Fiend Without a Face (1958)

Fiend Without a Face is a 1958 independently made British black-and-white science fiction-horror film from Amalgamated Productions, produced by John Croydon and Richard Gordon, and directed by Arthur Crabtree. The film stars Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker. The film was released in the UK by Eros Films and in US by MGM.

Fiend Without a Face tells the story of mysterious deaths at the hands of a mentally created invisible life form that feeds on atomic power and then steals human brains and spinal columns to use as bodies in order to multiply its numbers.

The screenplay by Herbert J. Leder was based upon Amelia Reynolds Long's 1930 short story "The Thought Monster", originally published in the March 1930 issue of Weird Tales magazine

Plot
U. S. Air Force Interceptor Command Experimental Station No. 6 is a long-range radar installation located in Winthrop, Manitoba, Canada. Unexplained deaths begin to occur in the general area of a farming village near the American base. Postmortems reveal the victims were murdered and the brains and spinal cords are missing from the corpses; the only clue left behind are two puncture marks at the base of each skull. The locals, however, become convinced that radiation leaks from the radar installation's nuclear-power experiments are the cause of the mysterious deaths.

Air Force Major Jeff Cummings (Thompson) begins an investigation as the local deaths continue, interviewing various townsfolk, while looking for anything unusual. Cummings becomes suspicious of Professor R. E. Walgate (Reeves), a retired British scientist living near the airbase; Walgate is in the process of writing another book about his ongoing experiments with telekinesis, this time as it applies to thought projection. Major Cummings' suspicion of Walgate is later proved to be correct. The scientist finally admits he has not only succeeded in developing his mental ability, but in the process created a living thought projection. Unknown to Professor Walgate, the nuclear power radar experiments underway at the nearby U. S. airbase have greatly enhanced his mental abilities to the point that, through him, his living thought projection has become a malevolent and invisible new life form. It escaped from Walgate's laboratory and is now attacking humans as a means of replicating physical, though still invisible, new versions of itself, all of which are now feeding on the base's nuclear-generated power.

The invisible creatures eventually attack and kill the military personnel at the airbase in order to take over control of the radar station's nuclear reactor; two of them dial-up the power to very dangerous levels. As they do so all the creatures suddenly become visible. Their now visible bodies are revealed to be the missing brains with spinal cords stolen from their victims; their spinal cords have become very flexible and have now sprouted tendrils. These mutations also allow the brain-spine creatures to move quickly and even leap distances; each brain-spine has also developed a pair of small eyes at the ends of extended eye stalks.

The slithering creations then attack Walgate's home, where most of the film's principal characters have gathered to discuss the crisis. Some of the brains get inside by breaking through a boarded-up window using their tendrils, while others leap to the roof and slither down through the fireplace's open flue. Some of the defenders are attacked and killed, but well-aimed .45 semi-automatic pistol shots to the brains soon make short work of most of the attacking creatures; they gorily bleed out as they expire. Professor Walgate exits his home as a diversion, but is quickly attacked and killed by his creation. Meanwhile, Major Cummings escapes out the back way and quickly heads to the airbase, where he saves the day by blowing up the radar installation's power machinery. This immediately robs the surviving brains of their high-energy food source, and the creatures quickly die, dissolving into puddles of goo.

List of deaths
List of deaths in the film, Fiend Without a Face
 * 1) Jacques Griselle - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 2) Amelia Adams - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 3) Ben Adams - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 4) Mayor Hawkins - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 5) Constable Howard Gibbons - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes - Returns as zombie, shot by Major Jeff Cummings
 * 6) Sgt. Kasper - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 7) Atomic Engineer - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 8) Melville - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 9) Professor R. E. Walgate - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes - Suicide
 * 10) Sentry - Drained of blood by Fiends. - Yes
 * 11) Fiends - Explosion by Major Jeff Cummings

