Only seen on TV on a small screen. A short film, probably due to the numerous "cuts" required by the British censors. Rated only 8 because of the hokum and implausible concept of a thought monster conceived by a "mad" mentalist. It's alive! A vampirish creation consisting of a brain and spinal cord with extra tendrils that sucks itself out of a living person, leaving only a pair of small wounds in the neck. As the radiation from the military base is turned up by the monsters, they become visible as they attack more humans! Zombies attack! It's in black and white, thank goodness. (Pretty-bad acting, too!) Advanced stop-motion photography makes it seem all the more real. Beyond any giant "bug" or giant animal horror film of the same genre I have ever seen. A disgusting and graphic ending. Rated "X" in the UK. However the "visible" monsters are quite crude and look totally plastic, which they are!

Fiend Without a Face is directed by Arthur Crabtree and written by Herbert J. Leder and Amelia Reynolds Long (story The Thought Monster). It stars Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour and Kim Parker. Music is by Buxton Orr and cinematography by Lionel Banes.Some sort of invisible assailant loose on the Canadian border and is attacking a U.S. Army Base and the local residents in the surrounding area. The locals are convinced it has something to do with the nuclear power plant, the army not so, especially since the unseen foe's modus operandi is to suck out the brains and spinal cords of its victims!A mental vampire. A fiend!Wonderfully bonkers Brit sci-fi horror that nicely builds premise and characters to then unleash the beasties in all their stop motion gory glory. It's a pay off well worth your patience, which when it comes down to it is not a lot to ask for in a movie that doesn't even run to 80 minutes. Standard clichés of many 50s creature feature schlockers apply, such as romance, straight backed heroics, dumb decisions made and averted, nice characters, bad characters, silly dialogue and some incredibly creaky science.The principles of thought control.The budget is obviously not stretching to great heights, but Crabtree was adept at creating great suspense and atmosphere with minimal cash funds, as he proves here. There's a sense of paranoia drifting over everything, perfect for the 50s fear of the nuclear age, and scenes such as when our hero is trapped in a mausoleum are skillfully crafted for maximum impact. Then the last 15 minutes arrive and it's The Alamo as our roll call of survivors try and stave off the attack of the killer brains! Delightful creations that look like brain snails with spinal cords that leap around and attach themselves to the victims necks.The effects are nifty for the era, the gore equally so, while the sound effects, and Orr's brilliant musical score, are of a real high quality. Daft for sure, but not insultingly so like so many cheaply turned out films of the time, this is a 50s sci-fi horror fan's fun bag ticket for a good night in. 8/10

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

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.