“It’s as if some mental vampire were at work.”

Justin’s rating: Beware the Bladder without a butt!

Justin’s review: It both amuses and saddens me that we’ve had enough “killer brain” movies made to constitute an entire sub-genre. It’s the silliest concept to take an organ that absolutely cannot move on its own and is vulnerable outside of the skull and then make it move outside of a skull — and be strong enough to kill full-grown humans who are also equipped with a brain!

In Fiend without a Face, mysterious deaths at a joint US-Canadian base — now with its own nuclear plant! — prompt and investigation of the culprit. Is it radiation poisoning? Or is it something more logical, such as invisible brains born of telekinetic thought spurred on by a mad scientist who lives nearby? Eh, it’s probably radiation.

Naturally, invisible monsters are a great budget-saving move for a cash-strapped director. All you need to do is command your actors to grab their own throats and pretend that they’re being strangled by a stealthed Krang from Dimension X.*

The soldiers and civilians race to figure out the truth before it’s too late. Oh crud, it’s too late, and the brains are taking over the nuclear power plant to trigger a meltdown! Why? Because that amps up their mental abilities, don’t you know? It also casts away their invisibility cloak so that we can enjoy some delightfully squishy mobile brains in the final 10 minutes.

Maybe I’ve been conditioned by Mystery Science Theater 3000 too much, but it’s hard to watch these older black-and-white B-movies without Mike, Joel, and the bots snarking their way through it. Alas, despite Fiend without a Face being perfect for riffing, it never got that treatment.

Still, I’d say that this short movie is worth watching for the goofy atomic age ignorance and the very watchable stop motion special effects. The whole story is outlandish and begging for a clever soul — such as yourself! — to fire off quippy observations and heated rejoinders at the screen.

*I’m not going to let this review go by without a geeky TMNT reference. I’m not that strong.

Intermission!

• Nothing so sexy like military stock footage!
• What an electrifying title font choice
• “They’ll probably blame his death on our atomic reactors.”
• Aww that’s a cute meet cute
• Stop messing around with nuclear reactors and pushing safety limits! Haven’t you heard of Chernobyl? Oh, it’s 1958, you haven’t.
• Don’t smile when you’re talking about atomic meltdowns being “probably your funeral”
• “Sucked out like an egg through those two holes.”
• Well this is one gratuitous shower scene, better go check it out, Colonel Pervert!
• Fistfights in 1958 involve taking turns punching each other in the face with a few seconds in between
• It’s the car full of guns so that an instant mob can arm up. The ’50s usually had one on each block.
• Cow’s milk quality is more important of a topic than dead people
• Bomber jackets can get really silly if you add a ton of fur to them
• Getting locked into a tomb is not especially smart if you didn’t tell people where you went. But at least there are some convenient candles there!
• He turned the page with his mind! WOW! A page!
• They cut the phone line, of course
• Maybe blowing up a nuclear reactor control room is a mite foolish?
• Did that brain just pick up a hammer?
• Brains bleed grape jelly when shot
• Brains can fly