User reviews

Another one from the 200 cult movies box set from mill creek.

I guess if a unknown bacterial from mars breaks out on earth you should take speed, dance and screw. Maybe not in that particular order.

Very plodding movie it seems to drag on and on. But the last 20 minutes or so are pretty good. Not a recommendation but there are a lot worse out there.

If ever there was a movie worthy of criticism, the Alpha Incident is it. Borrowing heavily from Night of the Living Dead, this film is a complete bust. The story keeps the viewer somewhat interested, and the characters aren't that terrible, but nothing could save this film from its blatant, rip-off ending.

Here's the scoop. A couple of average white collar types come into contact with an unknown substance (I gather that's the sci-fi part IMDB makes mention to, because other wise this movie is pure drama) and must remain cooped up in a train station, without sleep in order to survive. Each character is unique and different, but unfortunately, not very interesting. You have your smart mouth, your damsel in distress, your play-it-cool man, the nervous/shy guy, and of course, the complete moron. That may be the only saving grace to this film, the complete moron named `Hank.' Hank is a really funny character and is the only one who kept my attention, only because he's so innocent and dumb. Notables? The film has one, count it, one scene of true gore, but at least it's a goodie.

I recommend leaving this one on the shelf if you're looking for a sci-fi film, because this really isn't a science fiction piece. Sure the cover art on the box might make you think it is, but looks can be deceiving. However, I still give this one a 4 out of 10 for it's classic portrayal of characters. The way the actors talk and move within their parts is perfect. The smart mouth always laughing, the damsel always worried; it's something out of a comic book gone wrong. Anyway, unless you want to see what an impact Night of the Living Dead truly had, don't bother with this.

Another Bill Rebane film, so yet another interesting, if not entirely successful movie. This one involves a microorganism from Mars infecting several people at a rail depot. They feel fine, but the trouble is, if they fall asleep, their brains explode! This might also happen to the viewer too because you'll have a hard time staying awake during the long stretches of nothing in this film.

That's being harsh. Every Bill Rebane film is worth a watch, but basically you have four people in a room, trying to stay awake by drinking coffee, arguing, smoking, and taking speed while scientists work hard on a cure. You get to see the brain exploding thing happen once, so if you're into films for the gore you might want to take that on board. Also: there's a boob.

I wouldn't say this was as much fun as The Giant Spider Invasion or Demons of Ludlow, but more on a par with the equally strange and slow moving The Game. The acting is generally fine (especially from Buck Flower) and things do pick up near the end, but it's a bit of a slog. Worth a watch though, because I feel Bill Rebane always tried to make his films at least a bit different from the norm.

This is available on a double feature Eastwest DVD with Rebane's 2cnd best film, CAPTURE OF BIGFOOT. One reason these two are his best is that he is working here with unknown actors who are putting in commendable efforts, rather than has-been celebrities who are walking through their roles (well, except that Ralph Meeker is here and does a good job). This one is a bit better than CAPTURE mainly because of the interesting storyline involving a odd virus/enzyme micro-organism from space which infects earth life forms and causes a hideous death only when the infected are at sleep, the type of death I won't give away, but it is pretty gruesome. Much more intellectually challenging than any of his other films, I just wish there had been a bigger budget, and some script holes needed filling. Still, for those who like literate sci-fi (relatively speaking) and enjoy things like 1950s Quatermass films, this will be fine. Effects are nearly on par with the Quatermass films too, though 20 years later. And so what if the ending is taken from Night of the Living Dead? What hasn't been stolen from that gem by loads of filmmakers?

This very slight "thriller" has flashes of inspiration visually, but is weighed down by less than stellar acting and a wretched script. The story concerns an organism recovered from a space probe that-get this- is being transported by train guarded by one man. The crate containing the organism is tampered with and before you know it, complications ensue. There's very little action and long stretches of corny dialog delivered in a leaden manner. I 'm not sure if the director intended this film to be a character study or a thriller, but either way, The Alpha Incident fails miserably. Saved from a no star rating by interesting photography and occasionally effective editing.

