Wow! Such a good movie.

A Masterpiece!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Towns-people near a US airbase in Canada turn up dead under mysterious circumstances. Survivors blame an atomic power plant on the base for the deaths and other strange happenings. So what's going on. Will the Cold War airbase be forced to retreat by upset Canadians. Too bad the fiend turns out to be so hokey since the rest of the film is both competently made and involving. That's especially unusual for the time when drive-in hokum cared little for quality. Probably the fiend would have been best left invisible since the squishy brains are really more yucko than scary. Looking for a good place to drink beer at the time, I missed few of these epics. I remember our carload of guys laughing when the special effects crawled across the screen. To that point, we had all been unusually quiet while immersed in events. Anyway, production does a good job of creating a military atmosphere at the airbase, with effective use of stock shots of the air and ground. Then too, Marshall makes a persuasive airforce major, refusing to just walk through the part as was often the case with these low- budgeters. And what about Miss Kim Parker, a good little actress in addition to filling out a tight sweater. Too bad her career was a short one. But stealing the film is Reeves as the aristocratic looking professor. He doesn't get much screen time till the last, but then really comes through in dramatic fashion.Plot-wise, cynics might note the way the atomic power plant is treated. I'm really surprised that in the 1950's it's made as controversial as it is, particularly by its supposed effects on the environment. In that period nuclear energy was generally considered the wave of the future. In that respect, the movie seems more contemporary than dated, while the final frame appears especially daring.Had someone in production come up with a better fiend, this drive-in special might have achieved sleeper status. As things stand, it's still superior of its kind.

Let's see. We have an air base where nuclear power is used to create a radar blanket surround the north pole. They are having trouble getting this to work properly. We have a nuclear power plant functioning in a small town. Suddenly, bodies start showing up with their brains and spinal cords sucked out of their bodies, with expressions of terror. The townspeople blame the soldiers that live among them. Apparently, it makes sense that a GI who has gone berserk would suck the brains out of people. They also blame the Air Force for their cows not giving much milk. Well it turns out that some scientist has been stealing the radiation before it gets to those planes to do some experiments in telekinesis. Like Walter Pidgeon in "Forbidden Planet," his mind has created invisible creatures. Anyway, these invisible things, when fed with enough nuclear energy, become corporeal. They look like mosquito larva with big brains and spinal cords that move like inch worms. Does this sound a bit bizarre. It is fun but don't think too much.

The plot to "Fiend Without a Face" appears absurd on paper today; it was probably also perceived as somewhat absurd in 1958, although the collective cultural consciousness at that time was less judgmental when it came to films about walking, moving brains and "mental vampires." The plot hinges on a US-Canadian military base that becomes inundated with creatures that are the offspring of a local atomic experiment, and Marshall Thompson is in charge of investigating a string of mysterious deaths as a result.In some ways just as hokey as you'd imagine, and in others ten times more sophisticated than you could ever predict, "Fiend Without a Face" is a prime example of '50s sci-fi schlock done right. It borders on absurdist science fiction, but the political climate of 1958 speaks to the film's nuclear content and the imagined terrors of the period. Accentuated by some impressive use of stop-motion animation in creating the animated brain-things is one major highlight of the film, coming into full focus as it reaches its finale. Again, all hokiness aside, the actual concept of the villainous creature(s) is grotesque— living, moving brains with spinal cords— and that alone is enough to lend some heebie jeebies no matter how fantastical that may be. Classy black-and-white cinematography provides the usual appropriate framing of darkness and shadows common to the horror films of this era, and there are some great compositions on display here.Overall, "Fiend Without a Face" is everything you'd probably expect from a film about killer brains, but the fact remains that, at the end of the day, it's quite simply a really well-made film. It delivers equal numbers of suspense and visual flair, it's classily shot, and the special effects are a treat. It may be the cinematic equivalent of a '50s dimestore sci-fi novel, but that's fine by me. 9/10.

Fiend Without a Face rises above the typical 50s matinée fare with decent special effects, a suspenseful plot, and some surprisingly gruesome violence for the era. At an isolated Alaskan Air Force Base, people begin turning up dead with their brains and spinal cords removed. What follows is a confrontation with an invisible and deadly force.Despite a silly concept which strains the bounds of even fifties science fiction, the film manages to create a genuinely suspenseful atmosphere. The director gives us numerous shots of experimental jets flying through the sky ominously, while the setting adds a sense of isolation and foreboding in many respects similar to John Carpenter's The Thing.The film also benefits from some surprisingly graphic violence for its time period. When a monster gets shot, blood flows. All in all, this is an entertaining fifties creature feature that is definitely worth a look.