The Alien Factor (1978)
They brought terror from beyond our galaxy!
Year of Release: 1978
Genre: Horror/Science Fiction
Rated: G
Running Time: 80 minutes (1:20)
Director: Don Dohler
Cast:
Tom Griffith ... Sheriff Cinder
Don Leifert ... Ben Zachary
Richard Dyszel ... Mayor Wicker
Mary Mertens ... Edie Martin
Richard Geiwitz ... Pete
George Stover ... Steven
Eleanor Herman ... Mary Jane Carter
Anne Frith ... Dr. Ruth Sherman
Summary:
A spaceship crashes in the countryside and abruptly the small town of Perry Hill is jolted out of its sleepy state by a terror from beyond our galaxy.
Out of the disabled ship crawl, fly, and jump a host of grotesque extra-terrestrial monsters to wreak havoc on the rural township. Fans of monsters and special effects will marvel at the likes of the Inferbyce (an insect-like alien), the Zagatile (a 7 1/2-foot tall furry beast), and the Leemoid (a frightening energy-being).
Praised and applauded for its unique and innovative special effects by major Science Fiction journals, The Alien Factor is a must for all serious science fiction fans.
Review:
The Alien Factor, remindin' us that bein' forcibly removed from your car mere moments before you're about to score is a close encounter of the worst kind.
And speakin' of gettin' dragged around by your ear, last week I got a call from Myrtle Hilliard askin' me to "do whateva you gotta" to make sure Billy got his stubborn ass over to the old folks home for visiting day, and I promised I would even though it meant missin' Chastity Dollarhide's annual "trip down candy cane lane" act at Walleye's Topless Dancin' & Bait Shop.
You prolly recall that relations in the Hilliard Family have been slightly strained ever since Billy and I caught Myrtle makin' the sign of the double-decker atom smasher with Ed Boggs a few Thanksgivins ago, but Myrtle's been like a mother to me ever since my own mama died and so I never have been able to say no to 'er. That, and she's got an unusual talent for concealin' a 12" wooden spoon on her person that she's not shy about usin'.
Whatever it was she needed to tell us it couldn't be done over the phone even if Billy hadn't stopped takin' 'er calls, so I hadda get a little creative to get the big doofus over there.
"You faid fee feow ih vuh fower!" Billy growled, holdin' my skull uncomfortably close to the day room's ceiling fan.
"Billah Lemar Hillyud, you put him down this minute!" Myrtle scolded, crackin' Billy's funny bone with 'er culinary equalizer.
"Owwww! Wheow weow you hivin' vah?!" Billy whined, droppin' me unceremoniously into the middle of the checker game Ed was playin' with Ferd McGurk.
"Thas nunuh yo bissnace. Now sitcho butt down - I got somethin'a tell you," she ordered.
"How ya been, Ed? Didn't recognize ya with your clothes on," I grimaced, pryin' one of Ferd's kings off the side of my face.
"Better'n you, from the looksa things," Ed chuckled, standin' up to help me get my foot outta my armpit.
"Billy, Ed'n I, we been seein' a lotta each other--" Myrtle started to say.
"Yeah, I know. I been tryna fo'get," Billy snarled, still rubbin' his elbow.
"Oh, ihzat right? I guess you think you too big fo me'a take over my knee jes' 'cause I got a lil' snow on the roof?" Myrtle snapped.
"No, mah. Juf teow me wha'v goin' ah," Billy grumbled.
"Billy, your mother and I think a great deal of each other, and we've gotten permission from the manager to share a room here," Ed interrupted.
You coulda heard a fart from the other side of the buildin', and believe me, we did. But after about 40 seconds I couldn't take it anymore and broke the wind-broken silence.
"Ed, just what're your intentions with our mother?" I demanded.
"Our movow?" Billy squinted.
"That musta really thrown the midwife for a loop," Ed contemplated.
"Answer the question," I pressed.
"We enjoy each other's company, that's all," Ed shrugged.
"We-- ahem, *I* dunno anyfin' abow you," Billy objected.
"So, ask. Ask me anything ya like," Ed smiled.
"Been Maowied?" Billy asked.
"Once," Ed replied.
"Wha happen?" Billy continued.
"She died. 14 years ago," Ed explained, inspecting the inscription on his watch.
"So, you killed her. And you think we're gonna let--" I managed before Myrtle got my knuckles with 'er spoon.
"You best mind yo manners or I'ma pop you where you cain't kiss it better," she threatened.
