The Alpha Incident

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.

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.

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.

"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.