Fiend Without a Face (1958) User Reviews (92)

Despite a few goofs surprisingly effective & I rather liked this.

[poolandrews · 6/10 · 22 December 2011]

Fiend Without a Face starts late one night in Winthrop in Canada near a US air force base as a local man Jauque Griselle is found dead in some woods by a sentry, the man's death remains unexplained & over the next couple of days more of the locals turn up dead. The US base & is nuclear reactor are being blamed by the townspeople & it's up to Major Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) to try & uncover the real reasons behind the mysterious death's, he contacts Barbara Griselle (Kim Parker) & becomes suspicious of her elderly scientist boss Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves) who is conducting strange experiments in the field of telekinesis that have created thought creatures that live by absorbing radiation & eating people's brains. Trapped in the professor's house & surrounded by these creatures Major Cummings has to destroy the creatures before they multiply & take over the world...

This British production was directed by Arthur Crabtree & the script was based on the short story 'The Thought Monster' by Amelia Reynolds Long published in 1930 in an edition of Weird Tales, this 70 minutes film is surprisingly good actually & is a nice mix of sci-fi & horror. The script is lean & to the point despite a few goofs, a nuclear power plant reaching meltdown even though the fuel rods have been removed & then it is blown up with no significant damage to the surrounding area (hello, how about nuclear fallout?) & the fact that Major Cummings can't open the crypt door from the inside but Chester can open it easily enough from the outside? Also, if one of the creatures made it's way down the chimney & killed Melville why did none of the survivors in the room try to block the chimney afterwards? Overall though I can forgive some sloppy plotting because Fiend Without a Face has a lot going for it, it's brisk at only 70 minutes, it has it's fair share of creepy moments, the scientific aspect of the plot is fair easy to follow even if it doesn't make perfect sense, that character's are functional, the first fifty odd minutes serves as a nice little horror mystery with the unexplained death's while the last fifteen minutes goes for all out horror as the thought creatures are revealed & attack people stranded in a house in scenes that are reminiscent of The Night of the Living Dead (1968) complete with boarded up windows. I can see why Fiend Without a Face is still well know today, it's a good little film that makes the most of what it has & gives us a different sort of monster.

Although set entirely in Canada this was filmed in London in England, there's some grainy stock footage of real planes & the like but nothing too distracting. Director Crabtree manages to build up a fair bit of tension & suspense, I love the heart thumping on the soundtrack. The end siege is well handled & never lets up, it's worth watching the previous hour or so just for this standout set-piece. The thought monsters look cool, they are just human brains with antenna that crawl on the floor as they push themselves with their spinal cord like tails. The effect is somewhat lost when they start jumping around & flying through the air. During a time when most monster films simply used guy's in rubber suits it's nice to see that stop-motion animation was used here & while not perfect it's pretty good for the era. There's a bit of blood here whenever one of the monsters is shot but nothing graphic is shown happening to any of the people.

Supposedly shot on a budget of a mere £50,000 this opened in the US some six months before the UK, filmed in black and white the production values are alright if not amazing. The acting is OK apart from Constable Gibbons played by Robert MacKenzie who gives a truly terrible performance.

Fiend Without a Face is a nice little sci-fi horror film from the late 50's that is better than it had any right to be & stood the test of time quite well despite some goofs in it's science & plotting. I liked it, I liked the monsters, I liked the atmosphere & I liked it didn't tone down the horror elements especially at the end. Fans of classic sci-fi & horror should definitely give Fiend Without a Face a watch.

Fun little odd addition to the Criterion collection...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 28 March 2021]

... 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.

Brainless But Enjoyable SF Horror

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 30 October 2012]

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

Horror with brains!

[roddmatsui · 31 October 2004]

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 classic sci-fi/horror from the cold-war era.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 16 July 2011]

The 1950s was the decade of the cold-war paranoia sci-fi/horror movie, clever studios cashing in on the potential threat of an invasion or missile attack by the 'commies'. Fiend Without a Face proves to be one of more memorable efforts from this era thanks to its innovative script, neat direction from Arthur Crabtree, and a charming cast, but most of all perhaps, because of its cool creatures—disembodied brains, with spinal cords for tails, that suck their victims' heads dry.

