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Fiend Without a Face

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A scientist’s thoughts materialize as an army of invisible brain-shaped monsters (complete with spinal-cord tails!) who terrorize an American military base in this nightmarish chiller, directed by Arthur Crabtree (Horrors of the Black Museum). This outstanding sci-fi/horror hybrid is a special effects bonanza, and a high-water mark in British genre filmmaking.

Disc Features

- New widescreen transfer, with digital picture restoration and enhanced for 16×9 televisions
- Audio commentary: a conversation with executive producer Richard Gordon and genre film writer Tom Weaver
- Illustrated essay on British sci-fi/horror filmmaking by film historian Bruce Eder
- A collection of trailers from Gordon Films: Fiend without a Face, The Haunted Strangler, Corridors of Blood, First Man into Space, and The Atomic Submarine
- Rare still photographs and ephemera, with commentary
- Vintage advertisements and lobby cards
- English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired


Criterionforum.org user rating averages

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Lucky McKee is directing ]a remake of this from a script by Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson.

Anyone know why Criterion chose to release this title? Doesn't really fit the general Criterion criteria; there are plenty of other companies doing psychotronic stuff; and this movie isn't an especially noteworthy example of 50s-60s low-budget horror.

Not that I'm complaining. I'd be perfectly happy if Criterion announced a Bert I. Gordon box set. Just curious how this one-off project came about.

Is this on the same level as the Monsters and Madmen films? or is it a tier up? Is it worth the price? (Assuming one likes 50s B-horror films.)

denti alligator wrote:Is this on the same level as the Monsters and Madmen films? or is it a tier up? Is it worth the price? (Assuming one likes 50s B-horror films.)

Personally I feel it is far better than the two sci-fi films in the Monsters and Madmen set. The special effects are extremely well done, both when the monsters are invisible and when they appear in all their glory, and some of the effects are quite gruesome even now!

It is also nice to see a 'barricading against the monsters surrounding the house' scene predating Night of the Living Dead!

I also liked the early sections of the film with the unexplained deaths and Marshall Thompson's character investigating them. Compared to the rather slow and undramatic early scenes in First Man Into Space, Fiend Without A Face is very well paced and I always find it moves along nicely. (It also helps that I found Kim Parker extremely beautiful, even though she has a badly judged as 'risque' but brilliantly unintentionally funny scene involving her character accidentally being seen by Thompson whilst she is wearing only a towel! How times change - she'd be completely nude with a capture of the scene taking pride of place in a DVD Beaver review if it was remade today! )

To put it another way, I didn't feel like muttering 'get to the monster already' while watching Fiend as I did a few times in Atomic Submarine or First Man!

After reading some of the comments in the Robinson Crusoe On Mars thread (which I haven't seen before or received my copy of the DVD of yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing it!), in which Herr Schreck calls for someone to gush about their love for the film, I'd say Fiend is a film I love, B-movie flaws and all, while I'm not as much of a fan of the Monsters part of the Monsters and Madmen set! It is interesting to see these films all together though, as it really shows how everything seemed to come together to create a fun, creepy sci-fi flick that didn't happen to the same extent again just a year later, even with a lot of the same talent involved.

(I think the Karloff films are on a par with Fiend and Corridors of Blood might even be the best of all the Richard Gordon-produced films Criterion has released, but Fiend is still one of my favourite comfort films...and works very well watched together with Forbidden Planet!)

Thanks, Colin!

I absolutely adore this film (I have it on vhs). It's very actor driven, aside from it's mindblowing & innovative effects, which are well used and wonderfully disgusting (I love when they subside into near vomit). Very tight, solid direction and pacing, with a maximizatuion of all available elements in a qualitative sense versus an obviously low budget (considering the breadth of the effects spectacle). It's just flat out tons of fun, even after you've seen it a zillion times, and holds up well to this sort of repeated watching like the very best of films from the earlier, classic, Universal-style days.

When I put this DVD into my computer, the disc shows up as 'A Fiend in Need is a Fiend Indeed'.