Fiend Without a Face

Fiend Without A Face is based on a 1930s pulp magazine story called "The Thought Monster". Marshall Thompson is a Major on an air force base in Canada. The military is developing long range radar that uses nuclear power. The local farmers are upset because the jets are noisy and frightening the cows causing them to under-produce milk. But much worse, some of the locals are found dead with their brains sucked out of two small holes in the back of their necks. Eeek!

Thompson investigates Professor Walgate who seems to have something to do with it all.

Fiend is a standard grade-B sci-fi flick from the 50s. I happen to be a sucker for 1950s grade B movies. I actually love them even though they are not very good usually. If you are like me you'll like Fiend. The acting and dialog varies from average to embarrassing and most of the film is pretty boring, but it's short.

The monsters are invisible until the end but they are interesting movie creations. They're done with stop-animation. They should be comical but for some strange reason I've always found them extremely creepy.

If you've seen It The Terror From Beyond Space with Thompson you have an idea of the quality of Fiend.

Okay, so the first hour of this 74-minute non-epic is padded to

the gills with seemingly silly dialogue, off-kilter acting, and

budgetless set design. I would argue that there is more than

meets the eye in the film's script, though, to the degree that it is a

surprisingly intelligent, supernatural take the atomic age. A highly

enjoyable hour which provides more than mere camp appeal. But - wow - that last 15 minutes! You can see everything from

THE TINGLER, to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, to ERASERHEAD,

to EVIL DEAD being born in the film's glorious finale! After being

blown away by the film's (beautifully animated and frankly

disturbing) ending, I watched the film again, and admired how the

the seemingly thin first hour actually builds quite ingeniously to the

climax. I was also impressed with the tasteful application of gore

at the end (which could be generically attributed to the film's British

sensibility), giving it both a shocking and alluring quality. The more I think about this supposed schlocky B-film, the more

I appreciate it. Sometimes mainstream critics such as Mr. Maltin

miss the boat, and this is precisely one of those times.

I've read many comments about this movie from those that I assume just recently viewed it. In 1958 my brother and I saw this film at the local theater. It must have cost us at least 35 cents to see it and one other movie. To sum it up it scared our socks off. Remember that sick feeling you got in you stomach when you watched Alien for the first time. That same feeling and probably worse is what we experienced. The shear terror of the invisible beast and the subtle way the movie lead up to revealing the monster created a tension an 11 year kid in the fifties was not ready for. At the time this movie was actually banned in certain countries. This is a fact, not just media hype. With all the high-tech movie making of today it will get harder and harder to scare the sophisticated movie buff. But in 1958 this one sent us home afraid to walk in a dark room or turn our backs to a dark corner.

... which usually highlights the best films from around the world. So you'd expect and you would find "Seven Samurai", "The Third Man", and "Bicycle Thieves" among those films that are or have been in print by this group. But why this film?

I really don't know. Maybe just because it is a good representative of late 50s sci fi horror. In the 30s and 40s people were afraid of Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man. In the nuclear age people are just not that afraid of a giant bat. And that's where this little film comes in.

It's got lots of angles covered. There is the American military installation in Canada. The military and the nearby farming community do not like or trust one another. There is nuclear power at the installation...to power the radars? I looked this up and this actually was a thing. The natives think that the nuclear power plant is effecting the milk production of their cows. One nearby villager is killed one night when he is nearby the military installation taking notes. Then three more locals are murdered. And in a most unusual way. Their brain and spinal column has been sucked out of their body through a tiny hole in their head. And whatever killed them is invisible. So now the Canadians think there is a crazy American soldier killing people on top of everything else.

So enter Major Cummings (Allan Thompson) to solve the mystery. And this film is so very 50s. Cummings openly takes speed so he can work late hours. His idea of romancing a gal is to walk into her house just because the door is unlocked to find her clad only in a bath towel. In fact, Cummings is so bad at romance a special sax score plays whenever it is supposed to be a romantic moment, because you'd never figure it out without that cue. And we are just waiting to see what this invisible killer looks like because it makes the weirdest "swishing" noises as it approaches.

To obviously be a B film with a low budget, it does what it does well, and manages to include as a clue a word that does not exist - "sibonetics". Did they mean cybernetics? I'd recommend this quirky little film that is home in both the Criterion Collection and MST3K.

I just picked up the Criterion Collection of this film - and as usual CC does a wonderful job.

This film - when taken in context and time period - is pretty groundbreaking. Sure, the acting is stilted at times and the dialogue is a bit laughable - and the FX are dated. But the claymation/stop motion technique championed by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen is used to great effect and the film works remarkably well. The monster sounds are utilized well and reinforces an overall sense of creepiness - especially in the twilight forest scene. And the violent finale cannot be overlooked as an inspiration for "Night Of The Living Dead"