For much of the film, these monsters—the result of experiments in thought materialisation by well-meaning scientist Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves)—are completely invisible (but remain threatening due to the creepy noises that they make before attacking); however, after receiving an extra power boost from a nearby atomic plant, they finally appear in all their hideous glory, looking just a bit like like face-huggers that have been to university.

US Major Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) leads the desperate battle against the crawling brains, only pausing to make moves on the prof's shapely assistant Barbara Griselle (stunning actress Kim Parker); eventually, after an impressive stand-off against the creatures (a scene that utilises some fun stop-motion animation and plenty of 'goop'), Jeff stops off at a nearby handy-dandy dynamite depot and eliminates the beasties by blowing up the power station (rather strangely, he doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned about the very real possibility of a radiation leak as a result!).

A little note of interest: although the film is set on a US air-base in Manitoba, Canada, it was actually shot in Walton-on-Thames in the UK (which, incidentally, is where I did my school work experience as a teenager).

Who needs a face when you have brains like that?

[Coventry · 7/10 · 16 November 2008]

Throughout my years as a devoted horror & Sci-Fi fanatic I've seen a large variety of hideous creatures from faraway galaxies, mutated beasts, mythical & spiritual beings, trolls, ogres, gnomes, gremlins, critters from the darkest depths of the oceans and appalling creations of morbid science, but I have NEVER seen monsters that solely exist of brains and a spinal column! Monsters that are invisible at first but appear when exposed to an overload of atomic energy and use their spinal cord to whip up from the ground and propel themselves onto the necks of their victims. How awesome is that? The nature of the titular "fiends" alone should be more than enough reason for fellow horror fans to check this baby out, although – admittedly – you'll have to be patient until the last fifteen minutes of the film in order to fully admire them. Before that the creatures are supposedly invisible and their presence only gets indicated through the sound of a pounding heartbeat; even though they don't have a heart. Go figure!

"Fiend without a Face" is an incredibly fun but sadly nearly forgotten gem of the late 50's British horror and Sci-Fi boom, professionally directed by Arthur Crabtree ("Horrors of the Black Museum") and starring Marshall Thompson ("First Man into Space", "It: Terror from Beyond Space"). The basic plot sounds extremely familiar and thus also qualifies as tacky, cheap and silly, but it is guaranteed vivid and never-boring entertainment! A small Canadian town is plagued by several mysterious and horrific deaths and naturally the petrified locals blame the nearby US army base and their loud radar experiments. After all, these militarists were already responsible for the cows producing less milk, right? Major Jeff Cummings, however, discovers that the murders relate to another type of experiments, namely the telekinetic tests executed by Dr. Walgate. He created some sort of evil monster that multiplies itself and gains intellect by literally sucking the brains and spinal cords of unsuspecting victims. I've read a lot of complaints around here about the first half allegedly being boring, but personally I never noticed a dull moment throughout the entire film. For as long as the protagonists can't yet figure out what kind of evil force is responsible for the eerie murders "Fiend without a Face" is rather suspenseful and compelling, and after that – when we discovered it's paranormal brains with a spinal tail – the movie is just sheer hilarious to watch. The monstrous effects easily rank amongst the most impressive and memorable ones in the history of horror cinema and, although they may look absurd by today's standards, their virulent attacks are still efficiently unsettling. This gem is in urgent need of a wider audience and a better reputation.

Not bad... Not bad at all!

[tom_koopa · 7/10 · 23 July 2009]

Well, this movie was better then I had anticipated. Judging from the title and first impression, I thought it was going to be a cheesy, old horror movie. It turned out a lot better.

Fiend without a face tells about an airbase. It's located close to a small town. The villagers don't take kindly to the base, since they use atomic power in it. The farmers believe this is disrupting the cow's milk production. This is only a side plot however, since the main problem is an unknown presence that kills people in a gruesome way...

The acting in this movie is nice. It's certainly better then 'your average' black-and-white horror movie. I especially liked the leading characters and the professor.

There isn't much music in this film. It's actually quite effective when they don't use music during the creepy scenes. This counts for a lot of movies, if you want my honest opinion.

The special effects are good for it's time. It didn't look fake or cheesy to me at all. I've seen worse, FAR worse in countless other movies of the same time period.

In conclusion, Fiend without a face is certainly not a bad movie. I can recommend it for fans of strange black-and-white horror movies.

It's creative for sure, so for that reason alone I give it 5 stars, but I will add 2 more for the other aspects I just mentioned. That brings the rating to a grand total of 7 out of 10 stars. A job well done.