Granted, when I sat down in 2021 to watch the 1978 sci-fi horror movie "The Alpha Incident" for the very first time, I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations, especially since the movie had managed to land a rather low rating here on IMDb.

Still, I had the chance to sit down to watch it, and with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I found the time to do so. Though I might as well have just skipped on this one. Yeah, "The Alpha Incident" was by no means a grand cinematic experience, much less of an entertaining movie.

The storyline told in "The Alpha Incident", as written by Ingrid Neumayer and directed by Bill Rebane, wasn't really interesting. Nothing much of any worth took place throughout the mundane course of this movie, which made for a dull and uneventful viewing. And that ultimately reflected poorly on the overall viewing experience as the movie was lacking greatly in entertainment value.

There was a whole lot of sitting around and blaming each other amongst the characters in the storyline. And does that make for good entertainment? Perhaps to some, I suppose. But not to me.

The acting in the movie was fair enough, though I can't really claim to have witnessed anything extraordinary or outstanding as the movie trotted along.

My rating of "The Alpha Incident" lands on a generous three out of ten stars. This movie was a swing and a miss, not much of any real sci-fi over the storyline, and even less so in the horror department. Sure, I am not much of a sci-fi fan, but "The Alpha Incident" was a fairly weak addition to the sci-fi genre.

The Alpha Incident involves a microorganism from Mars escaping due to the stupidity and carelessness of a railroad baggage handler. Not to mention the imbecility of NASA scientists sending the thing by regular express mail so as to not cause any attention.

So now with the quick thinking that characterizes science fiction movies like these the organism is quarantined at a remote rail station and five people are kept in isolation while scientists work to find a cure, for what they're not sure, but we soon see.

The only cast name I'm sure you might remember is Ralph Meeker, the rest are total unknowns, at least to me they are. The film is an interesting idea, but one more suited to a television episode of The Outer Limits.

"A Mars space probe returns to Earth and brings with it a microorganism from the red planet. While transporting the microscopic alien life form by train, there is an accident and the microorganism is unleashed. Exposure to the alien virus forces four strangers (sic) into quarantine while government scientists rush to find a cure," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. Not exactly "four strangers", but: biochemist Stafford Morgan (as Sorenson), weighty John Goff (as Jack), busty Carol Irene Newell (as Jenny), weighty George 'Buck' Flower (as Hank), and rail-weary Ralph Meeker (as Charlie). If you fall asleep during this movie, your head will not explode. Trust me.

** The Alpha Incident (1978) Bill Rebane ~ Stafford Morgan, John F. Goff, Ralph Meeker

A virus from space is released accidentally while in transit on a train. It results in a group of people in a remote train depot being subject to quarantine and left isolated, while the scientists try to work on a cure.

The Alpha Incident is a paranoid sci-fi film in the same vein as The Andromeda Strain, with elements of George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies thrown in for good measure. It isn't a patch on either of those films although it's fairly decent, all things considered. It's admittedly quite badly paced, however, with a little too much talk to pad things out. Still, the set-up is good enough and the overall cynical 70's sci-fi vibe works for me. There's only one occasion when we see the effects of the virus on a human and it's actually surprisingly decent – they could really have done with using this a little more. The effect is basically the brain expanding and breaking out of the cranium of the unfortunate victim. This is the horrible death that the infected people are trying to avoid. For some reason this nasty scenario only kicks in when the victims fall asleep, so for most of the film the story seems to be about people trying to stay awake – a symptom that I'm sure some viewers of this movie will experience too funnily enough.

But, for me, this isn't a bad effort overall. It's definitely one of director Bill Rebane's best. He operated in the Z-Grade side of the cinematic spectrum for sure but his films have an honest earnestness that is easy to get behind. And this is a relatively thoughtful narrative for Bill's standards. However, its cheap limitations are never truly averted, and it doesn't develop the space virus thread of the story as well as you hope and the film ends up being essentially about people in a room popping amphetamines. But, you know what, I kind of like this one anyway.

