The little obscure films of yesteryear really appeal to me, and I love finding “new” movies to occupy my time. About a week ago, I stumbled upon Troma’s YouTube page [Tromamovies] and watched the documentary Blood, Boobs and Beast. Honestly, I had little knowledge of filmmaker Don Dohler and his various fun films. After watching the documentary, I decided to seek out some of his work… and I didn’t have to search very hard.
Dohler’s film, Nightbeast, is on the same YouTube channel, and in amazing quality. Don made this little film back in 1982 and used everything at his disposal to create the best movie he could. Essentially, an alien run amok film like my recently reviewed Without Warning and basically cut from the same cloth. You can tell that Don Dohler is a man who has a ridiculous amount of passion for his films… just not professional actors or amazing special effects and you know what? I’m fine with it.
Nightbeast is an incredible example of a director wanting to create so badly, that he just goes for broke. This is a quality that not many possess. Romero, Greydon Clark, Lloyd Kaufman all come to mind and Dohler rightfully belongs. This movie is a schlock-fest — It’s campy, it’s absurd, and it has more heart than most films of the past 20 years. The alien pretty much wipes out an entire town. Not even sparing children and it’s up to a handful of police officers to take it down.
Troma saw the potential in this film and re-distributed it. I hope that a few of you give it a chance because I had a blast watching it. I give this film 2 evaporated kids out of 5.
That creature in the dvd cover looks so ridiculous that I must watch this! I probably like it.