Cast

 * Marshall Thompson as Major Jeff Cummings
 * Kynaston Reeves as Professor R. E. Walgate
 * Michael Balfour as Sergeant Kasper
 * Kim Parker as Barbara Griselle
 * Terry Kilburn as Captain Al Chester
 * Gil Winfield as Captain Warren, M.D.
 * Stanley Maxted as Colonel G. Butler
 * James Dyrenforth as Mayor Hawkins
 * E. Kerrigan Prescott as Peterson

Production and release
Noted science fiction personality, collector, and literary agent Forrest J Ackerman represented mystery and science fiction pulp writer Long and brokered the sale of her story "The Thought Monster" to the film's producers.

Screenwriter Leder was originally set to direct the film, but being American, was unable to obtain a British work permit in time, so Crabtree replaced him as director. Thompson later said that when the director showed up on the first day of shooting and looked at the script, Crabtree claimed it was not the film he had been hired to direct, as he did not do "monster" films. After a heated argument with the producers, Crabtree left the set and did not show up for several days. In the interim, Thompson himself directed the film.

Fiend Without a Face was made entirely in England. Its Canadian setting was chosen because it would appeal to both American and British Commonwealth movie audiences, while still being easy to replicate using the English shooting locations. U. S. Air Force stock aviation footage was also used to establish the military base setting and to pad out the film's meager running time. The producers used primarily expatriate American and Canadian actors working in the United Kingdom, plus a few British actors dubbed by Americans.

The film's visible brain creatures were created using stop-motion animation, an unusual practice for such a low-budget science fiction thriller of this era. The director of these effects sequences was Florenz Von Nordoff, while the actual stop-motion was done in Munich by Nordhoff's partner, German special effects artist K. L. Ruppel. Peter Neilson headed up the British practical effects crew.

During July 1958, Fiend Without a Face first opened in the United States at the Rialto Theatre in New York City's Theater District. The film's producers placed an outdoor, front-of-the-house exhibit near the sidewalk that showcased a "living and breathing Fiend" in a steel-barred glass display case. It periodically moved its spinal cord tail, startling onlookers, and also made menacing sounds with the help of a concealed electrical device. The crowds that gathered to watch the caged Fiend grew so large that NYC police finally ordered the display case removed because it was creating a public disturbance.

Five months later, Fiend Without a Face created a public uproar after its British premiere at the Ritz Theatre in Leicester Square in London's West End. The British Board of Film Censors had demanded a number of cuts before its release and finally granted the film an "X" certificate, but newspaper critics were still aghast at its horrifying special effects. Questions were actually raised in Parliament as to why British censors had allowed Fiend Without a Face to be released, notably: "What is the British film industry thinking by trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore".

Reception
A reviewer for Harrison's Reports wrote in May of 1958, "Up until the last two reels, this British-made science-fiction-horror program horror melodrama is fairly interesting in the usual fantastic sort of way, because it deals with unexplained, invisible monsters who strangle their victims and supposedly suck out their brains and spinal cords. During the final fifteen minutes, however, the picture, instead of being mystifying or horrifying, is just plain revolting, to an extent that even those with strong stomachs may not be able to take it ... Because of its excessive gore, the picture is too unpalatable to be classified as entertainment." In contrast, a reviewer for Motion Picture Daily in June of 1958 wrote, "This entry in the science fiction, horror division sweepstakes is well and logically constructed, capably acted and directed with an eye toward building suspense. The cast is substantially unknown but exploitation of the horror angle is indicated and should be effective." Later reviews concentrated on the low production values and lack of a cohesive plot, but with a 67% "Fresh" rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Fiend Without a Face now is considered one of the best B movies of the 1950s. James Rolfe called the film the "best killer brain movie ever" and stated that "it may be the goriest film of its time". Leonard Maltin noted the film's "horrific climax, [and] good special effects." Marcella Papandrea of The Super Network said, "While the film gets off to a bit of a rocky start, it finds its footing fairly quickly though and it becomes quite immersive and intense."