A special treat, perhaps, for those eager to
see what a low-budget horror anthology produced in Oklahoma might look like,
the nonsensically titled Alien Zone—which
has also been exhibited under the more appropriate moniker House of the Dead—features a number of bottom-rung Hollywood actors
as well as various deservedly anonymous local performers. Basically an anemic
example of the portmanteau style associated with the UK’s Amicus Productions, Alien Zone begins with a man arriving at
a remote building one night while searching for a hotel. He's greeted by The
Mortician (Ivor Francis), who introduces the newcomer to some of his “clients.”
As The Mortician describes the circumstances under which each individual died,
the movie presents extended flashbacks that play out like gruesome short
stories. With the exception of a sequence involving dueling detectives, each of
the stories ends with a violent shock instead of proper narrative twist, which
reflects how feeble the movie is overall. The pace is slow, the performances
are never better than adequate, the suspense is mostly nonexistent, and the
takeaway is that Alien Zone should
have been taken away from viewers. This is far from the worst horror picture
ever made, but it’s certainly among the most forgettable. Francis has an
enjoyably droll quality as The Magician, and the actors in the dueling-detectives
vignette (Brit Bernard Fox and Yank Charles Aidman) bring florid style to their
delivery of overwrought dialogue. As for the fright factor, one lady gets
bitten to death by children wearing ridiculous-looking fangs, a dude falls down
an elevator shaft, and a ladykiller offs his victims by using stockings as
strangulation devices. Is there any aesthetic or logical reason for these very
different types of stories to coexist? Not really. But then again, is there any
reason whatsoever for Alien Zone to
exist? Not really.
Alien
Zone: LAME
