Blood, boobs and beast (2007)

Don Dohlers life would probably have been quite different if it hadn’t been for that particular incident in 1976 when the office he was working at was robbed by a couple of individuals using sawed off shotguns. As they put the barrel to his forehead he realized that you should hold on to some things, to do what you really wanted to do with your life. Of course, he survived, and started to pour all his energies into financing his dream - a creature feature. This turned into The Alien Factor, an über low budget scififlick about a spaceship crashing into rural Baltimore, releasing several nasty alien monsters that starts to eat the local population. This was very much a family venture, partly shot in Dohlers backyard and featured several family members in the cast. From 1978 to 2001 Dohler shot six movies that have gone done into b-movie history and Blood, boobs and Beast is a very funny and interesting documentary about making lowbudget movies in your own backyard and how it is to be somewhat of a cult figure. His first movies were somewhat tame affairs that managed to get good distribution deals on tv since Star wars had created a scifiboom but in order to get better deals he soon found himself forced to include the three B:s that the title of the documentary alludes to. BBB gives us a portrait of a very friendly man that made movies because it was his passion and although he never that much of a director, being even further restrained by the miniscule budgets he was working with, you can clearly see the love of special effects and monsters that made him go forward. We get to see Dohler work on his final movie, Dead hunt, and the problems that arise when actors doesn’t show up and the discussions of exactly how many naked breasts you should include in a movie to make it exploitative enough. We also meet Dohlers family and get to hear about the effects his filmmaking has had on their lives, throughout backlash and death. It gets especially sad toward the end when Dohler finds out that he has cancer in his brain and lungs and starts to look into all his affairs as his death approaches.

BBB is a well-made documentary that should interest anyone that has any kind of interest in the making of scifi and horror movies, or low budget filmmaking in general. Dohler almost comes through as dull in his average joe-ness but that is exactly what makes him so fascinating. He took a dream and ran with it, and although he never became a hot shot movie director he still left quite a big impression on a lot of people that grew up watching horror movies in the 80s, including me and we all remember his movies with love and warmth in all their cheesiness. Highly recommended.

On the dvd we also get Nightbeast, his first BBB movie that basically is a remake of Alien Factor with boobs and gore, about an alien running around in the woods tearing out peoples intestines. Wonderful stuff that also includes what must be movie history’s most unerotic sexscenes. Extra material doesn’t get better than this.