A Part of Music Box of Horrors: Dawn of the Drive-In Presented by Shudder 

Don Dohler believed in three tenets of filmmaking: boobs, blood, and beasts. And Nightbeast delivers on all three. As a young man, Dohler published the special effects filmmaking magazine Cinemagic, and penned books on the subject before making his first sci-fi horror feature, The Alien Factor in 1978. Dohler essentially remade that same film—about an alien being terrorizing a small town—two more times in his career, but got the concept just right with Nightbeast. It’s a  marvel of low-budget monster movies that features a memorable, nasty-looking alien, laser gun fights, and music by J.J. Abrams (yes, that J.J. Abrams).