"I'ow behave," I mumbled through my fist.
"Wha' yeow famwy fink abow ih?" Billy questioned.
"Got a brother in Arizona, but he's an asshole," Ed shrugged.
"That's it?" I wondered aloud.
"Wilma couldn't have children, thank God," Ed grinned, shifting his glance between Billy and me.
"Awone for fow'een yeows. Mufa had qui'uh few women in yeow bachewow day'v," Billy accused.
"Three," Ed corrected. "Countin' your mom, I mean."
"Oh come on! You expect us to believe that? We watch 60 Minutes, man, these places are like frat houses where nobody ever hasta make a beer run!" I asserted.
I think that was about the time Myrtle made good on her promise and we mutually agreed that I wouldn't speak for the remainder of the visit, which's just as well since beyond that point I was preoccupied with this 76-year-old former Go-Go Dancer who went by the stage name of Leta Rip, who insisted upon inspectin' my... affected area for any lasting damage.
I managed not to throw up in the community Christmas tree but missed mosta what was said after that, though I gather Billy and Ed must've had a productive talk since they ended up shakin' hands before we left.
I guess I'm glad Myrtle has somebody to spend the holidays with - even if she does show an alarming lack of gratitude toward the people tryna watch out for 'er best interests. She could really take a cue from that Leta; sweet ole gal was so concerned about my injury that she made me promise to come back for a follow-up appointment so she could make sure everything was ship shape. Musta gone into nursin' after her stage career ended. Nice lady.
After I dropped Billy off and limped my way into the house I grabbed a coupla packages of backstrap (one for the skillet and one for my tenderloin), fried up some supper, and parked myself on the hide-a-bed next to Apollo for a little seasonal cinema. You could be forgiven for forgettin' that this flick takes place durin' the winter since the camera forgets that too about half the time, but I always get a little sappy and sentimental when the snow starts comin' down every year, and sometimes it gets so bad that it impairs my judgment to the point that I start revisitin' movies most people would classify as "enhanced interrogation tools" just 'cause it happened to be cold outside durin' the production schedule.
I've been savin' this one for just the right time - namely, the Christmas shopping season where everyone's too busy tryna find just the perfect gift card for that special someone to notice how ridiculous my holiday selections are. So for those of you still havin' trouble decidin' between Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, or just givin' in to seasonal depression and drivin' your Kia Sorento out onto the ice of Lake Gunkamucka to wait for the spring thaw, consider takin' a break from your holiday planning and enjoy these yuletide tidbits guaranteed to make you question your life's current trajectory.
First, if you're workin' on a deal to bring an amusement park to town and extraterrestrials show up it is imperative that their arrival be kept under wraps, lest your hamlet become a destination spot. Second, mastering intergalactic travel is all well and good, but havin' a terrestrial guide could mean the difference between being the prober or the probed if you land in banjo country. And third, if the sound of female screaming is your kryptonite, "movie monster" may not be a feasible career path.
The movie begins with a coupla co-eds neckin' in the front seat of their Volkswagen Squareback until a molded plastic fantastic space insect from Beetlestar Galactica comes along, jerks the guy outta the driver's side window, and uses his torso to make a crop circle pattern warning all alien intelligences in the area to maintain a safe distance from the planet's inhabitants due to the elevated risk of mono transmission. The girl escapes the chitin of the corn and gets picked up by the sheriff (Jack) who takes 'er to the hospital even though he can smell the booze on 'er and suspects that what she really had was a close encounter of the 5th kind. While that's goin' on, another gal out hikin' in the woods stumbles upon a mobile Czechoslovakian sewage treatment plant attended by an acid-washed jean-wearin' alien that looks like it's been livin' in Tommy Chong's bong for six years. It eventually spots 'er and she ends up gettin' 'er rim tacoed by a biker with a blood/alcohol content capable of preserving laboratory specimens, but thankfully the interstellar s'more comes over and heals 'er up with his cosmic kaleido-beam technology. 'Course by now news of these incidents's gotten around to every redneck with a police scanner and a workman's comp claim, and so three cleftskulls head out into the sticks to stand their ground and end up gettin' their Skoal flaps caved in while another poor son of a bitch on the other side of town is gettin' his molecules scrambled by a Laser Floyd plasma ball that leaves 'im lookin' like somebody pulled the Grinch outta cryostasis and tried defrostin' his head in an air fryer.
