Fiend Without a Face is a 1958 independently made British black-and-white science fiction-horror film drama from Amalgamated Productions. It was produced by John Croydon and Richard Gordon, directed by Arthur Crabtree, and stars Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker. The film was released in the U.K. by Eros Films; in the U.S. it was released in June 1958 by MGM as a double feature with The Haunted Strangler.[1]
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.[2][3]
U. S. Air Force Interceptor Command Experimental Station No. 6 is a long-range radar installation located in Winthrop, Manitoba, Canada.[Note 1] 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.
