Fiend Without a Face (1958) – Review

The blending of science fiction and horror has led to some truly great moments in cinema – from Universal’s Frankenstein to the giant ants in Them! the genre has had some amazing offerings – but in 1958 director Arthur Crabtree unleashed on the world a particularly remarkable entry, a film that dealt with an invisible threat that was unlike anything we’d seen before.

The plot of the movie revolves around a series of strange and gruesome murders taking place near an American air force base in Canada, which is testing a top-secret nuclear-powered radar system. As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that the murders are being committed by an unseen force and the mystery only deepens from there, as strange brain-like creatures begin to become an even bigger nuisance. The film’s ostensible hero is Air Force Major Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) who is tasked by his commanding officer Colonel Butler (Stanley Maxted) to find out what is killing the locals as the whole thing is bad for international moral, unsurprisingly, the locals lay the blame on the American base, citing either nuclear radiation as the culprit or an insane G.I. running loose and committing these murders. As the plot moves along it becomes clear that the murders are not being committed an irradiated serial killer but by some unseen force.  This leads to one of the genre’s oldest and greatest tropes, that of the mad scientist.

He’s not so much mad as he is an incredibly careless one.

Turns out that retired scientist Professor R. E. Walgate (Kynaston Reeves) had been writing a book about his ongoing experiments with telekinesis and when a chance thunderstorm provides a boost of energy to his experiments he was able to create a “living being” of thought projection, unfortunately, the professor can’t rely on lightning to continue his work. Of course, the logical step to take would be to divert some of the nuclear energy from the nuclear power radar experiments at the nearby U.S. airbase. What could go wrong?  While this did enhance Walgate’s mental abilities it also made the creatures stronger, and for unknown reasons, these thought projections became malevolent and escaped the laboratory.  These roving thought projections then had to sustain themselves by sucking out the brains and spinal cords of the nearby townsfolk.

“They totally ate my brain.”

One of the most impressive aspects of Fiend Without a Face is its use of special effects. The creatures in the movie are created using a combination of stop-motion animation and practical effects and they are truly terrifying, realized by Florenz Von Nordoff and special effects artist K. L. Ruppel, as these creatures are one the most original looking cinematic monsters.  The climax of the movie is particularly memorable with murderous brains attacking our cast of characters in a flurry of flying brains and spinal cords. Special shout-out to the sound designers who created the pulsating, crunchy, slurping thumping sounds of the film’s title monster.  With them being invisible for the bulk of the picture this is what really sold the threat and menace of these brain-eating creatures. When these little beasties do finally make their appearance, inching along the ground or leaping through the air, they are a sight to behold and arguably one of the more horrifying-looking monsters of the era.

Clearly more terrifying than a giant radioactive ant.

The movie does have some pacing problems, not helped by a rather forced budding romance between Major Cummings and Barbara Griselle (Kim Parker), who is the transcribing the professor’s work into book form, and this painful romance exacerbates the long wait for the big reveal of the creatures, and we have nothing but a handful of underdeveloped supporting characters to keep us “interested” during the film’s meagre 75-minute running time.  That’s a bit much to overcome when an audience is expecting cool monster action. Now to be fair, those issues are all put aside when the third act finally kicks things into gear, with our protagonist blasting away at the now visible “Mental Vampires” in a surprisingly gory battle, and I was only left with one final question “Why do creatures made of nuclear energy bleed raspberry jam?”

Their deaths are both disgusting and delicious looking.

Stray Observations:

• Early in the film we get a nice shot of the snow-capped mountains of Manitoba, wait a minute, the snow-capped mountains of where?
• When the radar test starts to fail, Major Jeff Cummings demands that they increase the output of their nuclear reactor, well beyond its design limits thus risking a nuclear meltdown, and this is our supposed hero?
• After performing an autopsy on two dead locals, the base doctor calls in an associate for a second opinion that the brains and spinal cords are missing. But is that something you’d actually need a second opinion for? I’m not a doctor but this doesn’t seem like something that would need outside verification.
• The brain boost developed by Professor R. E. Walgate, which created murderous living thought projections, is quite similar to what Dr. Edward Morbius did in Forbidden Planet with his Krell-enhanced monster of the id.
• Jeff’s plan to deprive the creatures of the energy source involves placing a bundle of dynamite on the control panel of a nuclear reactor, which seems to be both stupid and insanely dangerous and I’m assuming a radioactive cloud following that explosion will make for a poor neighbour.
• This malevolent and invisible new life form destroys Walgate’s equipment and any notes that could be used against them but, for some reason, they don’t kill Walgate who is probably the greatest threat to them. Do these murderous creatures have feelings for their creator?

Nope, he ends up being eaten by his own creation.

Overall, this is a classic horror film that deserves to be remembered as a landmark of the genre and proof of what can be accomplished on a low budget. Fiend Without a Face is a wonderful combination of suspense and scares that is all wrapped up in a lovely absurd premise.  You can’t help but enjoy the sheer lunacy of it all. It’s simply a fun and wild ride that despite some pacing issues and stilted acting is the best killer brain movie ever made and is an entertaining example of the mad science genre at its best.  This is an entry that will likely result in a goofy smile on your face when the end credits finally roll and what’s wrong with that?