that big houseboat sunk in the swamp, well nothing’s been the same around here since.’
Since then the alligators have vanished; a serious blow to what seems to be a largely alligator based economy.
‘So what happened to all the alligators? That swamp use to be ass deep in gators.'
Finally, our heroes happen on the truth by asking a witness to the houseboat incident.
‘That meteorite didn’t kill those people, it turned them into a bunch of God damn monsters’
So the title comes good; they’re zombies created by an alien meteorite.
The team race to tell…
I don’t know, someone.
But on their way they come under attack.
As is traditional they are trapped in a cabin, and game warden Miller Haze has a plan.
‘I can hold them off with this while y’all go out through the back’
Very noble.
Doesn’t really work, but fortunately they’re distracted by eating him.
This is a bad film in every way and yet I don’t find this as unwatchable as other Ray films.
Partly because it is a spoof,
‘What are you laughing at?’
and I am so familiar with the films its spoofing – we’ve reviewed a hundred of these.
‘I never seen nothing before like it in my entire life’
The other thing that makes it tolerable is it does have the energy of low budget filmmaking
where you forgive a certain amount.
‘Could be murder one.’
What I find unforgivable is the end, after Tom and Shawn of the Dead escape under cover of their friend getting eaten.
‘What are y’all doing out there?’
That’s it. Nothing is solved, nothing is resolved, the alien dead are still out there.
If it was a Marvel movie, reviewers would already be tripping over themselves to say what good job it does of setting up the next film.
‘That’s totally absurd’
But, up to that point, at 75 minutes, it’s almost watchable.
‘I try not to think about it too much myself’
Ray got more experienced at filmmaking, but never better.
Which does make those films worse.
Thanks for watching. For more explicable storytelling, check out my books,
there’s a link in the description below.
We’ve reviewed very few Fred Olen Ray films, what would you recommend next? Let us know in the comments below.
‘Are you ready to go?’ ‘No I ain’t ready to go.’