RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

BA_Harrison A spaceship crash lands in Baltimore, and it's cargo—three zoological specimens from the farthest reaches of the universe—escapes to feed on unfortunate locals.Don Dohler, special effects enthusiast and creator of Cinemagic magazine, showcases his own work and that of friends in horror sci-fi The Alien Factor, effectively illustrating the yawning chasm that lies between keen amateur and talented professional. The film's aliens—an insectoid 'Inferbyce', a hairy, long legged 'Zagatile', and reptilian 'Leemoid'—are laughably bad creations, their naff appearance not exactly helped by Dohler's dreadful direction, which does nothing to hide their cheesy homemade nature.Dohler also commands pathetic performances from his wooden cast, achieves an astonishingly leaden pace, and even has the audacity to attempt an ironic twist ending—which is handled about as well as one might imagine (ie. badly). Making the film even more unbearable are the terrible editing and completely tuneless electronic score (someone got a new synth for Christmas but never read the manual).Some reviewers have commented rather favourably about the last alien, the Leemoid, but all I could see was a poorly designed and jerkily animated stop-motion monster badly composited onto the live footage. As far as I am concerned, the most entertaining things about the whole film were the hairstyles, which are far more horrific than the man-eating monsters from outer space, and the pointless musical interlude from a rock band whose two minging groupies seem to be having a whale of a time.

lemon_magic OK, I know that Cinematic Titanic recently stomped all over this movie, and to be fair, every joke and criticism they leveled against it was deserved.But it isn't really fair to judge a "home brew" effort like this against movies made by actual film studios, or to lump it in with films like "Manos" and "Beast Of Yucca Flats", which are so misconceived and wrong headed from the get-go that they stink on levels that a movie like this can never reach. A movie like "Yucca Flats" has ambitions and just enough "mainstream" quality about it that makes the badness doubly hurtful - "Alien Factor" is just a parochial film that's the victim of being saddled with local talent. If they'd had some money and some outside help with the writing and some dialog coaches, it could have been decent - not groundbreaking, but decent drive-in fare.There are glimpses, here and there, of some good instincts and some hard work. The forced perspective shot of the crashed spacecraft, the reveal of the 2nd alien in the basement, the "sound weapon" that the good guy alien uses on the first creature, the unexpected ironic ending - if all the movie had been like this, "Alien Factor" would have been quite entertaining. As it was, the loose plot threads, the endless walking scenes, the local actors who (while probably perfectly pleasant in person) were simply not photogenic, the goofy monster costumes (especially the 2nd one, where the monster seemed to be walking on fur covered stilts), the flat line readings...it all just dooms the movie to be tedium and goofiness.Best viewed at 3:00 am on the late show, or being pummeled by the good folks at "Cinematic Titanic".

