House of the Dead AKA Alien Zone (1978). I think House of the Dead is definitely the better title for this one -- Alien Zone doesn't fit it too well at all that sounds like a sci-fi film and this one has no Aliens in it (well maybe those creepy kids in the first story).I really enjoyed all of the stories in this anthology. I think the 1st story, Mrs. Sibiler, and the 3rd story, The Investigator and The Detective, are my favorites - tied for first place. Then I would say the 2nd story and last but not least the 4th story. Of course the story that starts and ends the anthology is the best off all (Talmudge and The Mortician)... The Mortician tells Talmudge and the viewers the 4 stories plus they have a tale of their own.Worth watching if you like horror anthologies.8/10

An adulterous businessman gets lost in the rain and a mortician gives him shelter in his funeral parlour, who shows the man some of the corpses being embalmed on the premises. Each one has a tale about how they met their untimely demises: a school teacher who hates children is frightened to death; a predatory photographer who kills his unwitting subjects on-camera is eventually caught and executed; a self-inflated criminologist meets his British rival and in trying to out-do each other, discovers his nemesis is prepared to kill to be the best; and finally a selfish office worker is lured and held captive by an unseen assailant for an extremely long time but soon dies after he is inexplicably suddenly released. The man is told they all were victims of their own errant ways. When he asks about a final empty coffin, the mortician replies it is for him!The individual stories and the main framing story are written in a very comic-book or pulp-novel way. The second one about the photographer is probably the worst one but is fortunately brief enough not to be a problem. Despite some really awful music, ropey acting, and what appears to be lighting supervised by a blind man, this collection of shorts is fairly well directed enough to be entertaining. I am confused with the movie's original title of 'Alien Zone' - there are no aliens at all in it! Clearly they were actually going for something like 'The Twilight Zone' and were meaning 'Alien' in a more literal sense, as in "unknown" rather than "being from outer-space"! Even still, it's not such a great title; 'House Of The Dead' makes more sense.

This one isn't too bad per se, it's an anthology film with five stories, most of which zip by fairly quickly. The real problem is that the stories are barely there at all! A guy's been knocking boots with another man's woman and heads off to find his hotel, only to find himself at a morgue run by a bad actor. Within, he finds the coroner telling stories relating to the corpse he holds there. Sounds like a good set-up, but...well, most of the stories aren't any good at all. The first is concerned with a woman who hates kids, who then finds her home attacked with deformed kid monsters. Good for atmosphere, but I've just described the story fully with one sentence.The next describes a guy who kills women on camera and gets caught. That's the plot. Don't get confused.The third is actually not too bad. Two criminologists try and outwit each other. I'll leave it at that, as this one actually has a plot, of sorts.Number four makes even less sense. A chug nut gets trapped in a room and hooked on booze. That's...uh...the plot...Story five is what happens to the cuckolder. I'll leave it up to you to imagine what happens to him...The things is, the movie ain't terrible. It kept me going, and it did have atmosphere at several points. It's watchable enough, but your not going to be declaring this to be any more than the fluff it is. Watch it if you get desperate one night. It won't offend you.

An adulterer, Talmudge(John Ericson) attempting to find his hotel, instead is left by his taxi driver in the rain nearby a mortuary, it's mortician offering him refuge from the storm. While inside, our mortician relates the fates of four customers to him and we are all witnesses to what happened to them.Low budget anthology, perhaps too cheap to really be that effective. Most of the tales presented lack strong story-telling and end way too abruptly. Clearly modeled after the Amicus chillers. I have no idea why this was called "Alien Zone." The first and second tales really leave much to be desired. A school teacher who hates children(!)finds herself besieged within her very home by those very ones she so despises. The kids(..at first wearing clown masks, evoking Michael Myers from Halloween, later carrying the appearance of possible vampiric ghouls) as they close in on their prey, cornering her as the camera distorts the frame, colors out of control, is quite thrilling, even if what leads up to it isn't. The second tale consists of a psychotic photographer who records women he kills on a movie camera. The fourth tale, which doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, displays an office employee being subjected to torture within a building complex, rooms with trap doors and walls of spikes. The wraparound story between the mortician and Talmudge won't fool anybody. Talmudge, at the beginning, is shown in bed with an unhappily married woman and inside the mortuary, he follows the mortician as he opens the coffin lids exposing the victims of the tales we watch to him(..their bodies are not shown to the viewer, but Talmudge's facial mannerisms express enough through perplexity and disgust to lend us a helping hand in how they look).The third, and in my opinion easily far-and-away the best, is what I call, The Case of the Duelling Detectives featuring Scotland Yard's finest detective, Inspector McDowal(Bernard Fox)tagging along with New York's finest Private Investigator, Malcolm Toliver(Charles Aidman)as he pursues the identity of a specific criminal who is threatening to kill someone he knows with only a note consisting of letters cut from magazine articles as the means for solving the mystery. The two actors, Fox and Aidman, turn in delightful performances as foes, quite the egomaniacs often sparring intellectually with each other, who hurl gentlemanly insults at each other regarding which detective indeed is the very best of his profession and the result of the mystery(..although I'm sure many will know the answer)is most appropriate considering their vanity.