Silly, Naive, Trash, Bad Acting, Ridiculous Screenplay But Also Delightful and Charming

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 31 January 2006]

An American military base in Canada is developing a missile control system based on nuclear energy and is facing problem with the people from the nearby town. When four locals, including the Mayor, are killed, Major Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) is in charge of the investigation. When the coroner examines the one of the corpse, he finds that the brain and spinal chord was sucked out and Major Cummings defines the creature as a mental vampire. He looks for Prof. R. E. Walgate (Kynaston Reeves), a retired scientist that lives in town, and he discloses the scary secret.

"Fiend Without a Face" is a silly, naive, trash sci-fi with bad acting and a ridiculous screenplay. The actors are awful, and the heroin Barbara Griselle limits to make bad choices, to scream and protect herself with her hands. There are hilarious sequences, like for example when a guy is attacked in the room by a creature, and one of the militaries wants to shoot, and Major Cummings ask him not to shoot because he may hit the victim, but he does nothing to help the poor man. Or the destruction of the power plant without any further consequences. But I was raised watching these sci-fi movies from the 50's and 60's, and I find them delightful and charming. I would like to advise the Brazilian readers that the DVD recently released by the Brazilian distributor "Magnus Opus" has serious bugs and do not play in many DVDs apparatuses. The Brazilian title is simply ridiculous. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Horror Vem do Espaço" ("The Horror Comes From the Space")

Nice B-picture with brainsucking monsters.

[Pedro-37 · 5/10 · 12 January 2002]

Those monsters in the shape of breathing brains are quite nice. The film however, is merely OK. Just another of those low budget sci-fi/horror-movies of the 1950's with mediocre FX and a barely plausible story. Nevertheless, I found it quite entertaining and because it's a rather short film, I never felt bored.

Rating: 5/10

Brainstorming

[GoregirlsDungeon · 7/10 · 22 September 2009]

When I was a kid I couldn't get enough of Sunday afternoon television. I loved the old creature feature's from the 50's and 60's they showed all day long. I was at the library, and there it was with that fabulous retro cover screaming at me to rent it. The copy we rented was from Criterion and was excellent; crisp and clear. There were some really fun extras on this disc including some great 1950's movie trailers, newspaper ads etc.

The story takes place on an American military base in Manitoba, Canada. In actuality it was filmed in London England. The base is not popular with the locals. They are concerned about radiation and the jets fly far too low to the ground and frighten the livestock. When some of the locals are found dead their first instinct is to point fingers at the military. When a major is assigned to investigate he quickly discovers that a scientist living in the area may know more about the incidents then he let's on.

It really offers you everything you could want in a Sci-Fi horror from the period. There is a hero, a lovely gal and a monster that sucks out peoples brain and spinal cord. The "fiends" in fact are gelatanis brains that push themselves along via their spinal cord. There is even some gore when the brains get shot. They were definitely the films main source of entertainment. In the extras they talk about some of the ways they promoted the film back then. In New York they actually had a "fiend" in a glass box on the sidewalk in front of the theatre. They hooked it up to some wires and the spine would move randomly. It garnered such huge crowds that the police asked them to remove it, citing it as a public nuisance. The cheesy dialog is delivered with conviction by the actors. Sometimes to the point of hilarity. The scene where the scientist explains how it is that the fiends came to be is not to be missed! One of the last lines of the film comes from the sergeant who slyly says to the major "Call me when you have the situation well under hand" with a wink wink and a nod nod towards the gal at his side. This is just good, campy, clean fun! It's not going to rock your world by any means but it sure as hell will entertain you. Absolutely worth a viewing!

Ponderous.

[13Funbags · 4/10 · 26 July 2018]

This movie had a lot of potential but the dialogue and long periods of silence we're equally boring and I found myself not paying attention, often singing Eyes Without A Face in my head. Then the old guy starts explaining everything and I snapped and had to fast forward. Other than that it's a typical old b-movie, scientist action heroes and a female lead that had no reason to be there.

This is 50's sci-fi at its best

[larryloc · 8/10 · 26 August 2001]

Fiend has everything that a 50's Sci-Fi movie should have; a really square hero that saves the day, a beautiful female lead that falls for him, atomic power misused, and an invisible monster that sucks the brains out of its victums.

