Fiend Without a Face

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.

This is one of those scary flicks I saw in the early 70's when I was very young (six years old, probably), and probably it was the scariest thing I saw at that time. Certainly, there was no other film like it. I really wonder what sort of attitude the filmmakers had when this was being made. Were they giggling fiendishly, thinking of all the people they would scare with these images? (Scaring people was obviously their plan.) Did they think the movie they were making was "cool"?

The action-packed climax is pretty much the last fifteen minutes of the film. The brain creatures attack the people in the house, and pretty soon, bullets are flying, axes are being swung, and brains are being sucked. In my mind, this completely, mind-blowingly over-the-top ending scene seemed to go on forever, like a seriously bad nightmare. It was so repellently real. The creatures have no eyes, and they sort of "sense" your presence electrically to zero in on you, before flying up at you and clamping themselves onto the back of your neck. The depiction of this was pretty effective, and it still surprises me how well thought-out the creature imagery was here. Surprisingly realistic.

It still works, quite well! Go see it.

A US military installation has been set up in Canada for some special tests and experiments of an atomic nature. People begin to die from the surrounding countryside by having their brains and spinal chords sucked out by what lead actor Marshall Thompson calls "mental vampires." Thompson, quickly flirting with the sister of one of the dead men, does his usual adequate job playing detective trying to prove that the new base is not responsible for the deaths. It seems that someone or something is siphoning atomic power. Without ruining the who behind the what, Fiend Without a face is a pleasant, interesting excursion into 50's sci-fi. The fiends turn out to be brains that pulse and scrape the ground with long spinal chords attached. This film has a low budget but manages to scare up a few thrills. The acting is mediocre at best. The fiend creation are somewhat novel. Although much of the film is lacking in suspense, the finale is a good payback.

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.

This has a very impressive opening hook that I can remember from childhood . A sentry stands guard at an American air force base in Canada where he hears strange noises followed by a man's screams . He leaves his post to go running in to the woods and finds a man's body and the expression on the body's face says that he's died a terrible and unnatural death

From the outset FIEND WITHOUT A FACE bludgeons the audience in to letting it know that the setting for this film is Canada . There's absolutely no geographical reason for this because being a British film it could easily be set in an American air force base in the UK but since all the locals are either very dumb or very cowardly that would be unpatriotic . In many ways this film is similar to the later British film FIRST MAN INTO SPACE which also starred Marshall Thompson and disguised itself as an American movie . The major difference is that FIEND is enjoyable nonsense whilst FIRST MAN is banal nonsense

The narrative itself is very silly and much of the premise is ripped off from the classic FORBIDDEN PLANET . Like so many films from the era radiation gets blamed for everything . But where as films like THEM has an internal logic as to giant ants stalking the countryside here it fails to make any sense . The fiends themselves are brought to life via telekinses and radiation from a nearby nuclear power plant but surely the fiends would need access to the radiation ? Unless there's been a leak at the power plant ala Chernobyl how on earth can they get radiation ? Clumsy thinking on the part of the screenwriter

What stops this ruining the film is the director Arthur Crabtree . He's a director who started off as a cinematographer and the way the movie is lit is very impressive . Notice the right amount of lighting and shadow in key scenes . There is some obvious day for night filming but this isn't enough to ruin the audiences enjoyment and the scene where the two hunters split up only to go missing is very effective . Despite ripping off an aspect of FORBIDDEN PLANET the attacks by the invisible fiends do have a genuine impact to them . When they are finally revealed you might them somewhat laughable and obviously created via stop frame animation but you'd need a heart of stone not to be caught up in all the fun

And FIEND WITHOUT A FACE is a lot of fun . Okay no one is claiming it's a great movie but as far as science fiction B movies go this is a film I enjoyed very much watching one Friday night many years ago . It's also one of these movies Hollywood is rumoured to be remaking every few years but to be honest it's fine as it is