Somewhere in the early Eighties, the local TV station aired a bunch of cheap B-graded movies in the afternoon right after lunch. As my favorite movies are those with monsters & aliens, I will not miss any opportunities to catch any of them. The viewers back then were much more forgiving & less demanding when it comes to movies as compared to now.

It was such an afternoon that I saw this movie about three alien creatures let loose when a spacecraft carrying specimens for an intergalactic zoo crashes near a small town near Baltimore. Soon dead bodies started piling in the small community and the local sheriff and his deputy attribute the killings to some huge wild animal. But they have no clue of how to track these creatures or to prevent more deaths from occurring. That is until the arrival after some 30 plus minutes into the film; of one mysterious astronomer claiming to be from the observatory who is tasked with the mission of ridding the town of these vicious and grotesque extraterrestrials.

At the time, I had missed the title of the movie and I had no idea pertaining to the names of these alien monsters except for the final alien which the mustachioed protagonist had to battle. He had mentioned that the semi-invisible alien spectre is known as the Leemoid, and it took another 20 odd years later, with the advancement of the internet; that I was able to accidentally stumbled on to the title of this movie - The Alien Factor. And from then I was able to obtain more information pertaining to this movie; including its director, Don Dohler.

Though there were many unsympathetic and nick-picking reviews on this movie, one has to bear in mind that Dohler made this movie with a under $5000 budget at the time( somewhere in the mid-70s) and also, this movie actually predates blockbuster like Alien & Star Wars. Basically, the director here uses a different approach as compared to Ridley Scott's Alien; as he leaves much of the alien's appearance to the viewers imagination. But Dohler chooses to dives right in and let you see stuffs - his creatures were basically laid out in the open, he does nothing to hide his creatures or the effects his team employed, contrary to Alien which uses effects in darkness and camera angle trickeries! Dohler's aliens are seen in broad daylight, with the exception of the Leemoid, which is stop-motion animated.

Simply, after watching Alien and you try drawing the entire creature on a paper; you will not be able to do so. But the creatures in Alien Factor, as you have a better concept of how the aliens look like; it'll be easier to conceptualize and draw it out. The first alien that wreck havoc in the town is an Insectoid alien known as the Inferbyce. The second is a mammalian creature, with the torso downwards that looks like a satyr, known as the Zagatile. But my favorite is the reptilian alien known as the Leemoid.

Access to these informations on the Alien Factor actually inspires me to draw my own versions of the 3 distinct extraterrestrials. And after 5 years of deviating from my obsession of drawing aliens and monsters; and least expected of all coming from this low-budget self-made movie, it has somehow rekindled that spark. So hope that viewers can be more tolerant, accepting and be more patient and give this movie a chance to inspire you also.

The 3 Monsters below in this gallery are inspired by the movie titled ALIEN FACTOR ( 1978 )

The Zagatile is a hairy mammalian creature.

The Inferbyce is a hard-shelled Insectoid Extraterrestrial.

The Leemoid is a Reptilian Extraterrestrial with only 2 fore-limbs and slither like a serpent. 

The Gremlin inspired by the hairy creature from the Episode titled - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

This version of the Gremlin is more akin to a hairy simian creature, inspired by the original Gremlin monster on Nightmare at 20,000 feet. 

Of all the episodes of the original black and white The Twilight Zone TV series, the one that is easily in my list of top 5 countdown would be Nightmare at 20,000 feet. Nightmare was written by Richard Matheson, a key contributor to The Twilight Zone series. His script puts much emphasis on the protagonist suffering from mounting psychological distress as it does on the monster driving it.

The protagonist is traveling with his wife, who has come to retrieve him from a treatment center where he’s been recuperating. The main plot centers around the protagonist, Robert Wilson’s flight home which quickly spiraled into a sweat-soaked, pitch-black carnival ride through his own sanity after he sees a gremlin on the wing of the airplane. Part of what makes the story work so well is the almost immediate leap we make into the titular nightmare when the protagonist boarded the plane.

When Wilson begins to see the creature, he tries very hard to maintain his composure and dignity, always very aware that the slightest hint of erratic behavior could land him back in the hospital. This version of the gremlin creature is more scarier as its completely aware of the fact that the flight crew do not believe in Wilson and is able to take advantage of any opportunity it can to provoke him each time he looks out the window; aside from seeing it wrecking havoc on the wing of the plane.

Matheson has probably borrowed and expanded on the idea of Gremlins wrecking havoc on the plane from a Roald Dahl 1943 book which centers on these strange, otherworldly, mischievous creatures causing inexplicable mishaps and mechanical failures on fighter planes during World War 2.  In Dahl’s first children's novel The Gremlins, the word "Gremlin" is used to refer to the adult males of the species, with the females being called "Fifinellas" and the infants "Widgets".