It is the stop motion animation at the end when the monster(s) become visible that really makes this film work. Without the animation by Peter Neilson and Ruppell this would be just another 50's atomic caution tale.

Ask Jon Mulvaney

[Bob-45 · 7/10 · 10 October 2004]

Ask Jon Mulvaney why he considered "Fiend Without a Face" interesting and unique enough to make it part of his CRITERION collection.

The first half of the film is generally horrific, as Marshall Thompson tries to learn the secret of the bizarre, brutal murders by the invisible monsters. While the shock effects didn't fully live up to the story's potential, the German animated creatures are serviceable enough, especially for a low-budget 50s scifi.

WARNING: SPOILERS

About the only thing I didn't understand was why the arrogant villager escaped with radiation burns and the mind of an imbecile. No one else suffered radiation burns, even though the scientist had used nuclear power to create the creatures.

Some don't understand WHY the creatures were simply brains with spinal cords and columns. They apparently weren't listening too closely as the scientist explained he had diverted some of the energy from military base's nuclear power plant for his telekinesis experiments. The creatures were created from pure thought, and the scientist had chosen to make them simple as possible. The physical essence of an intelligent vertebrate is its brain and spinal column, and that's what the scientist envisaged.

"Fiend Without a Face" is one the most, pardon the pun, thought provoking scifi-horror films of the 50s, and is worth a "7".

Beware Of Mental Vampires!

[StrictlyConfidential · 5/10 · 25 March 2020]

"Fiend Without A Face" is definitely one of those wacky SyFy/Monster flicks that could only have come out of an "Atomic Age" mentality of the 1950s.

Set in and around an American Air-force base located in Winthrop, Manitoba, Canada - "Fiend Without A Face" tells the dead-serious tale about a mad scientist who unwittingly unleashes (upon the unsuspecting public) a pack of ravenous "mental vampires" who like to greedily feed off of the spinal fluids of humans.

Anyway - Even though this film's laughable story does take its time about getting to the point - (In the long run) - It was definitely worth a view.

A Classic Especially for an 11 year old Kid

[kmroberts · 1 September 2000]

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.

A movie with brains

[psychoren2002 · 7/10 · 12 July 2006]

"Fiend without a face" is a solid example of 50's sci-fi, that kind of lovely low budget film in the same vein of "It! The Terror from Beuond Space" and many others. In this case, the first half of the movie is very slow, and the lack of a visible monster is an extra turn off, but the second half (and specially the last 20 minutes) are clearly among the best of the genre. Finally, the now visible brain-like monsters are great to see, looking menacing even in his primitive form. Star Marshall Thompson and the rest of the cast do their humble best, but overall it's a fun ride. And they blew away an atomic plant with explosives without any ambiental consequenses!! Beware of the Brazilian edition, the disc are all damaged, it's impossible to see the credits.

Fiend Without a Face

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 8 November 2007]

Get a load of this premise:A scientist, whose studies on psychic phenomena are well renowned, has developed an apparatus that drains the atomic power from a US Airforce base radar which provides him with the ability to detach thought from his conscious giving it a separate entity. This entity becomes a monstrous fiend that drains intellect(!) from human victims in a nearby town Winthrop attaching to the base of the occipital region of the neck(by drilling two small holes), penetrating to the medulla obolongata where the spinal cord meets the brain. Now get this, the fiend sucks out each victim's brain while also removing their spinal cord! Here's the kicker..they're invisible and need brains to survive and multiply. The scientist, Professor Walgate(Kynaston Reeves), didn't have a clue of what he unleashed on the earth..all he was wanting to do was test his theories and prove that thought materialization was possible. The town, at first, blame the Airforce base for the deaths of the citizens due to their atomic radar experiments(they use atomic power to increase the proficiency of their radar range to spy on the Russians), but when Major Jeff Cummings(Marshall Thompson..many might recognize him from "It!The Terror from Beyond Space")begins snooping for answers they lead right to the Professor, whose physical condition has worsened due to his mental experiments. The climax is just fantastic..the creatures gain such strength through the growing atomic radiation(now that the fiends have multiplied, they destroy rods within the plant that control the ability to cut the reactor off)they appear visible. They look like giant brains with the spinal cord guiding their movements..they literally move around like snakes up trees and dart through holes at poor victims holed up in the Professor's house! As Cummings heads for the base nuclear plant, a group of characters try to fend off the fiends. To stop them, the nuclear plant will have to cease giving them the atomic energy they need.

