On the one hand, Nightbeast, released in 1982, is schlocky, cheesy, and terrible. On the other, it is rather quite a good movie. Two disparate descriptions for one film- how can both be right? It is the age-old ‘so bad it’s good’ argument, which sums up this movie to a T.

Equal parts science fiction and horror, with a good dose of action, Nightbeast follows an alien who crash-lands on Earth with no way home after its ship explodes. So what else is there to do except to go on a rampage and kill every living thing you see? Director Don Dohler sets a good pace for the first bit of the film, but it eventually slows down when the focus shifts from the alien to the humans in the small town where it lands. The story is simple, but it makes little sense; why would the alien not try to get a ride off the planet? If that is not possible, why could Dohler not have gone into that a little bit? One will notice as the picture moves along that there are instances where those certain things simply do not make any sense. It does not really take away from the film; it’s still a lot of fun, but a little more focused effort on the story might have helped.

There are numerous moments that provide unintentional humour, particularly some of those aforementioned bits that could have used a little script polish. Tom Griffith plays the local sheriff, who goes about his business, trying to stop the alien, evacuating the town and so forth, all with a haircut that definitely dates the film. Yet, while trying to get the mayor and his wife to leave, as well as the rest of the residents, he does have time to stop and have sex with Deputy Lisa, as portrayed by the very lovely Karin Kardian. Then there is the laser gun that can erase humans into nothingness, but for some reason fails to work on other objects. Also, said alien needs human flesh to live, so why is it blasting everyone away? What will he eat if there are no humans left? A lot of it makes no sense, but you can tell Dohler loves the material, as it hearkens back to those monster movies of the Fifties and Sixties. For the most part, the man takes a page out of Roger Corman’s book, and that is not a bad thing.  Funny or not, one has to love what Dohler has done here, even if it was light on horror.

Had the script and story been better than they turned out to be, everything else was on the same level, from the acting to the special effects. Those practical effects might have been as cheap as they come, but they were effective and, while ridiculous at the same time, they were absolutely perfect. All of this was expected given the obvious budgetary restrictions, yet none of it kept Nightbeast from being a fun way to pass the time. In the end, it is a bad, bad film, but it was also quite fantastic.

2.5 out of 5