if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Invisible atomic monsters attack a U.S. Armed Forces base and the local residents.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. Forrest J. Ackerman represented Long and brokered the sale of her story to the film's producers. Having not read the original story, I wonder what changes were made. Presumably a 1930 story would not have atomic power be such a central focus as its 1958 variation.The stop-motion, while somewhat cheesy, is quite effective at bringing the creature to life. It also happens to make the film quite memorable, because it is likely the only film of its kind using such effects. This creature is not one of Ray Harryhausen's lumbering beasts!

Fiend without a Face is a little better than the title would suggest, as long as you have low standards. It's about an invisible menace terrorizing a military base and surrounding town in Canada, and it stars Marshall Thompson, late of First Man into Space.Thompson plays Major Cummings, who's in charge of a nuclear-powered program run at the base, a program intended to enhance surveillance techniques and allow the U.S. to spy on the Soviets at a greater range. The trouble is that even when maximum nuclear power is exerted, the images returned by the spy plane soon fades.At the same time, the locals are a mite anxious about having a nuclear program nearby (some things never change). The constant takeoffs and landings of the various aircraft scares the cows, annoys farmers, and so on. And then a bunch of cows winds up dead, and no one can figure out why. The carnage is only beginning, though – soon prominent citizens and soldiers alike are meeting their demise, with their brains apparently – I am not making this up – sucked out of their skulls through two holes in the back of the head.Oh, and there's a love interest. There has to be. How could our hero save the day if there were no love interest? Here she's played by Kim Parker, for whom movie this was undoubtedly a career highlight.So this is a low-budget, 1950s monster movie. Except you can't see the monsters, hence the "without a face" part. They're like Predator, if Predator was merely a brain and a spinal cord and kind of shuffled on the ground like an inch worm. Still, when these monsters are invisible, they're effectively scary, which is a nice respite from the low-budget effects.

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.

Arthur Crabtree's 'Fiend Without A Face' used to play a lot on late night '70's television ( along with 'The Night Caller' and 'The Earth Dies Screaming' ). It scared the hell out of me the first time, and even now manages to elicit the odd shudder.It is set in Canada, where an experiment is underway at an Air Force Base to develop long-range radar with nuclear power. A sentry on guard duty is attacked by an invisible creature which sucks his brain out through two holes in his neck. Similar deaths occur in the village. Major Jeff Cummings ( Marshall Thompson, later to star in Ivan Tors' hit television show 'Daktari' ) investigates, and the trail leads to one Professor Walgate ( Kynaston Reeves ) who has been experimenting with thought power. He has inadvertently unleashed the 'fiends' - invisible for most of the film ( hence the title ) but when we get to see them they are truly horrible, resembling nothing less than human brains with waggling antennae and which propel themselves along the ground like caterpillars. The creatures were realised with stop motion animation, and are impressive for their time. What really makes them scary though is the ghastly sound effect which accompanies their attacks - a slurping combined with what sounds like a man with a wooden leg clumping upstairs. Once heard it cannot be forgotten.The climax has the main characters barricaded in a room while the fiends endeavour to break in by coming down the chimney and the window and so on. The film was shot in the U.K. hence the presence of British actors such as Reeves and Michaerl Balfour. The story has its absurd side, of course, such as Barbara ( Kim Parker ) embracing Jeff at the end, seemingly forgetting her father has just died.A nice little British sci-fi B-movie then. Joe Dante must have been a fan as his 'Looney Tunes Back In Action' ( 1998 ) features a cameo from the fiends!