Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Fiend Without A Face


Invisible thought creatures strangle townsfolk and suck out their brains in this sci-fi thriller that's atmospheric, well-shot, and remarkably gory for its time. After a cameraman's fedora'd shadow is visible on the hood of a moving jeep and some stock aircraft and radar equipment footage, a woman is strangled by an unseen force as she's feeding chickens. An autopsy reveals that her brains AND her spinal cord have been sucked out by a 'mental vampire', and I'm just as surprised as you are by that finding. Some plot happens for a while, then an air force major investigates a cemetery. He enters a crypt which has a winding stone staircase that inexplicably leads deep underground because it's in the script. He discovers a clue and an partially open casket, and then the crypt door suddenly closes by itself, presumably by an invisible brain-sucker that didn't find is brain to be that delicious, to it could have been the wind. Who knows? After he breaks his flashlight, he uses some convenient crypt candles (because dead people like ambiance), then he passes out from lack of oxygen just before being rescued, because it's awfully likely he breathed up a two-story house-worth of air in two minutes.  Suddenly, brains in trees lurk outside a house, and they fly and creep and dangle from strings and attack people before being shot by guns and cut open with axes in a grisly stop-motion sequence that has to be seen to be believed. Fiend Without A Face drags a bit in the middle, but it more than makes up for it with a WTF ending. It's wholeheartedly recommended if you like stuff that kind of sucks.


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