Nightbeast(1982)d/Don Dohler

In essence,a remake of Baltimore byproduct Dohler's earlier(even cheaper!)film,The Alien Factor,Nightbeast packs an amateur punch like no other rubbery-alien-in-silver-disco-suit-with-prop-laser-pistol-rampages-through-backyards-in-Maryland production ever has or probably ever will.There's a little something for everyone here.Cheap gore slathered over fried egg eighties boobs with a side order of uncomfortably staged love scenes and piss-poor optical laser effects.What makes amateur filmmakers tackle ambitious sci-fi/horror projects,when they know their production values will hinder them from making anything close to what they were shooting for in the first place is beyond me.But I sincerely hope they NEVER stop trying,as laughs(even unintentional ones) are so hard to come by these days.

From the dark recesses of outer space it came,to play with your entrails.
A homicidal alien life form,decked out in silver lame' and bent on total destruction of mankind crashes his interplanetary vessel...in Maryland.Poor otherworldly bastard.Some local hunters see the ship plummetting out of the night sky,and converge on the site to investigate further,only to be dispatched by a small laser gun that envelops its target in red light before incinerating it into a pile of smouldering ashes.Once the local population has an idea of what it's up against,Sheriff Cinder is called on to defend the townspeople,with the help of Deputy Lisa,a girl who likes her men like she likes her omelettes:flabby,no acting ability,and a perm.The flabby,perm-coiffed sheriff woodenly deducts(I smell an uncomfortable,uninspired sex scene in the works) that their first course of action would logically be to call in a geryatric marksman to shoot the laser pistol out of the beast's hand(!).Though many good extras get vaporized in the battle,the old geezer manages to blast the bastard's blaster,forcing the alien to tear his victims apart with his bare hands now,instead.The residents of Perry Hill,MD are in the middle of a low tech nightmare,that they can't awaken from...

Consider yourself laserized...hardcore,you goofy motherfucker!
Cinder visits Bert,the mayor(!),in an effort to convince the politician to evacuate the town until the intergalactic fiend has been subdued.Bert isn't buying,since he's got a highly important pool party coming up that afternoon,and he wants to impress the governor.Cinder evacuates the town without Bert's authorization anyway,rendering the whole previous scene worthless unless you enjoy watching non-actors channelling scenes from Jaws.During a run-in with the Nightbeast,the sheriff injures his leg,and when he and Lisa escape to her place,she dresses and treats his wound,and strips to a towel in front of him.After she takes a shower,he awkwardly seduces her("Can I get this shirt off?""Yes.Can I get this towel off?")and a bizzarely disturbing love scene ensues.The beast kills more people,and the sheriff and his posse manage to electrocute it in a moment of DIY brilliance,but seeing the permed and pale lawman and his tanned deputy roll in the sheets proves to be the one horrifying moment that stays with me long after the end credits roll.Lisa,I'll be taking a shower if you're done in there.Can I get this shirt off,baby?

Galactic Baby Huey in a silver disco suit?Damned skippy.
This was one of my first rentals at General Radio in Wilkes-Barre,Pa,once I'd gotten a free membership card after buying my Sony Betamovie camcorder and betamax vcr there.Watching it now takes me right back to that summer where me and my buddies crowded around the big woodgrain floor model television in the parlour every night,a different pair of horror flicks to screen every time.Dohler immortalized himself in our eyes through efforts like this,every bit as entertaining as Plan 9 from Outer Space in the same unfortunate way.You won't regret giving this a look,but from a technical standpoint,anything more than one wop would be misleading,which I give it,proudly:

Makeshift MacGuyvers from Maryland take out the titular troublemaker with household ingenuity.

"Return of the Aliens:Deadly Spawn"(1983)d/Douglas McKeown

When I first saw this low budget independent classic,I was skipping off school to smoke cigarettes,listen to Adam and the Ants records,and sneak a few quality hours in of screening my old man's unlabelled VHS porn collection with my buddies.It takes me back to the era of Flowbee feathered haircuts,big combs in your back pocket(I won't say what we used to call them in the spirit of good taste...),jean jackets,flannel shirts and work boots.Just take a drive through present day Manville,NJ to see what I'm talking about.Anyway,the big box release of this flick on Continental Video was what movies were all about back then.You could rent "Tuff Turf",to see what the little girl from "Escape from Witch Mountain" grew up into,or you could grab this one,with a snarling multi-headed alien beast with various bloody severed body parts strewn around it on the huge video box.Kim Richards usually lost to John Dods at my place(no offense to teenaged Kim,looking all cute in her Fashion Bug '80s new wave threads).

Nothing wrong with a little head for breakfast.
At the outset of our story,in a paen to "The Blob"(1957),two campers investigate the impact site of a large meteorite.While one ducks into the tent for a flashlight,the other is rended limb from limb in the shadows by whatever it was that crawled out of the meteorite.Then the second camper becomes a meal himself.The following morning,a suburban couple prepare to embark on a journey to a relative's house when the man notices the pipes are on the fritz.Unbeknownst to him,one of the cellar windows was left open during the night,giving easy access to he and his family for the being from the skies.When he doesn't return from the basement,his wife soon follows him to an untimely demise.

Alien tadpoles make short work of some poor bastard's face.
Hours later,the remaining members of the household beign to rouse from their slumber.Peter(who's having friends over to study...on a Saturday...nerd alert) and Charles(the obligatory young monster-loving horror freak),their sons,visiting Aunt Millie(who's planning a veggie luncheon date for her circle of stuffy old biddies/friends) and Uncle Herb(a child psychologist who's promised to give Charles a once over to see if the boy's bloody interests are normal or not..and YES,of course they are...),and an electrician is scheduled for a visit.For those keeping score at home,the body count possibilities are staggering at this point.Ellen and Frankie,two of Peter's friends show up for their Saturday study session(blech) with the promise of Kathy's arrival later on.Millie bails, but leaves a note for the electrician to let himself in through the cellar door.

Headless nerd chick's corpse in the front lawn.News at eleven.
Charles,young prankster that he is,decides to throw on a latex mask and costume and pop down into the cellar to scare the pants off the unsuspecting electrician.He stumbles onto the alpha alien,chowing down on the technician instead.The hulking beast lurches towards the boy,but when he freezes in the darkness,the thing and its multiple larvae swimming about in puddles on the cellar floor,lose track of him,as they are led by sound rather than sight,being eyeless. "Holy Saint Xenobius!" moment:The monstrosity then upchucks the boy's mother's head to the concrete below,where its tadpoles abruptly rip the face off the bloody thing,frozen in a death scream.Where anyone else would lose it having just seen psychologically destructive shit like that,this kid remains one cool motherfucker,still frozen in place.He throws a flashlight against a far wall,causing the creatures to follow the sound.He sees some of the flesh-crazed larva sidewinding out an open cellar window into the storm outside.

Let's see Uwe Boll create this kind of tension for 27,000 bucks.
The titular aliens kick into high gear,spoiling Aunt Millie's dusty get-together,burrowing into Uncle Herb's eye sockets(!),and the apex beast traps the studious nerds in an upstairs bedroom(chomping Ellen's nerdy head off in the process,and causing the headless dork to fall out a window to the lawn below),across from the bedroom with a phone.Oh sweet irony.In the end,it's up to Charles,Frankie,Peter,and Kathy to take on the ravenous otherworldly menace,which they manage to do,in a way that would make Richard Dean Anderson's MacGyver green with envy.By the time the authorities arrive,dispatching stray tadpoles and returning the rural area to normalcy,the mountain in the background begins to rumble...It can't be!Oh,yes it can.

You're gonna need a bigger boat...