Woodyanders Perpetually all-thumbs Baltimore, Maryland no-budget sci-fi dreck picture filmmaker Don Dohler strikes out with enjoyably abysmal results with his first ill-advised foray into "I got money, I have no clue how to direct, but I'll make myself a motion picture because I want to" Do It Yourself dimestore cinema. The fill-in-the-blanks obvious and predictable plot concerns a spaceship which crash-lands in the woods located nearby the sleepy podunk town of Perry Hill. A trio of pernicious and ferocious extraterrestrial beasts -- the Leemoid, a clunky stop-motion animation lizard dinosaur which sucks out people's lifeforce and turns their bodies into dried-out husks; the Interbyce, a black, scaly, crusty-faced insect being wearing blue jeans (!), and the Zagatile, a hirsute, towering, long-legged Bigfoot-locking behemoth with lethal sharp claws -- escape from the downed craft and embark on a murderous spree, picking off a sizable share of the dipstick hillbilly populace.Boy, does this delightfully dopey unintentional riot really cover all the right wretched camp movie bases, starting with Dohler's characteristically ham-fisted direction and by-the-numbers cookie cutter cliché-ridden script. The pitifully fake, unconvincing (substantially less than) special effects are quite rubbery and laughable, with two of the creatures being clearly nothing more than a pair of hapless dudes in lumpy Halloween costume party-style outfits (the Zagatile is especially crummy). The community theater level acting from a stock bunch of eternally awful Dohler film regulars is hilariously horrible: ungainly beanpole Tom Griffith cuts a most unimpressive figure as the earnest good ol' boy sheriff, Dick Dyszel (better known as Washington, DC TV horror show host Count Gore Devol) does an odiously smarmy turn as the corrupt, money-grubbing mayor, blubbery beefcake Don Leifert wears a fixed scowl and snarls all his lines as an arrogant, trouble-making redneck monster hunter, and "Cinemacabre" fanzine editor George Stover nerds it up somethin' gawky as a dweeby doctor. Brit McDonough's ratty cinematography, shot on chintzy, scratched-up 16mm film stock, gives the whole cockeyed affair the oddly endearing poverty-row look and feel of a slightly embellished home movie. Kenneth Walker's noodling, creepy-crawly synth score shrilly screams "Cheeseball sci-fi schlock flick music!" The lowdown funky blue-eyed soul garage group Atlantis make a great cameo appearance cranking out a slow-grinding tune at a seedy bar. The atrociously banal dialogue boasts such tin-eared gems as "She's a cool chick and we're gonna take her with us" and the immortal deduction "Looks like my meteor is some kind of spacecraft." Several unsightly white guy mushroom Afros and tacky sideburns, the choppy editing, poorly synced sound, a clumsy "Jaws"-derived subplot dealing with a few greedy and unscrupulous politicians who want to cover up the killings because it's bad for business, and an absurdly telegraphed would-be surprising twist ending cap off the goodies to be relished in this sloppy and amateurish, yet somehow still crudely appealing and entertaining clunker.

ChiefGoreMongral The Alien Factor is a home brew that got some backing and has become a sort of minor cult classic. At this point I would like to say if you cannot overlook a movie of a lower budget for some of its shortcomings do not watch or rent The Alien Factor as on a big production level this movie blows. If you can overlook that however there is a few things of merit here...though little.The story is about an alien ship that is on its way back to its home planet when it crashes with its cargo of exotic alien creatures. The creatures (3 in total not counting the alien pilot) get loose and start killing people in the local town. I will first say that this story idea is pretty interesting and with the right budget I feel this could be a cool sci-fi horror film however the movie is too ambitious with the budget and though the aliens look surprisingly decent for the restrictions that I'm sure they had, the overall product just sort of falls flat.Though the aliens look OK we get a stop-motion monster that had a cool design but the fight sequence its involved in was not so cool. To explain it would be futile, you would have to see this to understand. Also the acting was so-so even for a low budget flick like this and locals of the Baltimore/DC area will notice old school Creature Feature and current web host flick host Gore De Vol (who now has his own website at http://www.countgore.com/) acting as a mayor in this film.Of all the real problems I had the main problem and the reason I really cannot give this a decent review is....pacing. Man was it painful. There are 1 to 2 minute lulls of us watching a characters walk through the woods with nothing but synthesizer music going on. We await something to happen but in most cases it doesn't. It is these cases alone that hurt this film. I can look past mediocre effects, I can look past so-so acting as long as the story is interesting (which this movie had going for it somewhat) but when the pacing is off it can really mess up a movie and its flow.In conclusion I did not hate this movie as the monsters on display were decent and the story was something that kept my interest but poor pacing and some ho hum sequences in this film bring it down in the end.Score 4/10: Below Average, Check it out for the monsters and story just don't be surprised if you find yourself reaching for the fast forward button on your remote. Again not horrible just alittle bland.The Alien Factor is out though Retromedia (associated with Image)(www.retromedia.org) on DVD. There is a regular version and a 2 movie on a flipper disk (ala MGM Midnight Movies) with another film by Don Dohler called Fiend (dare I watch that one?) The 2 Movie release is under the title Alien Fiend: The Don Dohler Collection.Thats it for now folks. I leave you with this fun fact I learned from Alien Factor...Aliens love to wear Blue Jeans.See you Pygmies Later!!