A mystery wrapped in an enigma and crap

They (aka "Invasion from Inner Earth" and "Hell Fire") (1974)
Starring: Paul Bentzen, Debbie Pick, Nick Holt, Karl Wallace, and Robert Arkens
Director: Bill Rebane
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Four men and one woman are in a remote wilderness when they hear reports of some strange calamity that has gripped the rest of the world. While trying to contain their own panic, they attempt to reestablish contact with the outside, but all they can raise on their shortwave radio is a strange, haunting voice.

"They" is a movie that starts with a mystery and ends with a mystery. It never bothers to explain what's going on, although clearly SOMETHING is, because the filmmakers here don't understand the concept of P.O.V. and voice and they keep cutting away to show what's happening in nearby towns. Are aliens fumigating Earth in preparation for a takeover? Are people being "vanished" into the Inner Earth? Is this movie only watchable if you're really, REALLY stoned? None of these questions are answered.

Although it did keep my interest to the point where I kept watching, the film doesn't have a single good actor in it, the dialogue is lame, the music soundtrack atrociously inconsistent and inappropriate for many scenes, the special effects terrible, and the whole film ultimately pointless.

'The Alpha Incident' is a non-event

The Alpha Incident (aka "Gift from the Red Planet") (1970)
Starring: Stafford Morgan, John Goff, Carol Irene Newell, George Flower, Paul Betzen, John Alderman, and Ralph Meeker
Director: Bill Rebane
Rating: One of One Star

After a dimwitted, clumsy railroad worker (Flower) breaks open the badly secured samples of a Martian virus being moved from one government lab to another, the agent escorting it (Morgan) must keep himself and a small group of local yokels at an isolated train yard until a cure can be found.


We have a typical Bill Rebane effort here. The acting is third rate, the story goes nowhere, the characters never even rise to the level of figures they're so badly developed, neither the writer nor the director seem to have much of an ear for dialogue, nor a sense of how to tell a good story. Whenever the film seems to start making a point--it repeatedly flirts with what stress and danger does to transform a person--it either backs off from it, or does it so ineptly the viewer (and just one viewer.., the person so wired on coffee and chocolate they've not been bored into a stupour, so they are still paying attention) must wonder if anyone involved with the production side has ever had any relationships with real people.

The acting here is generally better than what might be witnessed in the other Rebane opus I've seen, but the story is worse and even more pointless. Its slow, and, like the train featured in it, seems to start a trip but ultimately ends nowhere.

Take my word for it and skip this one. The only reason for watching it would be to confirm that Bill Rebane is, indeed, in the running for Worst Filmmaker Ever.