I like The Andromeda Strain (directed by Rober Wise, 1971) a lot - it's a suspenseful story about an virus outbreak that will keep you nailed to your seat. Some reviewers seem to like The Alpha Incident and compare it to The Andromeda Strain, but I have to say I was really disappointed: the story is boring, the pace terrible slow, the production value low, the acting at most some B or rather C class. In my opinion you won't miss anything not watching this one: The Alpha Incident is one of those movies that are just bad and boring and which do not resurrect by some magickal superpowers as trashy masterpieces. No matter from what perspective I tried to figure something out that justifies to recommend this one, I just can't. This is just bad low budget trash.

"The Alpha Incident" feels like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" padded out to full movie length. While it overstays its welcome it does have an interesting premise and uses its low budget effectively. It's a shame that the performances aren't better because those could have really amped up the tension and made this into a tight thriller. A better film would have you on the edge of your seat as the characters are trapped in quarantine after being exposed by a virus from Mars. This one doesn't really do that much with the premise. As is, it isn't terrible but it isn't spectacular either so it's worth checking out if the premise interests you and you're able to forgive some of the film's shortcomings, or like me you just happen to have it because you bought one of those cheap "50 Sci-Fi Classics" for $20. (On DVD, September 16, 2012)

I think the previous posters were a little hard on this movie. Yes, it's not a very good movie - it's slow, with some bad dialogue, characters that are annoying and/or unsympathetic, and an ending that rips off NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Yet at the same time, I thought that the premise of the movie was intriguing, and I had to admire the fact that independent filmmakers on a really low budget were tackling something as difficult as a dialogue-driven movie, one that was intended for the drive-in crowd. True, it's not successful overall (to say the least), but occasionally there is something a little interesting, making you think that, with more time and planning, they might have been able to succeed. So while I "boo" the finished results, I will at least applaud the filmmakers intentions.

i saw this movie because i just loooooove the guy from the menards commercials and i found out he was in this film. i expected it to be awful, and i wasn't at all disappointed. the dialogue is horrendous, the editing is inept, the music is laughable, the characters are flat, the plot is predictable and the twist at the end is totally expected. i loved every second of it!

You have some bad movies and then you also have some REALLY bad movies. And my, oh my, is this movie bad.

I really am not a person that calls every bad movie awful or laugh at- or make fun of these sort of movies. I respect movies and the film-making process too much for that but let me tell you, some movies are even too much for me to take. I couldn't believe the stuff this movie was doing, which was absolutely nothing!

This is one of those movies that got shot without a real budget behind it, which means that the movie can do very little else than letting a bunch of people sit around in a room and talk to each other, for almost the movie its entire duration. This would had been fine, if any of the characters were any interesting, or had some depth to them. Or if any of the dialog was any good and there was some real tension throughout the entire movie. Really none of this was the case however!

The story and the dialog are both awful! The premise is really ridicules and flawed and doesn't ever has enough suspense to it. I can see what this movie was trying to do still. It was trying to be a "The Andromeda Strain" like movie, in which a virus from Mars(!) got accidentally released on a bunch of folks at a railroad station, who have to remain in quarantine at the station because of that. For some odd reason they also shouldn't fall asleep, or else their head will explode. No, I'm not making this up, this is really the entire story of this movie. But instead of trying to be busy with finding a solution or any good ways to stay awake, they talk about- and do absolutely nothing.

All of the movie its scenes are extremely stretched out and they just go on and on, with its awful dialog. Half way through I was really starting to get worried about it whether I could finish watching this movie or not, since it starting to become true endurance test for me. The movie is really literally starting to go nowhere after a while and remains stuck in first gear, right till its very end.

It really gets made all the more worse by its incompetent people, both in front and behind the camera. It's an awfully bad looking movie, with cheap sets and bad camera-work but what is still the most annoying are its horrible actors. Really not a single person in this movie is likable enough and because of both their horrible personalities and actors portraying them, the characters all work out horribly.

This is truly a movie that started out as a bad one already but rapidly started to become an even more and more worse one for me.

