RIP, Don Dohler

Another night without a screening. However, today I learned that Don Dohler died of cancer on Saturday. Don Dohler directed THE ALIEN FACTOR and a half dozen other Baltimore-area regionals in the late 1970s and 1980s. I met Dohler twice back then - once in about 1974 when I was in the area for a horror convention, and again when I lived in Baltimore for a year in 1978. Don was very friendly, and seemed like a decent sort with an admirable affection for monster movies. I never really got to know the guy, but stayed aware of his career through mutual friends.

That evening in 1978 stayed in my mind for a bizarre reason - his wife Pam tried to convert me to Christianity! My pal Skip M. had worked on THE ALIEN FACTOR (which was still in post at the time), and Don had invited us over for the evening. Skip and I did the Dohlers the favor of getting roaring drunk first. Things went well while the conversation was on monster movies, but at some point Skip - who had recently rejected Catholicism but was still a Christian of his own sort - began to talk with Pam about religion.

Pam had gotten active with some evangelicals, and was in full believer mode. Having grown up with not much more religion than come from reading Strange But True ghost story paperbacks and daily horoscopes, I had never really encountered a genuine believing evangelical before. Oh, except on TV, where they were a source of baffled amusement. To my discredit, baffled amusement is how I reacted to poor Pam.

If memory serves, I listened to them for a while, then finally asked, "Look, I really don't get this. Why believe? What difference does it make? Why Jesus?" Skip and I had been contentious about religion before - but in a drinking buddy kind of way. We could argue about it, even heatedly, and still grant the other his own beliefs. Pam was merely contentious. In fact, she was a bit horrified that I treated the whole matter so lightly.

She asked me all kinds of personal questions and every answer seemed to confirm my bondage to Sin. Eventually the conversation devolved to her wringing her hands and saying over and over to me, "You're crying out for Jesus! You're crying out!" while I laughed and shook my head in denial.

I wish I hadn't laughed. 22 year-old atheists are smug - but then so are proselytizing evangelicals, and Pam gave as good as she got. Skip told me later that Don told him in the kitchen that he wanted to wring my neck - whether for my smugness or getting Pam so riled I never knew.

Don Dohler stayed regional, and stayed independent, and we can never have enough of those! I lost track of the films after the earliest ones - they never showed up in video stores around here - but always knew he was out there putting his neighbors in rubber suits. I probably thought more about Pam over the years, though - she taught me to change the subject!