The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)

Admirable film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Alfred Hitchcock got his idea for "The Birds" from this odd movie. With birds and chickens attacking people. The effects were cheap but did the trick. Check out the documentary on Roger Corman, he was an interesting guy.Back in the fifties and sixties there were plenty of movies like this and we all watched them to pass the time. They were cheaply made but we all enjoyed watching. I'll bet Alfred and Corman became buddies. Roger Corman sure had some odd movies and I watched all the cheesiness when I was a kid. Here I am many years later wondering why. It's surprising Hitchcock didn't make a movie called "The Cows". Ha ha ha!

A dysfunctional family operating an isolated date farm in the California desert is threatened by the arrival of an extra-terrestrial.This film was made by American Releasing Corporation, the company that later became American International Pictures. This puts it firmly in the realm of Sam Arkoff, John Nicholson and Roger Corman. Corman produced this picture, and allegedly he helped direct it. Furthermore, it was apparently done on a budget of only $29,000 and using a tea kettle as the monster. A tea kettle? Yes.Sadly, it is rather disappointing as nothing much happens. Not even throwing Dick Sargent in the mix can save things. For Corman or AIP enthusiasts, it is a must see, but beyond that it does not have all that much to offer.

Okay, first the good news. An interesting premise. How an alien invasion effects a few people in an isolated house. A premise that Roger Corman tackled to a much more competent result in THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED, and its crapptacular remake by Larry Buchanan IN THE YEAR 2889. This time we have a farmhouse. The alien presence that lands in the desert (represented by an annoying audio hum) takes control of their farm animals, who start to menace the humans. On its face, a ludicrous concept, BUT, a great filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, took the same silly premise (livestock attacks people) and made a great film, THE BIRDS, out of it. Clearly, Alfred Hitchcock is not at work on this project.This could have been a much better movie, but it is torpedoed by horrible writing and acting. The actress playing the wife, in particular, is just one of the worst actors I have ever seen. Every line reading stiff, every emotion unbelievable, every sentence awkwardly-phrased. The actress playing the daughter is not much better, and the lead playing the farmer is merely mediocre. The directing is not much better, but I would classify that as merely bad instead of gut-wrenchingly unbearable.The inappropriate canned music cues mentioned by others certainly don't help matters any, (okay, at least they are not as bad as MESA OF LOST WOMEN), and the way the animal attacks are staged is NOT scary in the least, but HILARIOUS.The works of Ed Wood, at least, are suffused with a rollicking love of film history and the horror or crime genres, and Ed's overstuffed dialog is more apt to bring a smile to your face than a gaping look of disbelief. Ed's baroque, odd turns of phrase are all part of the fun.The dialog in this film is not fun, just boring and unserviceable. Just like the rest of the movie. Yes, you can make a worthwhile film on a super low budget. But this movie ain't it.

THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES is a small brilliant no budget film. It's probably the first existential science fiction film ever made. That's all I need to say about it to explain why I like it.This film was made before the now familiar plot-line of animals attacking humans, like THE BIRDS. In fact, this film reminds me a lot of THE BIRDS, which I think is brilliant but kudos to whoever wrote this evocative no budget wonder. The similarities between the two is really striking. Hitchcock most likely saw this film and was "inspired" by it. Even the low key near minimalistic tone is identical. The existential tone is also unique for that time and was made before TV shows like TWILIGHT ZONE or sci-fi flicks in the late 1960s or 1970s (like Russian sci-fi flicks) made these bleak sci-fi/horror/fantasy themes popular with the general public. Today, these kind of stories are common in movies or TV programs. The B&W cinematography is at times stunning, more than this type of film usually has. Moody and very atmospheric. The sensational title makes sense because the alien uses all the animals to see and control the environment around humans, hence the million eyes. The original title was supposed to be The Unseen and it didn't have the alien part of the end and one can see what they tried to do. But the current ending doesn't destroy the film.Just because the film has no budget, no stars, that it's basically bare-bones, doesn't mean it should be dismissed for the things it tried to do. Yes, the film is far from perfect but I admire it for what it tried to do, certainly in an era that relied too easily on cheesy stuff. It's (intentional or unintentional) low key brilliance.