I don't understand why this film was published by prestige DVD lines such as The Criterion Collection and Kino Video--it really belongs in the MST3K collection. But perhaps it's too dull for even the 'bots to make it worth watching. The film suffers from quite a few problems--the characters are poorly drawn and uninteresting, the story is thin, and the editing and dialogue are weak--but never develops the energy to become enjoyably bad. It's simply slow, irritating, and passionless. A woman loses her brother, but doesn't seem at all broken up about it; a number of people in a small village are killed, and no one seems to grieve; an air base becomes involved in tragedy, but it remains unnoticed. The Canadian villagers are referred to as "a simple and superstitious people", as if they're Gypsies from a Hollywood Dracula picture, but when they form a vigilante committee, they only stroll quietly through the woods, like a boring duck-hunting party, dressed in plaid. The soundtrack and sound effects are often much too hyper for the picture: a shot of someone standing quietly in front of a military building gets bombastic music, the invisible monster overdoses on throaty rumbles and snarfles, and a piercing scream is heard when an on screen actress merely covers her mouth with her hands. Apparently someone in postproduction desperately tried to add a little life at the last minute.
The lighting and photographic composition is sometimes quite good, a few of the actors struggle valiantly with the script (while others chew it up hammily), and the black-and-white photography is mostly clear, but that's about all that's competent in this pointless film. The animation is years behind the times, and the design of the monsters is merely silly.
If you're a big fan of bad sci-fi, you might want to just watch the last few scenes, when the monsters really go for it. For everyone else, I would say don't bother with the movie at all.
Film buffs might be interested to listen to the featurette on the Criterion disk, in which the producer discusses the marketing of low-budget pictures back in the '50s. However, it's rather strange to hear him complain about a theater owner in Chicago, who didn't want to promote "Fiend Without a Face" at the same cinema that was currently showing "Gigi". I was with the theater owner, all the way.
The lighting and photographic composition is sometimes quite good, a few of the actors struggle valiantly with the script (while others chew it up hammily), and the black-and-white photography is mostly clear, but that's about all that's competent in this pointless film. The animation is years behind the times, and the design of the monsters is merely silly.
If you're a big fan of bad sci-fi, you might want to just watch the last few scenes, when the monsters really go for it. For everyone else, I would say don't bother with the movie at all.
Film buffs might be interested to listen to the featurette on the Criterion disk, in which the producer discusses the marketing of low-budget pictures back in the '50s. However, it's rather strange to hear him complain about a theater owner in Chicago, who didn't want to promote "Fiend Without a Face" at the same cinema that was currently showing "Gigi". I was with the theater owner, all the way.