The Alien Factor!

The Alien Factor is a movie which makes me feel both old and young at the same time. Old in the sense that this little homemade science fiction flicker was made during 1976 and 1978 in some of the coldest times of the last half century. That's a long time ago now and I was a mere youth, freshly married and happy as a clam in my ignorance of the often callous world. But when I reflect on this movie and how it was made in Baltimore by folks not that much different from me back at the time who just wanted to make their own little science fiction movie, I am filled with the eternal springtime of youth and the scales of the years fall away. 

I confess to being a latecomer to the pleasures of this flick. I've seen it a few times over the years but its glory never revealed itself until recently when I was in just the perfect mood for a hokey movie about a ship full of aliens crashing on Earth and three of those critters becoming a nuisance as they hunt and kill various members of the small town in Maryland in which the crash occurred. There are three species of aliens who pose the threat. 

Perhaps the most memorable is the "Zagatile", a giant furry critter with ferocious fangs who likes to hang out in dark places like basements and jump on people without warning. A pair of short stilts makes this monster suit at once fascinating and also makes you wonder when the guy inside the suit will fall on his face. 

The "Infrabyce" is a cockroach-man like affair who also strikes from ambush. One of the more furious battles involves this alien in the woods where it slaughters several, the director of the movie included. 

Perhaps the most mysterious is the "Leemoid", a creature of energy who is ultimately realized on film by stop-motion work. There are two versions of the Leemoid and after seeing both, I prefer the one that didn't make the final cut of the movie though both have their adavantages. 

The final alien of substance (there's another who dies pretty quickly) is called "The Inner Man" and that's because he's different from the other creatures, as he's intelligent and he's here to round them up. He adopts a human guise which works well for most of the movie. 

This humble yet ambitious project is the brainchild of director Don Dohler, a fascinating figure who started out in the fanzines of the 60's and with his creation of ProJunior made a mark in the Underground Comix world. According to the legend a life-threatening robbery caused Dohler to get off his duff and make the movie he'd always wanted to do and The Alien Factor was the result. Dohler went on to make several more movies including another one I've seen called  Galaxy Invader. Alas that film seems just as bereft of funds as The Alien Factor but some of the energy of fun is missing from the final product. 

One cast member in particular stands out. He plays the mayor of the town on which the aliens descend and he's played by Dick Dyszel, a local TV star who played the shock theater character "Count Gore De Vol". (Love that hokey name.) The movie came to the attention of Forry Ackerman who touted it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, resulting in one of the more interesting covers of the final days of that significant publication. (See the Count with Forry above.)

In the final analysis for all its many flaws, what makes The Alien Factor a downright movie to watch is the omnipresent sense that these are people making a movie under somewhat difficult circumstances and using every ounce of wit and energy they have to make it work. And that energy shows through and lets the viewer join the fun. 

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