Then Chewbaccy the backwoods Wookie strangles a barfly in his basement for bein' a lousy tipper until a radio astronomer from Y.E.T.I. (Zachary) shows up and tells the mayor/respected late-night cable TV host Count Gore De Vol that he wants to investigate the crash of a meteor and Gore decides to help 'im even though he's pretty sure they won't find anything since a meteor becomes a meteorite once it enters Earth's atmosphere. Undeterred, The Count and Zachary go skiddin' around icy Forest Service roads until they come upon a crashed spacecraft and a freeze-dried Morlock wearin' a tracksuit who projects its thoughts to Zachary via purple rave fog and recommends he and The Count get clear 'cause he's about to blow the ship to keep the plagiarists at Lockheed Martin from reverse engineerin' his technology and buildin' their own interplanetary vacuum attachments. Turns out that the alien with the bad dye job was transportin' three creatures from another galaxy back to his planet when he ran outta gas and hadda stop to find a Stuckey's, only when he landed his containment fields crapped out on 'im and next thing he knew his passengers depressurized his respiratory organs and used his face for an airstair. Thankfully, Zachary has seen every episode of Kolchak and has come prepared to battle the invasive species, so The Count gives 'im two days to get the aliens autopsied as quietly as possible to prevent any E.T. P.R. from leakin' out and queerin' the deal he's workin' on to build the Boonie Land Amusement Park on the outskirts of town.
Then one of the town doctors (Steve) and a reporter (Edie) decide to be big shots and fight the extraterrestrial menace with a gallon of lighter fluid and just about get turned into snow angels before Zachary fires a bug zapper beam into Exoskeletor's skull and melts its brain until it goes down and starts rollin' around in the snow like Ralphie's little brother in A Christmas Story. Zachary barely has time to explain what dildos Steve and Edie are for veerin' outta their lanes before the Maui Wowie Yowie shows up at The Count's castle and votes to recall 'im for misappropriation of funds allotted for the preservation of spacesquatch habitat, and by the time Jack arrives to lobby for government intervention the Drape Ape purt'near punches Jack's clock until Zachary appears and fires a syringe fulla Woolite into its chest, thereby eliminating its many tough, set-in stains, but also causing shortness of breath and debilitating Apeoxia. This's about as far as I wanna go with this one, but there's still one cosmic critter at large, and it's the one that's been suckin' the life force outta everybody like a Black Friday sale on retail staff, so if you wanna see where mosta the money went you're gonna wanna stick with this one till the end.
Alrighty, well, it took 45 years, but Don Dohler's Alien Factor is finally getting the exposure it deserves. Admittedly, it's only happening in the form of a single still being passed around in meme form by people who probably don't know where it came from, but I see no reason to nitpick - after all, that's how Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 got its second wind. Don was one of those guys that you only found out about because back in the olden days every horror/sci-fi flick that got a VHS release had cover art that made it seem as though your life couldn't possibly be complete if you didn't take that sucker home and experience it alone in the dark at 2am after your parents'd gone to bed. Don's been gone comin' up on 20 years now, but he was one of those regional filmmakers with a style all his own that got you searchin' out his body of work to see what he could do if he was ever able to raise Roger Corman money to make a movie. There was just somethin' about his flicks that kept bringin' ya back for more punishment. The man was driven, determined, and didn't let little things like havin' already made the same exact movie get in the way of carvin' out a legacy for himself back when you could make a movie for the cost of a Buick Skylark and get it into theaters. A few years later he would go on to make my personal favorite, Nightbeast, along with The Galaxy Invader, but when you get right down to it I think I still prefer Night Fright - a flick that came out in 1967 to which The Alien Factor bears a strong resemblance.
It's been alleged that The Alien Factor was originally completed in '72 but didn't see a release until '78, and although I have no way of verifyin' that, it's pretty obvious that the production had at least one lengthy pause given the way it alternates between Autumn and Winter as the movie progresses. Still, for its many faults, I'll go to bat for the guy for havin' the guts to put his ridiculous creations front and center throughout the bulk of the picture when a lotta other guys woulda tried every dirty trick in the book to conceal 'em in the name of savin' face. The press mighta not've been favorable at the time, but it was folks like Don, William Grefe, Al Adamson, Ed Wood Jr., Bill Rebane, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Doris Wishman, whose "warts and all" approach to filmmaking have left a lasting impression, for good or ill, on fans of low budget movies, and though our reasons for remembering them may not always be the most flattering - we remember them still.
