Original movie script by screenwriter Dan O'Bannon (Dark Star, Alien, Total Recall). Though unproduced, O'Bannon stated that THEY BITE was a'precursor' to ALIEN. The producers I showed it to felt it was too weird and. That it would be too expensive to do because of the special effects involved. But they all did admit that it frightened them.
When I got ready to write. ALIEN, I pulled a couple of concepts from THEY BITE and put them into deep. (-- Den of Geek interview). O'Bannon wrote THEY BITE in 1975 -- a year before he wrote'Alien.At the time, he was living in an apartment in Hollywood, and the address of that apartment is hand-written on the title page, along with the notation'Copy #5'. From the estate of a Los Angeles area film producer.