NIGHTBEAST is independent film-maker Don Dohler's follow up to his oddly brilliant ALIEN FACTOR, and it's another quirky, action-packed sci-fi offering. In fact, it's very similar to ALIEN FACTOR, albeit with the crucial difference that there's only a single alien creature rampaging through rural America in this film.NIGHTBEAST starts with a bang by chronicling the alien's violent arrival on Earth and doesn't really let up from there. The narrative is an odyssey of cheesy 1980s-era computer effects of ray guns firing and subsequent disintegrations, mixed with the more adult exploitation staples of gore and nudity. Of the former, one of the alien's early victims gets graphically disembowelled by the entity, while half of the cast members seem willing to strip down for long-winded sex scenes used to pad out the narrative.While this padding threatens to drag the film's entertainment value down, thankfully it never overwhelms the production or its emphasis on low-rent action sequences. Although the majority of the movie takes place at night, Dohler keeps things watchable and there's a surprising amount of atmosphere in the production too. The alien itself is undoubtedly inspired by ALIEN but looks even meaner even though the special effects aren't as good.

Don Dohler MUST have grew up during the fifties/early sixties and been a tremendously big fan of the monster-movies of that period! How else could you justify the handful of cheesy Sci-Fi horror movies that he unleashed upon the world during the first half of the 1980's? His movies all revolve on the exact same storyline of an alien monster invading a remote little redneck-town and killing the locals. "Nightbeast" is by far superior to "The Galaxy Invader" and "The Alien Factor", but still a pretty inept and laughable movie. The monster, which resemblances a hairless gorilla with fangs, lands on earth, takes out his laser gun and starts shooting random people so they disappear into thin air. He occasionally also rips hillbillies' heads off or their guts out, but he never seems to attempt to take over our planet or anything. Why is he here? Nobody knows and nobody even bothers to wonder about it. Thanks to the monster's arrival, the local sheriff also realizes that he's in love with his deputy! How convenient is that? Most of the time, you get the impression that the players completely worked without a script! They all just do and say what they feel is best, and Don Dohler doesn't mind because he's happy already for making another cheesy monster movie! There's some outrageous gore and gratuitous nudity, so I don't assume any 80's horror fan will complain. Heck, even the title can't be taken seriously, as the intergalactic King Kong eliminates as many people during the day as he does at night! It's true what the other reviewer said: they just don't make 'em like this anymore.

After the opening credits over a black sheet of paper with spots of white paint sprayed onto it, oh OK I'll be generous and call it a star field, we witness an alien spacecraft crashing into a meteorite and being forced to land on earth. A terrible looking model spacecraft lands on a terrible looking model field. Three nearby campers investigate. From the burning spacecraft a reptile like looking alien, the 'Nightbeast' emerges, OK so I lied it's a guy in a dodgy rubber monster mask and silver spacesuit. The campers are quickly killed by the Nighbeast's laser gun which shoots awful special effects at people. The towns Sheriff Jack Cinder (Tom Griffith) is informed. He alerts his deputy Lisa Kent (Karin Kardian) and gathers a posse of men together to investigate. Meanwhile the Nightbeast has killed an unlucky motorist who stopped on the side of the road for a leak. His two annoying kids run for help. They approach a house, inside two young people are kissing, the girl says "someones running towards the house". The guy gets up to take a look and is attacked and gutted by the Nightbeast, it kills the girl as well. Then it manages to kill the two kids with his laser, maybe the Nightbeast ain't so bad after all. Once the Sheriff and his men arrive at the scene they have a gun/laser battle with the Nightbeast. After possibly the most unexciting gun fight in film history only the Sheriff, his deputy and a local man Jamie Lambert (Jamie Zemarel) survive. But the Nightbeast is still alive, bullets seem to have no effect on it. The next day the Sheriff visits the towns Mayor, Bert Wicker (Richard Dyszel) and his girlfriend Mary Jane (Eleanor Herman) to get permission to evacuate everyone in the town. He refuses saying a party he is holding for the Governor (Richard Ruxton) cannot be cancelled, and that he doesn't want to create a panic situation. The Sheriff evacuates the town anyway. Two doctors, Steven Price (George Stover) and Ruth Sherman (Anne Firth) are attacked by the Nightbeast before they can leave. However, they manage to scare the Nightbeast away and survive. Together with the Sheriff his deputy and Jamie they decide to stay behind and fight the alien. Written and directed by Don Dohler this has to be an amateur film, made with family and friends, look at the credits and see how many Dohler's are involved. For that reason I should probably cut it some slack but that still doesn't stop it, or excuse it from being a throughly awful film in every department. It has no story or purpose, things just happen to waste time, whats with Drago (Don Leifert) strangling his ex girlfriend Suzie (Monica Neff)? This and many more scenes add nothing to the film. The script has no logic either, why does the Nightbeast stick around the town once it's been supposedly evacuated? The special effects are embarrassingly bad, just look at the effect when the Nightbeast shoots someone with his laser, a computer effect an 80's spectrum would be ashamed of. There's not really much blood or gore in it, a ripped open stomach, a severed arm and a decapitation but they all look predictably poor. Credit where it's due, the Nightbeast itself looks alright for the most part. There's a sex scene between the Sheriff and his deputy which has to be seen to be believed, music that even a porno would be embarrassed about and two really ugly naked people make this a difficult sequence to watch. Less than stellar acting, photography, music, lighting and editing make it a real chore to sit through. And the worse thing about this film? It commits the mortal sin of being boring and not fun in the slightest. Sorry Don mate, but don't give up the day job! Definitely one to avoid.

Economically deficient bubble-gum sci-fi hokum can be every bit as enjoyable as any entry in the big-budget ALIEN franchise, so long as you find it in your will to accept it on its own minimalist terms. A ridiculous looking alien from the abyss of space(picture a fat man with the head of a deformed walrus and an enormous, fang-bearing rictus)arrives on Earth near a rural U.S. town and instantly begins a hunt for human snacks. Despite the primitive appearance and behavior of the monster, it apparently is of a highly superior intelligence, as it's armed with a ray-gun which blasts its targets into a scatter of atoms. A cast of nondescript nobodies must find a way to stop this hungry predator before it makes a casserole of their entire white-trash community. NIGHBEAST has gore...it has boobs...it has the most unappealing love scene in film history...all the essential ingredients are here for a perfect cheese-wiz monster-mash. Do check it out...that is, unless you deem yourself "too sophisticated" for such things.5.5/10...Dohleriffic!