THE BRAIN EATERS (1958)
Tagline: Crawling, slimy things terror-bent on destroying the world!
(Sci-Fi, Horror, Space Furballs) [G]
Note – I would have put a rated “G” on this thing just to give you an idea of what it might have been rated. It was never given an MPAA rating. The poster is light years more frightening than the actual movie.
What are the parasites, where do they come from, what do they want from us?
In this one, some giant metal cone-shaped object lands in the small town of Riverdale, Illinois. It doesn’t take long before we discover that tiny little hamster-sized alien fur-balls have begun a brain-sucking rampage, with sights on taking over the human race as they use the bodies of their victims as smooth-talking space zombies. Can Dr. Paul Kettering (played by Ed Nelson) stop this menace in time to save the world?
First off it’s pretty interesting that this movie was sued by a writer named Robert A. Heinlein because the story so closely resembled his novel “The Puppet Masters”. One, because in the ’80s the PUPPET MASTER series took off which has nothing to do with the plot here. Also in the 80s we had NIGHT OF THE CREEPS which has a very similar plot only it’s done about 8 million times better.
This black and white horror flick does a good job of keeping an INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS feel to it, but it is nowhere near as scary as the posters or my graphic. In fact, I would say you would easily take a kid to this thing. The most gore we get is two bite marks on the back of the victim’s necks. It’s about as tame as if the most gentle vampire ever decided to bite you on the back of the neck instead of the front.
A couple of notes about the acting in this flick, Lenard Nimoy of STAR TREK fame is in this movie very briefly. We also have a Joanna Lee sighting. One of her claims to fame is being part of the infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The male lead is played by Ed Nelson who had a very storied career that ended up including POLICE ACADEMY 3: BACK IN TRAINING.
Nothing about this movie is all that memorable, unfortunately. The poster as I have stated is far more nuts than anything in the actual film. Having said that, it’s actually not that bad and you could do far worse if you are taking a stroll through 1950s sci-fi horror. The film does have a sense of dread and an almost TWILIGHT ZONE-ish quality to it.
For those reasons and because this movie probably triggered better ideas in the same wheelhouse decades later, I am going to give this one a 4 out of 7. Don’t expect the poster, but don’t expect to be totally unengaged either. This movie does at least that.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CORINTHIAN PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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