Monster of the Day #3017

Updated on April 22, 2020 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

OK, maybe it’s time to go afield from the Cult Cinema Channel on YouTube. There are a lot of other movies available, although a lot of them are on random channels. One of the many many films out there (at least for the moment) is fan favorite Fiend Without a Face, a favorite of mine since I saw as a kid on Channel 32’s Screaming Yellow Theater (starring the original Svengoolie) back when I was a kid.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    Can’t go wrong with this one.

  • Gamera977

    I first saw this over a year ago on YouTube. And I was impressed enough to wonder why this wasn’t a better known film. The monsters were pretty awesome, not just more alien invaders or a normal animal grown to giant size but truly original and frightening. And the models and stop-motion animation were really nicely done.

  • Ericb

    It was well enough known to make the Criterion Collection.

  • Eric Hinkle

    This is one of my faves, A great creepy SF-horror movie, and the brain monsters are very memorable given that, well, they’re just a brain and spinal column.

  • Gamera977

    Ah ok, guess it’s just my ignorance. ;)

  • Ericb

    I think it was one of the first genre films they featured, 20 or so years ago.

  • Ericb

    Putting on my monocle: “Ah yes, the true heights of the art of film making, ‘8 1/2’, ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ and, of course, ‘Fiend Without a Face.’

  • I never even heard of it as a kid, myself. Which is too bad; stop motion monsters were always appreciated in my home.

  • Ken_Begg

    Also referenced by Tim Burton in Beetlejuice.

  • Ken_Begg

    Not really, it’s a low budget Brit sci-fi film that didn’t play TV a lot back in the day. Somebody at Screaming Yellow Theater really liked it, because they gave it a huge, long build-up for weeks on end before it finally played. So my ten year old self was really primed when it appeared, and I was not disappointed. So I’ve always loved it.

  • Ericb

    I saw it quite a few times on TV when I was a kid. I remember that my first viewing was aborted because I had gotten in trouble for something and the punishment was no monster movies for the weekend but I tried to see it anyway but only got as far as the opening scene before I got caught so I had to wait until the next time it was broadcast in order to see what the fiend actually was.

  • The Rev.

    This was one of a handful of classic monster flicks I saw back in high school, when Siffy was still the Sci-Fi Channel. I enjoyed the movie a lot (because of course I did, it’s great), although I kind of rolled my eyes at the invisible monsters…for which I forgave the movie once I saw them, as I absolutely loved them (because who wouldn’t, really?) Ken’s full-sized rubber Fiend is the one thing I covet in his collection more than anything else, even more than the huge Godzilla monster statues he has. I wore that thing around my neck for hours when I first found it.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Fun fact: I used to own the Criterion DVD (which is awesome and highly recommended) before circumstances forced me to sell most of my DVDs. Before doing so, of course, I converted them to digital (usually MKV) so I at least had access to them. Now, most DVDs or Blu-Rays would convert to really imaginative names like “Title_01,” “Title_02” and so forth. I don’t know how they did it, but the folks at Criterion somehow authored their disks so that, in the case of “Fiend Without a Face” the resultant files were titled “AFIENDINNEEDISAFIENDINDEED.” You really gotta love the Criterion folks, film fans all the way through. (I imagine they’d love B-Fest.)

  • Ericb

    I still have mine. When you convert your DVDs do you get to keep the audio commentaries?

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Yes, if you choose the MKV format. That allows for multiple audio tracks (and subtitle tracks as well).