I really enjoyed seeing this hidden gem. I found this in a video store selling hundreds of ex rental vhs stock for 50c a piece.
My favorite line came at the begining by the mortician "the rain is like a vale over reality"
Anyhoo I just have one more question, why was this film called alien zone, a marketing scam? my copy was called house of the dead (10 times better than the 2003 house of the dead) to piss u off.
I don't know why IMDB lists its main title as Alien Zone I've never seen it referred to with that title anywhere but this website
shareI also love this flick. It follows in the same format as a few Hammer productions like Asylum, Tales from the Crypt and Dr Terror’s House of Horror... and more. I especially enjoyed the first story of teacher who hated kids. I felt her tension come right through the screen- the mark of an excellent actress. The kids showing up with those masks were very creepy!
I also agree that Alien Zone is a terrible name for this movie. Certainly House of the Dead is better.
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When the kids first showed up, they were wearing those plastic masks. I think they were just meant to be deformed under the plastic masks.
But holy cow! My hair was standing on end when the kids first came in- just deadly silent in those masks, and staring at her. I was completely creeped out. It's too bad there are no good photos from that scene on the web.
Me... as a grown man... afraid to head off to the bathroom by myself after seeing that.
The rest of the movie was kind of shaky for me.
jb
I love this flick especially the first vignette. The woman, her house and neighborhood are all so completely ordinary and mundane that it could have been the area where I grew up- it's so un-Hollywood that it has a regional middle America charm about it. And those kids were freaky.
A personal favorite.
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I got "House of the Dead" in a big box vhs lot off of eBay, and was pleasantly surprised with it. Though while every vignette isn't solid, I have a soft spot for anthology films.
Since the film is in public domain I've been toying with the idea of doing an updated script. Waiting on hearing from a production company on one of my current scripts, so maybe if that falls through I'll spend some time on this.
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Those tapes are nice!! Got one myself. It runs the correct length too. The reason why the DVD versions only run 80 minutes is that they were made from a British PAL format video, which run at a faster frame rate than North American NTSC videos. You can hear the speed up if you play them side by side, the DVD versions are all at a higher pitch.
shareAnd the picture quality on the DVD I have is awful. Occasionally the color drops out altogether, like some fields are missing. Makes sense from a PAL conversion, I guess.
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"House of the Dead" was a pretty good film. I just don't understand the low rating. I gave it an 8 out of 10.
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You mean 2 out of 10 ?
shareIt was very close to 8/10 with me, but ultimately I gave it 7/10.
I found this for 25 cents in a video store's clearance pile -- just the naked cassette, without a cover or description. The title intrigued me, and the film did not disappoint.
This is a cerebral thriller that deserves a much higher rating. Like most anthologies, some stories are better than others. I liked the wraparound story the most.
"I found this for 25 cents in a video store's clearance pile -- just the naked cassette, without a cover or description. The title intrigued me, and the film did not disappoint. "--WarpedRecord
Lol, you just reminded me why I found VHS so much fun. I used to go to a VHS warehouse clearance center and spend hours rummaging through all the cassettes and coming up with the occasional B-movie jewel. Thanks for the nostalgia!
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You're very welcome! Fortunately, I still have a handful of video stores near me that appear to be hanging on, and I support them as much as I can. These days it comes down to purchasing more than renting because it's actually cheaper. Whenever I travel, I visit video stores and thrift shops and wind up finding a lot of obscure gems at rock-bottom prices.
Normally when I buy a film, I'll research it on this site or one of my various movie books before watching it, but in the case of "House of the Dead," which didn't even have a copyright date or rating on the shell, I just popped it in with no expectations whatsoever. What a treat!
I read online somewhere that some company bought the film rights to this at some point and decided to re-release it not under the original title of House Of The Dead but under the title Alien Zone. Yeah, seems it made sense to them and no one else.
shareActually, it appears that "Alien Zone" was the original title, as evidenced by the poster for its first showing, linked below.
http://www.listal.com/viewimage/5210850
Thanks for the link... boy, that brings back memories.
I suspect it was retitled ALIEN ZONE to capitalize on STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and the upcoming ALIEN. I also suspect there may have been an extra bit of footage in the wrap around story to make it fit the retitle (love how they made a coffin look like a UFO in the ad).
Well no, the original title seems to have been "Alien Zone". My guess is that they wanted it to reference "Twilight Zone", with "alien" referencing strangeness, not E.T.s. Obviously people found it confusing, thus the retitle to "House of the Dead". It's a pretty fun flick with great atmosphere.
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