We miss ya down here, Don, so just in case they've got WiFi wherever ya are, before I run your filmmaking techniques through the proverbial woodchipper I just want ya to know that we all appreciate the work you put into makin' these flicks - it ain't personal.
The plot is simple, straight-forward, and unencumbered by concepts like segues or exposition; but in all fairness, anyone put off by that should be equally put off by Friday the 13th sequels, which are all just an excuse to watch Camp Crystal Lake become a teenage wasteland time and again. In truth, Dohler's script does explain most of its strangeness in the later stages of the movie, and although some people may feel that the information comes too late to appease their initial confusion, all the loose threads are eventually tied up. You don't get exposition so much as news dumps where critical information is laid out in huge blocks as infrequently as possible so as to not interrupt the interstellar squeezing of human skulls. Yes, this does speak to the undeveloped nature of the script, and yes, had the plot points trickled out a little slower and more frequently it wouldn't have been necessary to pad out the movie with a complete musical number during a throwaway bar sequence, but just the same, everything does make sense by the time credits roll even if the presentation is a little scatterbrained.
The acting is interesting to gauge in the sense that the entire cast seems to have been directed in precisely the same manner. Trying to select the best and worst performance is impossible on the basis that each castmember seems to be afflicted with identical inadequacies, and although much of this can be attributed to the cast having little or no formal training, I tend to think that the characters were all written so one-dimensionally that their lack of individuality or motivation led Dohler to provide the exact same instruction to everyone without ever realizing he was doing it. That seems like an easy trap to fall into as a first-time director even before you consider how often he was filming with a single actor who would later be edited into a scene with another actor with whom they may never occupy the same space. In short - everyone's inflection is off, nobody seems capable of demonstrating emotion of any kind (though the damsels do occasionally get off a decent scream), and there seems to be this strange anxiety hanging over every scene - as if each participants' lack of self-confidence is setting them on edge with concern over whether Dohler would ultimately use a take that they felt they'd blown.
Here's who matters and why: Don Leifert (Crawler, Blood Massacre, The Galaxy Invader, Nightbeast, Fiend), Tom Griffith (Beyond the Wall of Fear, Nightbeast, Fiend), Richard Dyszel (Feeders 3, Revenge of the Devil Bat, Monster Movie Night: Yule Screams Special, Pine Bros. Presents: Cinema Insomnia Haunted House Special, The Dead Matter, Raising the Stakes, Crawlers, Chainsaw Sally, Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood, Stakes, The Galaxy Invader, Nightbeast, and his many hosting duties as Count Gore De Vol), Richard Geiwitz (Nightbeast, Fiend), Eleanor Herman (Nightbeast), Anne Frith (Stakes, Alien Factor 2, Blood Massacre, Maxim Xul, The Galaxy Invader, Nightbeast, Fiend), Christopher Gummer (The Curse of the Screaming Dead, Nightbeast), Don Dohler (Crawler, Nightbeast), Dave Ellis (Terror in the Pharaoh's Tomb, The Death of Poe, Terror in the Tropics, Blood Circus, Nightbeast), Tony Malanowski (Tales of Frankenstein, Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood, Night of Terror), Greg Dohler (The Galaxy Invader, Nightbeast, Fiend), Kim Pfeiffer (Alien Factor 2, The Galaxy Invader, Fiend, Nightbeast), Johnny Walker (Vampire's Kiss).
Oh, and George Stover: Camp Blood 666 1 & 2, Flesh Eaters, Bloody Hooker Massacre, Shriekshow, You're Melting!, Things 5 & 666, Amityville Hex, Revenge of the Devil Bat, What Happens Next Will Scare You, Graveyard Stories 2, Remnants, Blood Cove, 8 Ball Clown II, Brutality, The Maker of Monsters, Terrortory 2, WrestleMassacre, Manos Returns, Killer Campout, Stellar Quasar and the Scrolls of Dadelia, Frames of Fear, Fiendish Fables, Beyond the Wall of Fear, Sociopathia, Milfs vs. Zombies, Ghoulish Tales, Call Girl of Cthulhu, Movie Night, WNUF Halloween Special, 7 Sins of the Vampire, Garden of Hedon, Witch's Brew, Invasion of the Reptoids, Jebediah, Ninjas vs. Vampires, President's Day, Faces of Schlock, Grave Mistakes, Dust and Death, Dead Hunt, Terror in the Pharaoh's Tomb, Swarm of the Snakehead, The Death of Poe, Terror in the Tropics, Stakes, Chainsaw Sally, Vampire Sisters, Stakes, Alien Factor 2, Harvesters, Sleepy Hollow High, Jan-Gel, the Beast from the East, Twilight of the Dogs, Red Lips, Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds, Regenerated Man, Blood Massacre, Do You Like Women?, Invader, Dracula's Widow, The Galaxy Invader, Nightbeast, Fiend).