The special effects are stunning for a film made in 1958. The film really consists of amazing stop-motion effects. What's really cool is when the Airforce guys still alive within the Professor's house begin riddling the fiends with bullets..this strawberry jam like goo pusses out! I guess it's supposed to resemble blood, but I still thought it was well done under the circumstances of the low budget. You do see the brain creatures attach to victims at the end. The effects for the fiends both invisible when they move on top of(..and through)objects, and the ending where they are visible and move around(..one cool sequence has one of the fiends using it's spinal cord to grab a chisel hammer!), I thought were just superb. Consider me quite a fan of this movie. I don't know why it has such a bad rep. For 50's sci-fi monster movie fans, this is a must.

Good Fifties Sci-Fi

[TheExpatriate700 · 7/10 · 20 October 2012]

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.

Surprisingly gory. Years ahead of its peers in the special effects department

[Coffee_in_the_Clink · 7/10 · 30 October 2016]

An above-standard 1950s sci-fi/horror, steeped in Cold War paranoia, with some surprisingly gory scenes and commendable special effects.

In a remote part of Canada, a joint Canadian/American atomic testing site is in hot water with the locals, who blame the constant air traffic for scaring their livestock and disrupting the milk flow of their cows. When a man is found dead out in the woods next to the base, tensions reach breaking point. Following the deaths of other nearby residents in quick succession, the locals - believing that the deaths have been caused by either radiation from the base, or from a mad GI who has gone renegade - have enough, but so does Major Cummings (Marshall Thompson, 1925 - 1992), who begins an investigation into the deaths, determined to take the heat off himself and his colleagues.

The special effects in this film earned it much publicity and controversy at the time. The media, and British Parliament, were disgusted by the film, asking 'What is the British film industry thinking by trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore.' The monsters here are indeed a step above what Hollywood was producing during this period, and still hold up relatively well today, it has to be said. It is the last twenty minutes of the film that make it, because apart from that it is rather mediocre, run-of-the-mill; wooden actors and a flimsy, at times ludicrous, screenplay that would collapse if it was scaffolding. On a question of the film's influence on the genre, I've little doubt that George A. Romero and the monster team behind Ridley Scott's 'Alien' were fans. Face-huggers, anyone?

It was far more dangerous before you could see it.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 20 January 2021]

This hideous looking brain like monster (which I first saw in the 1982 comic horror movie documentary, "It Came From Hollywood") is the unintentional creation of professor Kynaston Reeves, and all you can hear as it approaches is its loud thumping which sounds as heavy as the Frankenstein monster. It isn't until 65 minutes into the movie where it finally appears, and when it does, if you haven't already fallen asleep, you might laugh at the shear audacity of what it looks like. This creature can easily be plummeted with a hatchet as evidenced when it first breaks into the room when Reeves, naval officer Marshall Thompson and Kim Parker (among other naval officials) are confronted by it.

When you see it, you realize what you've been hearing since this invisible blob first appeared without appearing is that it sounds either like an old coffee percolator or an outboard motor of an old automobile. Certainly it is strong enough to choke a man to death, but you can't help but laugh at what William Castle decided to make fun of in "The Tingler" and what looks like a huge shrimp that has been given steroids. If only the first three quarters moved a bit faster, this might have been worth half a star more, but describing this as a fiend really stretches the truth since what it is is as far from human creation as possible no matter what zany professor Reeves says.

One of the creepiest 50's B-movies you'll see

[carlsez_1 · 7/10 · 4 February 2009]

A thoroughly creepy 50s treat. Combining the paranoia over nuclear power and a scientist overstepping his limitations, "Fiend" is part camp horror and part psychological thriller. It unleashes the unknown and malevolent in true shock form.

The tone and pace are set right at the beginning with a mysterious murder and builds through a methodical series of events. Not showing the creatures in the first half is classic good horror, and reminds one of more high-end films like Jaws or Alien.

When you do finally see the creatures you almost wished they stayed invisible. They are a truly surreal and nightmarish image, complete with an unnerving crunching/heartbeat sound.

As for the special effects, yes, almost every sci-fi and horror film from the 50s has dated FX by today's standards. Personally I found the stop-motion animation only heightened the creepiness. It wouldn't have worked as well if done with CGI.

