The Alien Factor

Director Don Dohler's first opus, THE ALIEN FACTOR, is a wonder of low-low-oh-so-low-budget filmmaking.

When an extraterrestrial craft crashes to Earth, it unleashes a cargo of deadly creatures to prey upon the unsuspecting denizens of a rural town.

Of course, the acting and dialogue aren't Oscar-worthy, or even Oscar Meyer wiener-worthy, but who cares? It's all about the monsters, not the puny humans anyway! Sets? Well, bed sheets for morgue walls and a laundry room serving as the Sheriff's office work just fine! Hair? Who pays attention enough to notice the huge differences -short-long-short- in any character's hair length from one scene to the next?

Nope, this movie is strictly for monster fans, and these hand-made creations are just plain eye-popping! There's a bug man, a giant satyr / go-rilla man, and a burnt lasagna man! There's even a stop-motion lizard beast! This is cheeeze as art!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: #1- The trio of friends who look as though Charles Manson, Roger Daltrey, and Eric Clapton (from his early CREAM days) decided to hang out together! #2- The bar band and their two semi-awake, female fans! #3- The Sheriff (Tom Griffith), who proves that L.Q. Jones could have played McCloud! #4- Aunt Ruth and intergalactic superstar, George Stover!

Watch this immediately!...

The Alien Factor - well, from the opening sequences, you get the distinct feeling that this movie is going to be a shoestring effort, produced over a free weekend by a bunch of people who have never seen a camera before, let alone checked up on the word "act" in the dictionary. Your worst fears are soon realised, although credit must be given for a very early appearance of one of the "monsters." Otherwise, I'm afraid, credit is in pretty short supply. Looking at the film in 2010, the striking thing about the characters are the bad haircuts - the sheriff with the Barry Gibb-style mane is a hoot! The mayor looks as though he's wearing a frozen headscarf, tucked behind his ears. The other striking aspect is the pitifully poor acting - they are clearly all amateurs who must have embarked on film careers during a few hours away from their regular jobs. However, there are some positives - the basic premise of alien zoological specimens, escaping on earth, is quite novel. Same for one of the aliens - the satyr-like creature - which is well presented and out of the ordinary. And, the amateurish direction and script does hold a certain basic charm. As far as bad sci-fi movies go, this one has to be up there with the best!

What can I say about this movie? PLENTY! I discovered it right where it belongs, on TV at 3 in the morning, and it snapped me to full consciousness. The aliens are unbelievable, the plot is okay, the acting is priceless and the ending even goes for poignancy. The plot? Oh yes there is one. A bunch of strange monsters show up out of nowhere and terrorize a mountain village. A stranger named Zachary discovers they came from a spaceship the crashed in the hills and nominates himself as a one man committee to round up and/or destroy the alien beasts.

Now you have to see these monsters to believe them. One is a humanoid insect. His costume was made by spray painting cardboard with enamel and it was destroyed when it got rained on! A furry monster looks like the sort of outfit Gene Simmons of KISS might wear to a Halloween party right down to the 24 inch platform boots. The last is the best, a stop motion animated something-or-other that is invisible for most of the movie but who finally materializes for the end. They forgot, or could not afford, to matte out the background so the thing is transparent for all its scenes. Is that all? Not nearly! How about live music from a musician called "Lon Talbot" and 2 go-go girls who dance like they are on Valium? How about an alien who wear blue jeans and looks like his skin is made of wicker? Jinkies this movie is an instant classic! I loved it! Don Dohler made other films but this one is the most fun. Can we take Edward D. Wood off that pedastal now and put Don Dohler in his place? His films deserve to be seen and talked about; especially this one.

I'm the "Dan White" in the credits as "Vance". It was a walk-on, one-line, bit part. Me and "Ted" found one of the bodies and drove it up to "Doc Ruth's" place. The two-tone blue car was mine. Doc Ruth's place was the farmhouse on a horse farm where my sister then boarded her horses. It was a blast to help make the film. I wish it had not turned out as campy as it did. It was not meant to. But it did make it onto Movie Macabre (Elvira's show) and I did get a big smile from her when I met her at an Auto Show in DC and asked if she remembered the film. She said that she did.

I know this movie well since I am Sheriff Cinder. Some of the negative comments I've seen used to really get to me. But that was when I was a lot closer to the project. After all, that was almost 25 years ago. I find them quite accurate and funny now. It is a fun film to watch with a bunch of friends (if you're into this genre). Believe it or not, I can't get my hands on any good copy of this movie. By the way, I just ran across some of the original paste-up boards, for Cinemagic Magazine, that Don Dohler (director) and I use to publish before and during the time we made The Alien Factor. What a kick it was to look over that stuff. If you haven't seen this film, get your hands on it and let IMDb know what you think!