The Alpha Incident (1978)

 

Director: Bill Rebane

Screenplay: Ingrid Neumayer

Cast: Ralph Meeker as Charlie; Stafford Morgan as Dr. Sorensen; John F. Goff as Jack Tiller; Carol Irene Newell as Jenny; George 'Buck' Flower as Hank; Paul Bentzen as Dr. Farrell; John Alderman as Dr. Rogers

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

No, we do not want any tanks, are you nuts?

Scientists experiment with an alien microorganism originating from Mars – not a good sign – using hamsters and rats as test subjects. It is a strange entity which managed to get to Earth, requiring additional experimentation including sending a shipment of the organism to Colorado by train. Things naturally go wrong as George ‘Buck’ Flower, a veteran character actor, plays Hank, staff on board the train who, suspicious of the new person with him alongside a mysterious shipment carrying a gun, takes a look for himself in one of the crates. Expecting something more of interest, like money going to be burnt, curiosity will kill the cat as Hank sadly infects himself after opening a crate, and spreads the material among the few people at Moose Point, the place the train stops out. Everyone there, including the scientist Dr. Sorensen (Stafford Morgan) who was on board the train, has to be quarantined at the station and considering that the organism, when you fall asleep, causes one’s brains to expand and implode, this is very bad.

In mind to Bill Rebane’s previous work – Monster A-Go Go (1965) is infamously bad for many, but is also an unfinished production Herschell Gordon Lewis acquired and tried to make sense of, and Invasion from the Inner Earth (1974) suffered from its absolute lack of progression as a dialogue heavy work – Rebane learnt from the two previous films and made a theatrical film here which is much more technically and narrative focused¹. The pace is improved, and whilst still as a dialogue heavy chamber piece, it progresses alongside cutting to side characters (usually scientists and the government) to build the narrative and tension with our central group. Even when the film slows down, it makes sense here, when there is an escalation and those stuck in the quarantine cannot even go to sleep or they will die, bad enough that the US military have to send them amphetamines to keep a person awake. The chamber piece with dialogue works here because the drama is interesting, including the characters.

The film was sold on actor Ralph Meeker as one of the cast, the Kiss Me Deadly (1955) star playing the elder station master Charlie, but the cast altogether and their characters are what become more interesting. The scientist Sorensen is facing the quarantine with as much the realization he is as much a victim, an anti-authoritarian streak as the ending is downbeat, and there is also Jenny (Carol Irene Newell), stuck as the only woman among these tense man. She is interested in Sorensen, but it is Jack (John F. Goff), the womanizer who has his eyes on her alongside the fact, skipping forward a few decades to a pandemic or two, is confrontational with Sorensen when told they have to quarantine. Credit has to be given to Bill Rebane’s cousins, as he had admitted he had envisioned a buxom Jayne Mansfield-like figure in the role, only to be convinced away from “sexual excitement” to a downtown normal girl figure², Jenny becoming a really interesting and ultimately tragic figure in how her narrative closes out defeated and scared.

Time, such as the 2019 COVD-19 outbreak, really does mark The Alpha Incident. Barring its source virus being an alien one, and there being one imploding head depicted for the gore crowd, this could be a mutated strain of a virus or a bacterium. Jack not following rules, to the point of being shot in the leg trying to leave, to prevent spreading the infection writes itself in the issue of a person feeling trapped and complete disregard for the safety of others in hubris. Even if this had been more overtly science fiction, it is the paranoia of being stuck in one place with the boredom part of the concern, even if the virus subtext had not been there and any force kept people trapped in the station, part of the issue (and the inherent interest) when writing these types of films in genre cinema. Here it is that one is stuck in a locked place and that, even if something unexpected is found like a secret stash of Playboy magazines, that can lead to worse existential concerns, especially worse for Jenny as the one woman among heterosexual men whose consciousness of their desires (and hers) alongside her fears of the likely demise become her story arch. The fact they cannot sleep does evoke how scary that concept would be; as much as Wes Craven exploited this fear for the Nightmare on Elm Street films, even a fan of the films like me admits they really were not about this for any of them, the sole exception dealing with the consequences biologically of not sleeping, the 2010 Elm Street remake, being a case where that was fascinating, but within a dull film which few would want to write about.

Rebane himself viewed The Alpha Incident as his first “real” film², and he should be proud of this. It was a challenge to see if he could tell a story of people confined in a small place, as has been documented as the reason the film exists², and after the stumbles before, I think he succeeded.

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1) There is also The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) beforehand, famously the giant spider film building the critter around a car to bring it to life, but that would be worth revisiting to see how that film went.

2) Arrow Video’s Straight Shooter extra interview for the 2021 Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection.