DON DOHLER

By now, long time fans of Wormwood know the special love we have for film-makers who operate under the radar and follow their own rules. The guys who thumb their nose at mainstream Hollywood and churn out entertainment despite microscopic budgets and lack of resources. Well, Don Dohler from the great state of Maryland certainly qualifies as one of these outcast auteurs.

He may have been the last of the truly regional film-makers in the classic sense. He spent his whole life in the Baltimore area and never considered going elsewhere to make a film. But in contrast to many low budget movie mavens, he was a very well respected member of the community and a very professional guy. In comparison to the almost psychotic Andy Milligan and wildly eccentric Ed Wood, he was the picture of normalcy. And he was successful in many endeavors outside of the world of film.

Don’s directorial career spanned from 1978’s “The Alien Factor” to 2006’s “Dead Hunt”. Most of these movies were pure exploitation in the most literal sense, featuring alien monsters on the rampage, gun-crazy rednecks and diabolical creatures from beyond the grave. His movies rarely played beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in their original run, but many did well on the home video circuit of the 80’s and 90’s and several wound up playing regularly on cable TV.

Like almost all of the directors and creators we deal with here at Wormwood, Don grew up as a fan of horror and science fiction films. He grew up in Baltimore during the great era of 50’s SF that produced so many classic (and not so classic) films. He was particularly fascinated with special effects and was hugely influenced by the work of the great Ray Harryhausen. Dohler never really “grew out” of his love of special effects and monster movies.

He spent his teenage years cooking up amateur films with his buddies, like many “monster kids” did. One of these fan films was called “The Mad Scientist”. If I didn’t already like the guy, that movie would seal the deal for me!

He was also hugely into comic books and was especially devoted to the satire of “Mad” magazine. So inspired by “Mad” was he that at age 15 he came up with his own version of it called “Wild”. This was quite successful for a homegrown magazine and actually attracted some very talented cartoonists/artists like Art Spiegelman, who became world famous for his graphic novel “Maus”, and Skip Williamson, well known for many underground comics of the 60’s. “Wild” ran for two years and 11 issues. “Wild’s” version of Alfred E. Neumann was a character called Pro Jr. and in 1972, a plethora of underground cartoonists created their own interpretations of this mischievous mascot.

Comics and journalism would remain lifelong interests for Dohler, but his first love was always film and especially the world of special effects. He continued doing small scale efforts featuring stop motion animation and other effects, including a character called “Mr. Clay” that looked like a cross between Gumby and Saturday Night Live’s Mr. Bill. Each of these admittedly crude efforts resulted in Don acquiring new skills and polishing up old ones.

One of Don’s proudest achievements was his creation of “Cinemagic” magazine, an independent publication dedicated to film-making, particularly special effects and make-up. This intriguing journal was an immediate success. Getting its start in 1972, “Cinemagic” grew from 1000 circulation for its first issue to a very robust 5000 copies per issue in 1979. Not only did movie fans and aspiring film-makers enjoy the mag, but some industry bigwigs became attracted to it. A watershed moment came in 1979, when the publishers of the popular “Starlog” and “Fangoria” magazines bought the publication from Don and boosted its popularity even higher. I certainly recall seeing issues of “Cinemagic” on the racks at bookstores. Even though he was no longer the publisher, Don still retained some involvement with the magazine until it finally finished its run in 1987. I believe that digital copies of every issue can be found on the Internet Archive.

In 1976, Dohler was involved in a frightening real life incident…the office where he was the payroll manager got held up by shotgun toting thieves who put a gun to his head. That was the end of that particular career path, as Don immediately decided to go into the movie business full-time, even though everybody told him it was impossible to shoot movies in Baltimore.

Don’s movies were always low budget affairs that made use of local talent and even family members like son Greg and daughter Kim. This was the time-honored “friends and family” tradition used by the likes of Ed Wood and Andy Milligan. He put together a stock company of actors that included Don Leifert, George Stover, Richard Ruxton and even well-known Baltimore horror host Count Gore DeVol. Often these folks would have multiple tasks beyond being on camera. Don himself even popped up in small parts.

The first true Don Dohler film was “The Alien Factor”, which came out the same year that “Star Wars” conquered the world. The entire cost of “The Alien Factor” was probably less than Darth Vader’s outfit. Yet the movie is goofy low budget fun and has more in common with 50’s alien invader flicks than the massive space opera of “Star Wars”. The plot is simple: an alien ship traveling through the universe collecting dangerous alien monsters crashes on Earth in the proximity of a small town. The monsters go on the rampage until a mysterious stranger appears to help take care of them.

Don always wanted to create cool monsters instead of directing dramatic character interactions and in that regard, “The Alien Factor” succeeds. A stop motion lizard creep shows up as a tribute to Harryhausen, but most of the monsters are guys in suits. There's a mantis-like insect man, another creature that looks like melted chocolate and a very startling goat-man that is obviously a guy using stilts. When these creatures are on the screen, the movie holds your interest. When they are not…well, you can fill in the blanks. But Don’s directing, while not flashy, does the job.

“The Alien Factor” never managed a proper theatrical run, but it wound up being quite successful when it was sold to TV…I saw it on an episode of “Elvira” myself. And it also did well when the VHS boom took off. Don Dohler was on his way!

His next film was the Gothic horror “Fiend”, which he considered the favorite of all his output. I concur in this case, as this movie had a truly dark and diabolical atmosphere despite its small budget. Don Leifert, a frequent Dohler co-star, delivered an effectively creepy performance as the title character, a vampire-like lifeforce that brings a corpse to life and then must drain the life energy of others to prevent its decay. Leifert also co-wrote the movie along with Don. I would recommend “Fiend” as the first Don Dohler movie for the curious to check out. This is one where Don got almost everything right.

The 80’s, the great era of VHS horror, was the golden age of Dohler’s movie-making. He followed up “Fiend” with a couple of alien invasion movies. 1982’s “Nightbeast” was one of his most successful films, telling the story of an alien who crashlands in a small Maryland community and sets about tearing residents apart. This one featured a lot of gore as well as some nudity and I believe that’s the reason it succeeded. Don Leifert was back as a human scumbag named Drago who was almost as brutal as the monster. 1985’s “The Galaxy Invader” seems to have much the same plot, but there were some crucial differences. The alien is not as bloodthirsty as the one in “Nightbeast” and it almost emerges as the hero by the end. That’s because it lands in the middle of a bunch of greedy, drunk and degenerate hillbillies who want to make money by capturing it. The portrayal of these rednecks is pretty embarrassing and I doubt if even Mr. Dohler would deny the acting here is terrible.

1987 saw Don really scraping the sticky floors of the grindhouse with the subtly titled “Blood Massacre”, a combination home invasion/cannibal killer film featuring Dohler regular George Stover as the douchebag leader of crazed Vietnam vets who use the home of their kidnap victim as a hideout. Little do they know… This one was full of really misanthropic and gory scenes and not as much “fun” as Don’s other movies. It also led to him briefly quitting the film-making business due to burnout and not getting much return on investment.

After a hiatus of a few years, he returned to micro-budget Maryland-centric film-making in the mid-90’s and a vastly different movie landscape. VHS stores were on the wane as DVD’s took over and drive-ins continued to vanish. But Don soldiered on and established a partnership with local cop and part-time actor Joe Ripple, who would help soldier the burden. The early 2000’s saw a flurry of Dohler/Ripple films like the “Alien Factor” sequel “Alien Rampage”, which unfortunately lacked a lot of the innate fun of the original. Then there were a slew of ultra-cheap vampire films like “Stakes” and “Vampire Sisters” that were mostly directed by Ripple. These looked like they were shot on camcorder and sent directly to video on demand, which was just starting to take off. People mercilessly criticized Dohler, but one look at Ripple’s work established that he frankly wasn’t that bad.

