Fiend Without A Face (1958)
Directed by Arthur Crabtree
I stumbled across Fiend Without A Face while scrolling through the horror section of The Criterion Channel, of which I am a recent subscriber. The Criterion Channel is a newish streaming service (yes, another one) that contains some (all? It’s a bit unclear.) of the typically high-quality films of the Criterion Collection. Basically, it’s a curated collection of movies with the purpose of preserving and distributing great movies that may not have other ways of being seen. You can pretty much pick anything at random and it will probably be good (some things may not have aged well though), which is exactly what I did here. I saw the odd thumbnail, read the (incredibly spoilery) summary, and dove right in. I’m glad I took a chance on Fiend Without A Face.
The Shocking Plot Of Fiend Without A Face
Set after World War II, Fiend Without A Face follows a joint American-Canadian airbase built to test out a new type of atomic radar that the West hopes to use to keep tabs on Russian air activity. This American-led installation is powerfully unpopular with the local Canadian farmers, who blame the airbase for all manner of problems, real and imagined, that befall their small town. Things get even more complicated when locals start getting found mysteriously murdered, which even further ignites the Canadian resentment of this base. In a race against time, Air Force Major Jeff Cummings must figure out what is killing people and why, before there’s a full-blown Canadian riot.
Surprisingly Sensible Conflict.
A lot about Fiend Without A Face was very surprising to me, particularly the plot that I just got finished summarizing. I won’t spoil it until the very end of the review, and even then I’ll put it after the recommendation, but I was not at all expecting this murder-mystery story over the backdrop of ever-increasing Cold War-era tensions. Maybe that’s partially why I liked the story so much, but I have to give credit to the realistic way the situation unfolds. Of course, backwoods farmers in rural Canada wouldn’t like having a foreign Air Base, even if the foreign power is technically an ally, set up in their backyard. Of course, they would get suspicious when the people from the base won’t even say what it is they are there to do or how long they’ll be there.
From Bad To Worse.
This establishes a great sense of tension almost instantly, where you can tell that even if this murder plot doesn’t happen, there are still a lot of negative feelings around. And when the bodies start appearing? Oh man, if people weren’t happy before, they sure aren’t now. Most locals assume, somewhat reasonably, that the killer must be someone from the new base. That stuff does happen, and I think that’s what I like most about this story, the realism of how the stakes keep getting raised and how the situation gets worse and worse. It’s a grounded narrative, which makes it all the sweeter when the weird stuff starts happening.
Looks Good…When I Can See What Is Happening!
Visually, Fiend Without A Face is pretty engaging. There’s a really impressive sequence late in the movie that I want to talk about but don’t want to get into spoilers yet so I’ll just say a few thoughts on the rest of the movie’s look. The sequences where people are murdered are really cool, particularly for the time, even if they fall back on that old 50s trope of the murder method being invisible! (Not a spoiler, it’s like 15 minutes in where you see this.) The only problem I can really think of visually is that there are scenes that happen at night-time and it looks like these scenes were actually shot at night because I can only vaguely tell what is supposed to be happening in them. There’s only a few of them, but they felt pretty weird.
The Characters Mostly Work But A Little Seems To Be Missing
Another weird thing about Fiend Without A Face is the characters. Now, most of them are fine and work well in a mystery like this. There’s the put upon Major Jim Cummings we follow, the sister of the first victim Barbara who also happens to be the Major’s love interest, an enigmatic doctor, and numerous suspicious locals. All well and good. The weirdness comes in with Jim and Barbara’s relationship, specifically with how Barbara seems to change how she feels about Jim scene by scene with no explanation. She goes from being receptive to Jim’s flirtations, the day her brother died no less, to reasonably being angry with him when he gets involved in a fight with a local in her house. But then she’s immediately devoted to him and it feels like we’re missing scenes to establish how their romantic relationship evolved. Maybe those got cut, I dunno. It’s a little jarring but never enough to ruin the movie.
Solid Genre-Bending Example of 50s B-Movies!
I was debating whether or not to talk about spoilers for this movie because almost all anyone seems to know about this movie’s plot are the spoilers! Everyone loves talking about the climax and I want to as well, but I want to make something clear before then. This is a great example of a genre-bending sci-fi horror murder mystery and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi or murder mysteries! If you want to go in as blind as possible, please avoid anything else written about this movie and try to find it in a place where you don’t have to read an extensively spoilery summary. Even The Criterion Channel has a spoilery summary, so please just click through if you really want to avoid spoilers. Even if you get spoiled though, I’d still say give it a chance, that finale is something else.
SPOILERS
What An Awesome Schlockfest!
Now that the recommendation is all settled, it is time to talk about the only scene anyone wants to talk about from this movie, the one where the giant brain monsters attack. To put it mildly, this is a glorious B movie splatterfest that is 100% tonally different from the rest of the film. Gone are the quiet investigation and the suggestive murders of townspeople, now we have exploding brains, quite a tonal shift, but a welcome one. The stop motion effects are for the time very good and still look cool, even if the sequence looks a bit more silly now than it did when it originally came out. This sequence alone makes the movie worth it, especially when you factor in the quick 1 hour and 15-minute runtime. If nothing else has convinced you to see this movie, please let it be the promise of brains crawling around on detached spines and then exploding into blood after being shot.
Recent Comments