Get a load of this premise:A scientist, whose studies on psychic phenomena are well renowned, has developed an apparatus that drains the atomic power from a US Airforce base radar which provides him with the ability to detach thought from his conscious giving it a separate entity. This entity becomes a monstrous fiend that drains intellect(!) from human victims in a nearby town Winthrop attaching to the base of the occipital region of the neck(by drilling two small holes), penetrating to the medulla obolongata where the spinal cord meets the brain. Now get this, the fiend sucks out each victim's brain while also removing their spinal cord! Here's the kicker..they're invisible and need brains to survive and multiply. The scientist, Professor Walgate(Kynaston Reeves), didn't have a clue of what he unleashed on the earth..all he was wanting to do was test his theories and prove that thought materialization was possible. The town, at first, blame the Airforce base for the deaths of the citizens due to their atomic radar experiments(they use atomic power to increase the proficiency of their radar range to spy on the Russians), but when Major Jeff Cummings(Marshall Thompson..many might recognize him from "It!The Terror from Beyond Space")begins snooping for answers they lead right to the Professor, whose physical condition has worsened due to his mental experiments. The climax is just fantastic..the creatures gain such strength through the growing atomic radiation(now that the fiends have multiplied, they destroy rods within the plant that control the ability to cut the reactor off)they appear visible. They look like giant brains with the spinal cord guiding their movements..they literally move around like snakes up trees and dart through holes at poor victims holed up in the Professor's house! As Cummings heads for the base nuclear plant, a group of characters try to fend off the fiends. To stop them, the nuclear plant will have to cease giving them the atomic energy they need.
The special effects are stunning for a film made in 1958. The film really consists of amazing stop-motion effects. What's really cool is when the Airforce guys still alive within the Professor's house begin riddling the fiends with bullets..this strawberry jam like goo pusses out! I guess it's supposed to resemble blood, but I still thought it was well done under the circumstances of the low budget. You do see the brain creatures attach to victims at the end. The effects for the fiends both invisible when they move on top of(..and through)objects, and the ending where they are visible and move around(..one cool sequence has one of the fiends using it's spinal cord to grab a chisel hammer!), I thought were just superb. Consider me quite a fan of this movie. I don't know why it has such a bad rep. For 50's sci-fi monster movie fans, this is a must.
The special effects are stunning for a film made in 1958. The film really consists of amazing stop-motion effects. What's really cool is when the Airforce guys still alive within the Professor's house begin riddling the fiends with bullets..this strawberry jam like goo pusses out! I guess it's supposed to resemble blood, but I still thought it was well done under the circumstances of the low budget. You do see the brain creatures attach to victims at the end. The effects for the fiends both invisible when they move on top of(..and through)objects, and the ending where they are visible and move around(..one cool sequence has one of the fiends using it's spinal cord to grab a chisel hammer!), I thought were just superb. Consider me quite a fan of this movie. I don't know why it has such a bad rep. For 50's sci-fi monster movie fans, this is a must.