As the pair worked on the whodunnit-style murder mystery “Dead Hunt”, Don learned that he had advanced cancer. Treatment proved ineffective and he succumbed fairly quickly to the disease. “Dead Hunt”, the final movie to feature his name in the credits, was released after his death in 2007.

That brought an end to an era of true regional film-making as well as a man who genuinely enjoyed monsters and mayhem for his entire life. From the monster kid addicted to “Famous Monsters of Filmland” to the producer of direct-to-video schlock, his output was marked by real affection for horror, special effects and his beloved Baltimore. Even in Maryland, his name is not known as much as it should be, which is a shame. But then, that’s what we’re here for at Wormwood…to shine a light on these underappreciated talents.

Now for an extra special treat! I was lucky enough to grab a chat with Don Dohler’s son, Greg, who sometimes starred in his Dad’s films and who grew up in the household of an indy film-maker. Greg maintains a website devoted to his Dad, which you can visit here.

Let’s hear what he had to say about Don…

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: Hello and thanks so much for talking to us! What were your first movie memories associated with your Dad? 

GREG DOHLER: Hello, and thanks for having me. My first memory was a month before the start of filming for “The Alien Factor” in 1976, when I was nine years old. My father very gingerly explained to my younger sister, Kim, and I that our playroom in the basement of our family home in the suburbs of Baltimore was to be converted into a movie set, specifically a sheriff’s office. We were devastated. But, I also remember the excitement of the first night of filming. I was fascinated by the buzz of activity and the energy in the room. I pretty quickly forgot about the playroom. 

WC:You got to act in a number of Don’s movies. Which one was your personal favorite and why? 

GD: Four years later he made “Fiend”, and at 13 I was just old enough to contribute on the production side in addition to acting. I helped out with the slate for sound sync, and generally acted as a gopher. It was by far my favorite experience, and I think it was for my father as well. The crew was very small, usually just three or four people on any given day. The atmosphere on set was very quiet and focused, very much a creative bubble. I think my dad was best able to thrive in that type of environment. 

WC: Your Dad really seemed more interested in the technical side of movies…the make up and effects…than directing. Would he have preferred just doing the effects and leaving the rest to somebody else? 

GD: He loved every aspect of filmmaking except for directing. He wrote the scripts and edited the films as well. Effects were usually done by friends he had made through Cinemagic. He especially loved editing because it offered solitude and gave him full creative control. He would rent one of those huge flatbed film editors for three weeks and hole up in our basement working 15-hour days—often through the night—drinking cup after cup of coffee and chain smoking. Directing didn’t suit his introverted nature, even though he did a lot of it.

WC: He spent his whole life in Baltimore and the state of Maryland. Was there ever any thought of moving elsewhere if a break came along? 

GD: He wanted to make his films, and the easiest and most economical way to do that was to work in his home town. He would have gone to Hollywood (or wherever) to direct or produce one of his films if the right money was offered, but he never would have gone out there to work on other people’s projects.

WC: Has the Baltimore community paid Don the proper respect?

GD: He has a small community of fans in Baltimore, just as he does all over the world, but he is not especially well known or celebrated in his hometown. It’s not surprising when you consider that Baltimore is known for the likes of John Waters, David Simon, and Barry Levinson.

WC:Don was really involved with some of the giants of underground comics, like Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. Was that a lifelong passion of his and what were your memories of that part of him? 

GD: As a teenager, he was a huge fan of “Mad” magazine. He loved satire. It inspired him at age 15 to start his comic fanzine, “Wild”, which ran for 11 issues from 1961 to 1963. It turns out, there were like-minded teenagers doing the same thing all over the country, and they found one another by placing ads in the back of “Mad”. They all drew comic strips for each other’s fanzines. That’s how he connected with Jay Lynch, Skip Williamson, and Art Spiegelman, each of whom contributed to “Wild”. All of those guys obviously went on to be huge in the Underground Comix scene. My dad really wanted to be a cartoonist as well, but he felt he didn’t have the raw drawing talent to pull it off. However, the character that he created as “Wild”’s mascot, Pro Junior, was resurrected and given his own comic book in 1972. Interpretations of Pro Junior were drawn by 22 different Underground Comix artists, including a striking Tarzan-like depiction by Robert Crumb.

