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Fiend Without a Face (Arthur Crabtree)
1958
**1/2 01-01-02 Jeremy Heilman
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Pretty typical as 1950’s B-movies go, Fiend Without a Face is decent
enough as a creature feature, but is a bit more interesting when looked at as a
defining example of its genre. The film’s plot is most interesting because of
the sheer number of clichés that it manages to trot out in an attempt to
lengthen the film’s already short (74 minute) running time. I usually resist
plot summary, but here it’s too good to pass up. There’s a supposedly
government conspiracy (courtesy of the USAF) uncovered that’s encroaching upon
the idyllic peace of a group of simpleton Manitoban farmers. Apparently, the
Atomic Radartm that the Air Force hopes to use to fight the Red
Threat not only upsets the town’s cattle, causing them to produce less milk,
but seemingly has also resulted in the mysterious death of the brother of
Barbara (Kim Parker), the film’s heroine. He’s found with his face frozen in
a look of “absolute terror”, so you know something nasty must be afoot. This
setup just covers the first fifteen or so minutes of the film, which later
introduces mad scientists, angry mobs, a strong anti-war tirade, and mind
control theories, not to mention the titular fiends. 
It’s a shame that with all of these tasty elements present things don’t feel
more cohesive. The source of the murder remains wonderfully obscured for most of
the running time, and you’re not quite sure who the “good guys” are, which
is pretty rare for this sort of film, but besides that, there’s not a lot
about the movie that feels necessary. Almost any one of the film’s plot
threads could be eliminated, as they all feel as arbitrarily placed there as the
obvious stock footage at the film’s start. Thankfully, the film saves its most
impressive moments for the final reel. The arrival of some quality (for the era)
special effects manages to add a repetitive, if neat, gory fascination (which
seems to have been repeated verbatim in Tim Burton’s 50’s sci-fi homage Mars
Attacks!) with the film’s big visual trick. That special effect (which I
won’t spoil even if the movie is over forty years old), manages to be
relatively unnerving and unforgettable and probably stands as the reason that a
few people still watch Fiend Without a Face today. To be perfectly
honest, however, even judged solely against its own genre, the film pales in
comparison to such 50’s B-movies as the magnificent Them!, The Thing
from Another World, or The Day the Earth Stood Still.