Alien Dead (1980) – A Movie A Day 2021 #40
Alien Dead (1980) – A Movie A Day 2021 #40
When I’m not sure what I want to watch, a good genre standby for me is a zombie movie. More often than not I’ll be able to find something to enjoy about a zombie movie regardless of the quality. And really, although it’s not an exact formula, the cheaper the zombie a movie is, the more I might be inclined to like it. There are huge exceptions to that rule on either end of the budget spectrum, but I’m just trying to convey the fact that I can love a zombie movie even if it is, by all normal standards, a terrible movie. That brings me to today’s movie of the day, Alien Dead.
Alien Dead is the second feature written and directed by low-budget maestro Fred Olen Ray. “Maestro” might be generous, but Ray has produced, written, and/or directed tons of movies over the past 40-plus years, and he’s still working to this day. He’s inspired many, many filmmakers in that time, and it’s safe to say he is very well respected in the filmmaking community. I haven’t seen a ton of his movies, but the ones I have seen absolutely stick with me. My dad had a VHS copy of Ray’s third film, Scalps, when I was a kid, and I made sure to save it when he down-sized his tape collection years ago. Scalps is laughable in many ways, but I enjoy it unironically for its many endearing qualities. Alien Dead, the movie Ray made right before Scalps, fits into that same category for me.
Alien Dead takes place in the swamps of Florida. We follow a small-town news reporter, Tom Corman (who I’m guessing is named in reference to Roger Corman), as he attempts to solve the mystery of a local woman’s disappearance. The town sheriff, played by Buster Crabbe who is probably most famous for playing Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in the 1930s, is disinterested in, well, pretty much everything, and he blames alligators for the woman’s death. As Corman digs into the story though, he discovers that the swamp’s gators have disappeared. Unknown to Corman and the sheriff, mysterious human-like monsters are rising out of the waters of the swamp to kill and sometimes eat people. So basically, Alien Dead is about water zombies. I guess I could have said that first and saved a paragraph.
There’s really not much more to the story than that. The zombies attack and kill people, and by the time Corman and the group of like-minded people he collects along the way realize what’s happening, it’s too late to do anything except fight for their lives. The plot is simple and straightforward, and the way its presented is fun if you like super-cheap, no-budget horror.
The zombies vary wildly in design. Some have full rubber masks, some of which you can plainly see where the mask stops around their neck. Other zombies just have gray makeup applied. Then other zombies have kind of a combination of the two with makeup appliances haphazardly smooshed onto their faces. It’s great.
The zombie attacks are equally unbelievable. There are many moments where there will be a wide shot with no zombie, then it cuts to a close-up where the victim is suddenly surprised by a zombie that appears just off screen. It makes no sense, and I love it. And the biting is mostly just the zombies rubbing their mouths on people while drooling blood. Many takes hold long enough so you can see that they aren’t actually biting anything.
Speaking of takes being long enough to catch stuff that probably shouldn’t be shown, there were more than a few times when it seemed like the cuts were too early or too late. People would be perfectly still during a crossfade then suddenly start acting as if is some just yelled “action” (which is probably exactly what happened). Other times the camera will hold on someone too long and they’ll look directly into the camera as if to say, “are we done?”
I could probably go on, but you get the idea. Alien Dead is a bad movie, but it’s also great. What I mean to get across when I say that is not that I love it because it’s bad, just that I love it and it’s bad. Nothing I’ve written is meant to make fun of it. I genuinely enjoy the movie for what it is. To me, Alien Dead is an example of someone who wanted to make a movie and did what they had to do to get it done. It has an endearing quality that I love, and I’ll absolutely be watching it again at some point.