It's worth a viewing with friends for both a chuckle and a scare. You'll go to bed hoping that sound in the other room is only someone eating chips (crunch-crunch-crunch…).

Excellent 50s SciFi Yarn - A Must See For Lovers of the Genre

[marydot52 · 10/10 · 17 May 2005]

I first saw this movie in the early sixties on a double bill with The Haunted Strangler. Being a young lad, I was not paying attention to the details of the movie, but rather was impressed with the overall "spookyness" (is that a word)? Anyway, I remember the contrail of the B-52(sometimes a B-47 was used, who would notice)flying high overhead during the radar experiment. For some reason, I always thought of this as being some type of alien craft circling high overhead, ready to rain crawling, slimy,invisible brains down onto an unsuspecting Canadian population. I remember that when I got home from the theater, I boarded up my bedroom windows by jamming Lincoln Logs in between the panes. I WAS FREAKED OUT. I mean, after all, how do you defend yourself against invisible creeping cerebral sucking brains? I'll take Godzilla any day (you can see that big boy coming from miles away). Well, I just watched Fiend Without A Face again for the first times in forty years. Although I better understand the plot now, and know that those nasty flying gobs of brain matter did not come from outer space, it still is a great movie. My wife was upset at me after I boarded up our bedroom windows, this time with 2 x 4s. You gotta watch this 50s masterpiece. Respectable acting, thoughtful plot, and hokey special effects that you just gotta love.

All brain and no brawn...

[poe426 · 7/10 · 21 September 2008]

Though it gets going slowly (the "fiends" remain invisible throughout most of the movie, putting in a corporal appearance only toward the end, when gorged on atomic power), it's the stop-motion animation siege at film's end that makes this one so noteworthy. The fiends (referred to as "mental vampires" by their creator) certainly rank as some of the most unique monsters in the annals of fright films. (Ask the folks who "borrowed" the look for the "face-huggers" in the ALIEN films.) FIEND WITHOUT A FACE is also surprisingly graphic for its time: when the fiends are shot, they gush buckets of blood before dissolving into a steaming puddle of... fiend... Marshall Thompson (who'd battled the title It in IT!, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE) is solid (as ever) as the hero, despite a limp-wristed attempt by the filmmakers at a '50s style "touch and go" romance (she's spoken for, thankfully, so it doesn't go beyond the "in passing" phase- until the very end). It's the aforementioned stop-mo siege that makes this one a must-see.

Both boring and trashy

[claudecat · 1/10 · 4 November 2008]

I don't understand why this film was published by prestige DVD lines such as The Criterion Collection and Kino Video--it really belongs in the MST3K collection. But perhaps it's too dull for even the 'bots to make it worth watching. The film suffers from quite a few problems--the characters are poorly drawn and uninteresting, the story is thin, and the editing and dialogue are weak--but never develops the energy to become enjoyably bad. It's simply slow, irritating, and passionless. A woman loses her brother, but doesn't seem at all broken up about it; a number of people in a small village are killed, and no one seems to grieve; an air base becomes involved in tragedy, but it remains unnoticed. The Canadian villagers are referred to as "a simple and superstitious people", as if they're Gypsies from a Hollywood Dracula picture, but when they form a vigilante committee, they only stroll quietly through the woods, like a boring duck-hunting party, dressed in plaid. The soundtrack and sound effects are often much too hyper for the picture: a shot of someone standing quietly in front of a military building gets bombastic music, the invisible monster overdoses on throaty rumbles and snarfles, and a piercing scream is heard when an on screen actress merely covers her mouth with her hands. Apparently someone in postproduction desperately tried to add a little life at the last minute.

The lighting and photographic composition is sometimes quite good, a few of the actors struggle valiantly with the script (while others chew it up hammily), and the black-and-white photography is mostly clear, but that's about all that's competent in this pointless film. The animation is years behind the times, and the design of the monsters is merely silly.

If you're a big fan of bad sci-fi, you might want to just watch the last few scenes, when the monsters really go for it. For everyone else, I would say don't bother with the movie at all.

Film buffs might be interested to listen to the featurette on the Criterion disk, in which the producer discusses the marketing of low-budget pictures back in the '50s. However, it's rather strange to hear him complain about a theater owner in Chicago, who didn't want to promote "Fiend Without a Face" at the same cinema that was currently showing "Gigi". I was with the theater owner, all the way.