The special effects are, indeed, special. This is another instance where trying to describe the inadequacies of the monster costumes is a fool's errand, but each effects guy was assigned one monster to create and animate, and it looks like the two charged with bringing the live-action creatures to life were given $200 and access to a poorly-guarded taxidermy shop. You really feel for the poor bastards in charge of piecin' these things together, and even more so for the dude inside the spacesquatch suit who's tryin' to walk around in the snow in a costume outfitted with what looks like 12" blocks of wood inside the feet designed to increase the creature's overall height. That said, the spectral, stop-motion creature that appears during the climax is far better than you'd expect after seeing the two rubber-suit monsters, and its creator, Ernest Farino, would later lend hits talents to classics like The Thing, Galaxy of Terror, The Terminator, Dead Heat, and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. Additionally, you've got the green, desiccated victim of the Leemoid (which is abysmal), and the pitiful, if charming, glittery, semi-animated sci-fi glitter beams superimposed onto the film in post-production, but as delightful and valuable to the film's entertainment score as these things may be, on a technical level, they literally stink on ice.
The shooting locations are bleak, drab, and often half-assed as most will attest upon seeing the hastily thrown-together sheriff's office in Don's basement. The interiors were filmed in Perry Falls, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore), and Kingsville, Maryland, with the bar in Kingsville being the one bright spot - unfortunately, the cinematographer keeps most of the shots tight, resulting in a near-total loss of its nostalgic '70s atmosphere. The exteriors were filmed in Gunpowder Falls State Park around 17 miles away from Perry Falls, and while I'm sure it's a very scenic area most of the year, the film looks to have been shot between October and February, leaving most of the wooded areas bare and unsightly due to the area's deciduous trees bein' stark nekkid. What's more, much is made about snowstorms in the script despite the ground being completely dry for roughly half the flick, and when there is snow it doesn't amount to more than about two inches. Granted, the crew can't control the weather, but when the weather you're advertising fails to materialize before you go out to shoot, they certainly could have revised the script and walked back some of that blizzard bluster. Still, the thing that's really gonna stick in your craw if you're taking the movie at all seriously is the idea that someone's planning to build an amusement park in a city with a population between 6000 - 13,000 people (at the time), and which comes across on film as being even smaller than that. Maybe try to be a little more realistic here, ya know? A strip mall works just as easily to maintain the mayor's ethically questionable motivations and actually sounds plausible for a location such as this. Kinda seems like somebody was gettin' a little too big for their britches in the writing room. By which I mean the can.
The soundtrack is wonderfully cheesy, with the bulk of the music being composed on an early synthesizer akin to the one used for genre-oriented TV series like In Search Of. As post-'50s science fiction soundtracks go, it doesn't get much sillier or endearing than this, with certain swaths of music being so goofy that you'd swear it was parody if you didn't know the source. Given the decision to compose with such a primitive device, there is little choice but to lean into the film's science fiction side despite the flick tending horror-centric, but the upside to having such lackluster special effects is that the music was almost guaranteed to improve the atmosphere of any scene where there're no monsters directly in the field of vision. No scoring is ever gonna be able to shift focus away from those, but I think the music does a fine job of rebuilding mood between monster attacks, and is, of course, a complete joy to behold from an entertainment-based perspective. Atlantis' psychedelic tune "Maybe Someday" that plays start to finish in the bar scene is alright as well, and as gratuitous live performances inserted into low-budget horror flicks to pad the runtime go, it's better than "Runnin' Don't Make You Free" from Zaat, but can't compete with the legend that is "California Lady" from Track of the Moon Beast.
Overall, The Alien Factor is an unmitigated disaster on a technical level with numerous instances of unforced errors (snowstorm hype, amusement park construction project, etc) and the kind of blunders you'd expect from an impoverished production helmed by a director working on his first feature film. Despite all this, it's a pretty fun flick that, I believe, slightly bests its 1967 companion film, Night Fright, in terms of entertainment value, and is worth a watch for fans of low-budget, regional films. If you survive this one but don't feel like you've gotten your itch scratched, just keep plowin' through Don's filmography until you're either satisfied or deemed unfit to reenter society.
Rating: 41%