Nightbeast’s reputation precedes it with two claims to fame that have little to do with the content of the movie. It’s most notable for having a score co-composed by a 16-year-old J.J. Abrams (credited as Jeffrey Abrams), who went on to make a few sci-fi movies of his own. More recently, an eccentric clip from the 1982 creature feature captivated Nicolas Cage’s character in Mandy.
Beyond that, however, Nightbeast serves as the epitome of a lost era of regional horror filmmaking for the home video market; a legacy that feels right at home with Troma, who distributes the film.
Nightbeast is written and directed by Baltimore-based cult filmmaker Don Dohler, who sporadically produced no-budget genre fare until his passing in 2006. Coining the phrase “blood, boobs, and beast” as the three elements necessary to sell a film, he practices what he preaches; Nightbeast delivers all three in spades — and not much else.
A loose remake of Dohler’s own 1978 effort The Alien Factor, Nightbeast is far from a good picture, but there’s an incontrovertible charm to its do-it-yourself ethics and homegrown aesthetic.As is evident when watching the movie, it was shot in Dohler’s backyard with the help of a revolving door of friends and family members, and that camaraderie translates onto the screen.
Schlocky as it is, Nightbeast is not without its merits in atmosphere and production design, particularly the eye-catching creature suit — created and worn by John Dods (Alien: Resurrection, Ghostbusters II) — that looks like the unholy offspring of Rawhead Rex and a gorilla. It’s laughable if you look at it for long, particularly in high definition, but Dohler smartly suppresses the monster to mere glimpses for a majority of the film.
After testing the viewer’s patience with a runtime-padding opening credit sequence created by Ernest Farino (The Terminator, Terminator 2), Dohler wastes no time getting to the action. A spacecraft — obviously a model, but not a shabby one considering the shoestring budget — lands on Earth, and its alien pilot proceeds to kill the countless bystanders who investigate or otherwise happen upon the crash site.
There’s about 20 minutes of mindless mayhem, courtesy of the creature’s intergalactic ray gun and the brute strength of its bare hands, before any semblance of a plot is introduced — and even then, the story is never more than an afterthought. Dohler may not be the most competent storyteller, but like Ed Wood before him, his passion is palpable.
Despite a cast that includes early John Waters regular George Stover and Richard Dyszel, better known as DC-area horror host Count Gore De Vol, the acting is wooden, the abundance of optical effects are cheesy, the pacing is erratic, and there’s no shortage of kitsch — like the painfully awkward love scene or the sequence in which a man slams a foe’s face into the grass some 20 times — but Dolher makes good on his “three B’s” mantra to deliver an entertaining 81 minutes.
Nightbeast succeeds because — like Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Room, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Troll 2, Mac and Me, et al. — it was made by a filmmaker who truly believed in their vision and put everything into bringing it to the screen. The contemporary breed of self-aware B-movies in the vein of Sharknado simply cannot compete with genuine heart of a movie like Nightbeast.
The best way to see Nightbeast is via Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray, which sports a 2K restoration from the original camera negative along with ample extras. You can also find the movie on a variety of streaming services, including Screambox, Shudder, Tubi, and Troma Now.
Troma returns to theaters with The Toxic Avenger on 8/29. Get your tickets now!