2/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

My wife often criticizes me when I see errors in logic on TV shows and point them out. I know that it's obvious that a CSI crew would never get a major case to solve every week. But once past that, I believe that you have to have some credibility in how things are portrayed. This movie is really slow moving and claustrophobic as a group of character types find themselves holed up in a train depot because of an accidental release of a space virus, being transported by train. Once this happens, you would think that the officials would have some interest in the well being of these poor unfortunate people. I'm not saying that an effort couldn't be made to cover things up. In the real world it happens all the time. But couldn't someone come in wearing those protective suits. It's just that they are dismissed so quickly. We don't even know if most of them have been infected. They could have been taken and brought to a sterile environment of some kind and watched. Instead, we are treated the banter of some misfit characters whose lives become meaningless to them almost immediately. Isn't there some sense of caring among these people. It had potential. It just didn't work.

The Alpha Incident is basically a poor man's version of The Andromeda Strain with elements of Scanners and A Nightmare on Elm Street mixed in for good measure. It suffers from low production values and a claustrophobic setting.

When a space probe returns to earth with a deadly disease, the federal government in its wisdom decides to transport it cross country by train with only one agent to guard it. Naturally, someone exposes themselves to the disease and several people end up quarantined in a rural train station.

The major factor working against this film, other than its obvious plagiarizing of The Andromeda Strain, is its limited budget. Much of the screen time is spent watching people doing nothing in a train station. When we go elsewhere to see efforts to cure the disease, the NASA laboratory looks to be a high school chemistry lab. Even much of the camera work is shoddy, with a foggy look like a dream sequence.

I confess I've never seen "The Alpha Incident," but I do have the trailer in 35mm and it is appalling in the same way that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is. Whenever it is shown to new people they howl. The acting is bad, the production values are non-existent, the dialogue is OTT and there is a tickertape crawl that stops the trailer cold as it spells "until" as "untill." I have friends who use lines from the trailer to great effect, i.e., "The shock to the system must be unbearable," and "The only time I'm ever in bed this long is when I'm with a chick or when I'm just sleepin'." Avoid the feature, but the trailer is a hoot!!

I saw "Manos, the Hands of Fate" and lived to tell the mediocre tale; I also saw daylight the other-side of "The Lucifer Project" and "Doomsday Weapon", and so I reckon I know a stinker when I smell one, but I can say with confidence, that "The Alpha Incident" is not the proverbial turkey it's often branded.

Bill Rebane's reputation precedes him, but occasionally he does get it right, so credit where it's due, "Alpha" is a moody, atmospheric and suspenseful if somewhat talky thriller about a Martian virus that has potentially infected a small group of mostly bystanders at a remote railway station, forcing them into quarantine under the watchful eye of Government bio-chemist Stafford Morgan, himself also in containment maintaining contact with the outside world via telephone as he awaits news of a much-anticipated antidote.

While it's limited in action, it's not as benign as some other reviews might suggest, with a clever plot twist significantly ratcheting up the tension as the desperate group learn they must not fall asleep, lest a fate worse than death awaits.

The performances from Morgan, Goff and Newell in particular are actually very watchable, not over-wrought and certainly not amateur fodder. Star-billed Meeker might be the biggest name on-hand as the meek railroad pen-pusher, but Morgan is clearly the lead and his reliable presence underlines why he was such a prolific actor in the 1970's and 1980's. There's plenty of sympathy for each of the characters (which are mostly clichés), none moreso than Newell's small-town nubile "Jenny", watching her potential evaporate under the prying scrutiny of small-town rednecks looking for tail to taint.

Rebane-regular Paul Bentzen and dependable supporting actor John Alderman play the scientists desperately trying to develop an antidote before our stricken survivors submit to eternal slumber, with the prospect of failure looming large as the tone becomes more sombre....

While not entirely absent here, Rebane's hard-earned reputation as a plodding film-maker, substituting reams of dialogue for the action a micro-budget can't afford, his narrative is relatively taut and the tension and pathos he builds, quite effective. And if you do persist, you will be rewarded with some cheap (but effective) special effects that won't soon be forgotten - a little bonus material for those who persevere. It's not a great movie, but it's a lot better than its reputation implies and well worth watching.