Fred Olan Ray brings us The Alien Dead, a zombie film that, despite its title, has little to do with aliens. Fred is good at making cheesy movies like these since at least they aren't completely trashy, there are some OK elements in the film, but overall its really just a z-movie.The film opens up on both a narration and a prologue, the narration its pretty useless since there isn't a consistent narrator in the film, the narrator its only in the film at the beginning, making it useless, not only that, but its also one of the few decent scenes in the film, after that there's a prologue, which isn't as good as the narration scene but it at least has something to do with the film, you choose between a narrator or a story that unfolds, not both, Fred. After that the film goes down hill, in pure z-grade fashion.The zombies in the film are people with make up on them making them look really bad, but if you like z-grade films you may like it, even laugh at it, some of the gore effects are decently done, but they are ruined because of the awkward editing and music in the "horror" scenes, there is no sound on those scenes, just weird music, which its very bizarre, but not rare for this kind of film. Some of the music on the film isn't really that bad, it may be a decent score.What you get from this movie its exactly what you would get from a z-grade zombie film, hooky acting, trashy effects, trashy writing, trashy directing, its trash, but it may be fun trash if you are willing to accept it.

I remember reading about this in the old fangoria magazine,at the time it looked good,well many years passed and finally got a chance to watch it.and really what a piece of i dare not say,poor Buster Crabbe being the star of this really terrible bomb.they basically use the plot of night of the living dead.and i usually like Fred Olen Ray movies but this early work is very crude.the special effects are bargain basement.well i know Buster Crabbe has done bad movies but this was his worst ever.i think he did a better job on an episode of buck rogers with gil gerard as a fighter pilot.there's some nude scenes thrown in,zombies coming out of the swamp,ripping of the 1977 film shockwaves.if you see this one in the $1.00 store.take my word for it and don't bother,its about 77 minutes of your life you'll never get back.instead watch the more superior night of the living dead,its better and it most likely had a lower budget than alien dead.

I got to admit, I'm a big of Fred Olen Ray, love him to death and most of his movies. So I don't blame him for the train wreck of the Alien Dead, I blame the co-writer Martin Nicholas who must have saved his life in 'Nam or something for Fred to keep working with him. He's a terrible writer and not a great actor. Anyway, I think I know Buster Crabbe died, he died of shame after watching ALIEN DEAD. That's right shame, this isn't grade Z, it's ZZ--. Here's why, one, they never showed the meteor that caused all this. Two, some of the zombies looked more like aliens rather then rotting humans and the one that did look human didn't look like they were under water for very long which means the Sheriff isn't doing his job right. The girls are pretty but that's not enough. It all ends up in a very weak climax that doesn't make any sense to me or any one with half of brain. THE BLACK HOLE

The Alien Dead is a stupid, wretched movie. I recently saw the DVD release of it, and even though it wasn't hard to sit through, I still found myself hating it all the way through. The title is mis-leading, since there is no "alien" action, and barely no gore. I did enjoy the awful bad acting. Or maybe it was over-acting. Or maybe fabulous bad acting. Whatever, it was the pits. But fun. And thats all the film had to offer, to us bad movie lovers, anyway. The ugly looking movie is about zombies terrorizing a redneck community. The zombies are yer common-folk infected with that there radiation from one uh them space craft hoobajoobas. Or something. The zombies are awful (maybe worse than Curse Of The Cannibal Confederates), the setting ugly, actors nasty, but god-bless those awful lines! It's what made this dreck watchable. The gore is slim. One guy is eaten in half by the monsters, later a dog starts eating his carcass, and even though the guy is dead and half of him is missing, the other half (waist up) is breathing. What the hell. Mindless beatnik horror music is played in other horror or attack scenes, usually with no other audio coming from the characters on the screen. I love bad '80's horror (House Of Death, Zombie Nightmare, Grotesque, Pieces, Unhinged, Forever Evil, Demonwarp...see these before this) but this just had nothing to offer. I think it may have been fun to see in the early '80's at the drive-in...or maybe not. Features an old woman stabbed with a pitchfork and thats basically the violent highlight. And the ending will leave you pist. If you must watch, drink beer. One star.