The Alien Dead

I always heard that this was the absolute worst zombie movie of all time, but I'd much rather watch this than Zombie Nightmare, Revenge of the Dead, or Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things... definitely. You could do a lot worse than watching this movie, which actually has some pretty fun moments. I mean, people that this film was made for will probably find it appealing no matter what anyone says about it; anyone that is looking for a serious horror movie in here probably doesn't realize that the title of the movie is "ALIEN DEAD", which makes ME laugh quite a bit. Eh.

This film, which was made for $12,000 (and they used every penny of it), is about a meteor crashing and turning rednecks into zombies. The film suffers from a really grainy look and features horrible sound (which may have been cleaned up for the recent DVD release.. whoopty doo). The editing is quite awful; there are a few times when they cut to another scene while someone is talking (kind of like near the end of Invasion of the Blood Farmers when the cop is talking and picks up the phone and says "F..." and then it cuts to a scene of a guy driving -- what?!).

The story is terrible, the "effects" are terrible. A person will get killed, but the camera cuts away really quickly and then shows the aftermath of blood being in a big hole in a woman's chest. Or another woman will get stabbed with a pitchfork, but you won't see it actually enter the woman -- you'll just see the pitchfork sticking out of her back. It's quite laughably bad, but at least they tried to give some gore, with some of the zombies chomping on entrails. The musical score is cheesy but good; however, they actually use real country songs to add "ambience" to the redneck surroundings, which is hilariously awful.

When it was over, I can safely say I wasn't bored and I distinctly remember enjoying myself throughout the whole thing. However, it's kind of hard to write a really detailed review for this, as this flick is pretty much unmemorable when it's all said and done.

The Alien Dead is another strong candidate for "worst movie EVER." Fred Olen Ray is, without a doubt, the worst director working today. I can't believe this guy is still making movies. This is one of his first genre offerings and a terrible, terrible movie. Where to begin? The lighting, or lack thereof, is an appropriate starting point I suppose. You can't see anything that's going on in this flick. It's awful. The lighting guy (assuming there was one) should be shot. Next stop: inane dialogue. What in the hell was up with the brainless dialogue and the delivery of said brainless dialogue? It's pathetic at best. And the music...nevermind. Just stay away from this one. I am now dumber after witnessing the dreaded terror of the Alien Dead.

Schlock-meister, Fred Olen Ray presents THE ALIEN DEAD, a sub-sludge opus with few equals. It is a "film" only in that watching it causes it to congeal on the brain like algae. Everything about it is a shambles, including every word of "dialogue", whether spoken in English or whatever pidgin hillbilly language is being uttered.

This is matched only by the non-actors wandering in and out of scenes, pretending to be awake. The "zombies" are obviously people who accidentally walked onto the movie "set", and decided to walk a bit slower. Their makeup / masks range from flour smears to cow pie facials.

Buster "Flash Gordon" Crabbe can be forgiven for appearing in just about anything at this point in his career. Hopefully, he never watched this! Non-produced, unedited, and nearly unwatchable, one hasn't truly lived until witnessing the slow-motion zombie attack / fondling match!

REMEMBER: hair picks kill the undead, and nothing goes better with cannibalism than a country crooner singing along!...

The premise of "Alien Dead" is that a space-born disease infected a bunch of bayou rednecks and after they finished up all the alligators they start eating the locals.Fred Olen Ray's "Alien Dead" is so bad that it quickly becomes hilarious.The acting is utterly terrible,only veteran actor Buster Crabbe can act.The makeup consists of Halloween masks for the male zombies and the women are mostly leggy hot blonds with white and black face paint.There is also a decent amount of gore including some cannibalistic feasts.I have seen plenty of awful zombie flicks including "The Chilling","Zombie Lake" or "Zombie Brigade" and I must say that "Alien Dead" is at least watchable,if you are in the right mood.That's why I give it 5 out of 10.

Here's another 80's gem from the king of cheese director Fred Olen Ray, in which one suspects the most costly item in its production was having the artwork made for its rental box. A meteor strikes a house boat deep in the swamp killing everyone aboard, but soon thereafter they come back to "life" as poorly made-up living corpses to munch on the living, whom for the most part just stand there and let them do it.

The script, editing, acting and makeup effects are breath taking in how awful they are, yet its way too long and tedious to be unintentionally funny, life is too short to waste it watching a film like this. Only note worthy thing is that former "Flash Gordon" Buster Crabbe almost ended his career like a dying scream doing this one, fortunately it can at least be said that this wasn't his last film.

1 out of 10, even fans of movies like "Plan 9 from Outer Space" will be appalled by this one, avoid it at all costs.