WC:He also was kind of a pioneer of the special effects industry.I recall seeing issues of “Cinemagic” myself. Yet he gave that up to do movies. Was he  comfortable with that decision? 

GD:He became fascinated with special effects as a kid, when he saw the original “King Kong”. He did a lot of clay model sculpting and stop motion animation with his amateur 8 mm films throughout the 1960s. So, he was really passionate about special effects techniques when he started Cinemagic in 1972, because at the time there was nothing like it. It had a good run, and the relationships he formed with contributors gave him a built-in community to turn to when he decided to make “The Alien Factor”. By 1979, he was tired of the struggle to keep Cinemagic afloat on his own, and he sold it to Starlog. I think he was satisfied with what he had accomplished. A lot of future special effects greats started out as Cinemagic contributors, people like Dennis Skotak, who did visual effects for “Batman Returns”, and Ben Burt, who did sound effects for “Star Wars”.

WC: What was his personal favorite of all his movies? I really liked “Fiend” myself…there was real atmosphere in that movie. 

GD: It was “Fiend”, for the reasons I mentioned earlier: small cast and crew equaled more creative control. A huge portion of the film was set in the Fiend’s house, which was our family house, so he could tinker with lighting and camera angles all day while prepping for the evening’s shoot. The exteriors were set in the streets and the woods surrounding our house. It was all very comfortable, and controllable for him, which was how he liked to work. As a result, he said that “Fiend” came the closest of any of his films to realizing his vision.

WC:He had an established “family” of actors that appeared in most of his films, like Don Leifert and George Stover. What are your memories of some of your co-stars?

GD:  I started working as a member of the crew when I was 13, and it was a mind-blowing experience. Up until that point, my only experience with adults was as figures of authority: parents, teachers, coaches. On the film sets, I was transported to a different reality. Suddenly, I was being treated as an equal by an eccentric, outsider group of creative types. The jokes they told, the cultural references they made; it was unlike anything I had experienced. I’m sure I saw and heard things that were maybe not the healthiest for a boy, but I loved every minute of it and I don’t regret a thing. Don Leifert really stands out in my memory. He had a huge personality, and he was naturally funny. He would come up with comedic bits and purposely ruin a take to get a laugh. It was good for breaking the tension on a long night. George Stover was a trooper. This was never more evident than his death scene in “Blood Massacre”. I remember it was very late at night, and cold, and he was hanging upside down for a long time as my father kept calling for more and more fake blood to be thrown on him. 

WC:Was there one movie that seemed plagued with problems or did they all go pretty smoothly?

GD: The first attempt at “Nightbeast” in 1979 ended very badly. My father brought in someone else to direct, and that person ended up quitting in frustration. They ran out of money and the whole thing had to be shut down. Fortunately, he had a second chance at “Nightbeast” in 1982, and it turned out to be his most well known film. “Blood Massacre” was plagued after filming, when the investor disappeared with all of the original elements, which is why there has never been a true remastering of the film. 

WC: Have you stayed involved in film yourself? 

GD: I started doing still photography on the film sets and it stuck with me. I have been a professional still photographer my whole adult life. I have not worked on a film set since “Blood Massacre” in 1987.

WC: If your Dad could describe his own legacy, what would he say?

GD:My dad was taken from us way too young, but he lived long enough to reflect on his accomplishments. He was proud of making films on his terms with very little money. He knew that his publishing efforts, especially Cinemagic, and his DIY approach to making movies influenced a lot of filmmakers. To this day, I still receive emails from people thanking my dad for his inspiration.

DON DOHLER 

GREG DOHLER PHOTOGRAPHY