The Alien Factor
USA. 1978. Director/Screenplay/Producer - Donald M. Dohler, Photography - Britt McDonough, Music - Kenneth Walker, Special Effects/Makeup Effects - McDonough, John Cosetino & Larry Schlechter, Title Sequence/Additional Photographic Effects - Ernest D. Farino. Production Company - Cinemagic Visual Effects. Don Leifert (Dr Benjamin Zachary), Mary Martens (Edie Martin), Richard Dyszel (Mayor Burt Wicker), Tom Griffith (Sheriff Jack Cinder), Anne Frith (Dr Ruth Sherman), George Stover (Steve Price), Richard Geiwitz (Deputy Pete Evans), Eleanor Herman (Mary Jane Carter)
Plot: The small town of Perry Hall, Maryland, is struck by a series of killings which are taken to be caused by a wild animal. But an investigating astronomer discovers an alien spaceship and that the killings are really the result of three escaped alien zoo animals.
`The Alien Factor' is a low-budget film regionally (Baltimore) made by Donald Dohler. Dohler is perhaps better known to some as editor of `Cinefex' magazine in the late 1970s/early 1980s which for awhile was __the__ magazine for all amateur film-makers wanting to learn how to achieve professional effects on shoestring budgets. A sense of fannish enthusiasm infuses `The Alien Factor' even if it doesn't emerge as a particularly good film. It has been unfairly read and promoted as a really bad film by the Incredibly Strange Film Festival - which it isn't at all. It has an interestingly original central idea - the rampaging monsters are really escaped animals from an alien zoo ship - and an effective twist ending. One suspects that if the basic film could have been made by a company like AIP or New World on B-budget resources and with a better director that it could have emerged as a worthwhile minor B effort. Unfortunately Dohler is hampered by a lack of budget and resources. The actors are amateurs - although none give truly bad performances. The photography is poor - the film is very dim and hard to see - and there is a tinny synthesizer soundtrack that sounds like it has been laid down on a pocket tape recorder. Dohler is not really that good a director either - even with the film's lack of resources he could have milked many of the scenes for far more suspense and atmosphere than he does. Nevertheless when it comes to what is clearly Dohler's forte - conducting professional effects on a zero budget - the film displays far more enterprising virtue than many better-budgeted films. There is some rather weak stop-motion at the climax, but certainly some imagination has been placed into making the other creatures look definitely non-human - a furred creature that seems to walk on three-toed stilts is particularly striking. And there is a particularly good vision of Earth seen from space at the start of the film.
Screening at the Christchurch 1998 Incredibly Strange Film Festival Reviewed by Richard Scheib
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