I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Alfred Hitchcock got his idea for "The Birds" from this odd movie. With birds and chickens attacking people. The effects were cheap but did the trick. Check out the documentary on Roger Corman, he was an interesting guy.Back in the fifties and sixties there were plenty of movies like this and we all watched them to pass the time. They were cheaply made but we all enjoyed watching. I'll bet Alfred and Corman became buddies. Roger Corman sure had some odd movies and I watched all the cheesiness when I was a kid. Here I am many years later wondering why. It's surprising Hitchcock didn't make a movie called "The Cows". Ha ha ha!

A teapot monster from outer space seeks human form from a farm family in a secluded part of a desert.I know I'm in a minority, but there are commendable aspects to this drive-in special. Too bad snooty Hollywood never gave Oscars to horror movie productions. Because I would sure give one to Lorna Thayer for her calibrated portrayal of volatile Carol Kelley, farm wife and mother. In my book, she delivers a gamut-of-emotions equal to the industry's more celebrated actresses. After all, as wife and mother, she's been going slowly nutzoid on that god-forsaken farm. Now she has to traverse emotional stages to adjust to the new realities. And she does it in finely nuanced fashion. As the father, Paul Birch too, is much better than expected for one of these 50-dollar Corman specials, while unknown Leonard Tarver may have no lines, still he's got just the right kind of confused, intimidating presence. Too bad he was in only two films. Finally, Dona Core as daughter Sandy is pretty wobbly, but sure looks the winsome part.To me, the movie could be a sleeper, if filmmakers had figured out something more imaginative than a tea pot monster. The spinning kitchenware is about as scary as collecting stamps. The desert and farmhouse scenes along with the superior acting really deserve something less hokey. But then producer Corman astutely figured his drive-in fans wanted something they could laugh at. We fans sure got it here, even if the monster wasn't in a rubber suit. I just wonder if Hitchcock caught this flick, what with the marauding birds that attack people. Then too, I wonder if Dan Mainwaring, screenwriter of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), didn't also catch the 80-minutes since there is a thematic resemblance.Anyhow, the movie's well directed and photographed. No effort at prettying up anything—the shack the family lives in, for instance. In fact, a number of the desert visuals are striking. So, this 50-dollar special does have some redeeming features. And a salute to you Lorna Thayer for refusing to walk through a role that could have been just another easy payday.

***SPOILERS*** The movie "Beast with one million eyes" has to do with this alien spaceship that looks like a futurist, for 1955, vacuum cleaner that takes over people as well as animals brains and cause them to do things that's destructive to themselves. Like going nuts as well as in all directions in and around the nearby California Desert. Why it does that is hard to figure out since it needs their very bodies,that's human bodies, for it or it's occupant,the beast with one not one million eyes,to survive.It's date farmer Allen Kelly, Paul Birch, who figures out what this thing is really all about but only after it ended up killing off half he cast of the movie. That's by destroying their brain cells and leaving them brain dead and in other cases like old man Cheaster Conklin-played by Ben Webber-who back in 1898 road with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders up San Juan hill-have his cow do the dirty work for it. Allen was a lot luckier since he together with his wife Carol and daughter Sandy, Lorna Thayer & Donna Cole, were able to consolidate their brain power to keep it from destroying them. Not so their pet dog Duke and handyman Karl, Bruce Whitmore. Karl who can't talk due to a brain injury he suffered in WWII was easy prey for it since he was using half not his entire brain to fight it.***SPOILERS*** It's just when things began to look at their worst that Allen discovered the only weapon that can possibly defeat the thing, beast with one million eyes, and together with Carol & Sandy used that very powerful human emotion to put it to flight: The power of love! You can really see how desperate those who made the movie were in that even the special effects were as phony and cheap as any film made by the great bad movie director Ed Wood. Yet you somehow can't help liking the movie in that everyone in it,including the animals, seemed genuinely inspired by it! As if the films massage of "Love Conquers All" as well as the evil alien from outer space meant far more then the movies flimsy storyline or it's even flimsier special effects!

Beast with a Million Eyes, The (1955) * 1/2 (out of 4) Sci-fi flick has a great title but that's about it. An alien flies over a farmhouse and lands in the desert. The alien machine then takes control of all the animal's minds and makes them attack humans. This is such a low budget film that there only appears to be four or five people living in this city so there aren't really many attacks. What attacks we do get are quite stupid and leads to some unintentional laughs. There's a scene where chickens attack a woman and it's clear to see that someone is just throwing the chickens at here. There's another scene where an old man gets attacked by his beloved cow. Oh yeah. Then there's the highlight where a woman gets attacked by the family dog, although it's clear that this dog isn't trained because he has to stop during scenes and get new directions only to mess them up. None of the human characters are of any interest and when the alien finally reveals himself, we just hear him talking. Silly and stupid all around.