Monday, February 6, 2006

Nightbeast – 1982

This is the fourth Don Dohler flick I own. I have both Alien Factors and Stakes as well. He is a low budget director from Baltimore (Pop Quiz, what other famous Director hails from Baltimore? The answer will appear at the bottom of this entry). That’s 4 out of 11 titles in his filmography. You’d think that must mean that I really like this guy, and you’d be right. However, that does not mean that these movies are good. Quite the contrary, they are really poor. But the guy has a great heart, and everybody tries. But the miniscule budget, cheap affects, clumsy script, and amateur acting keep it from achieving anything but mediocrity. However, I still like them. And not in the “laugh out loud ‘cause they suck so hard” kinda way. They’re honest movies. Don tries hard, and each one gets a little better.

That being said, there really is very little to recommend Nightbeast. A little gore, a couple of nice (real!) breasts, and we’re done. The plot is so simple, it would fit on a 3 x 5 card. The script seems to have been written by a seventh grader. And no one can really muster any great pathos, even in the midst of friends and relatives dropping like flies.

This Troma release (There’s that name again. See, I’m nothing if not consistent!) has as good a print as you can expect for a film probably shot on short ends. And the audio is clear for the most part (a lot was post sync’d). There’s one featurette, a outtakes/blooper reel. There’s a commentary, with Don and George Stover (a regular in Don’s films. I show he is in 10 of the 11 movies listed in IMDB for Don). They do a fair job of talking about a movie that was made over 20 years ago. Still, its not as exciting as one might like, sort of like the movie itself.

Two beers out of five

Oh, sorry for forgetting. The other Baltimore director is the justly famous John Waters!