The Brain Eaters (1958) User Reviews

The music was not original as claimed.

[captnhal · 4/10 · 17 September 2006]

I found this movie amusing for its low budget effects and several flaws in its continuity. The most frequent flaw was the splicing of scenes in which it would appear to be day and then night and back and forth. Despite, or perhaps because of its flaws, I liked it. It does help if you like 1950's "B" sci-fi films and Shostakovich to start with.

In addition to the plot strongly resembling Robert Heinlein's "Puppet Masters", the music was also not original. I could find no evidence that there ever was a "Tom Jonson" who wrote any music for this film or anywhere, ever. Most of it was taken, uncredited, from Dmitri Shostakovich's symphonies 1, 5, & 10. I also recognized an excerpt from Sergei Prokofiev's music score for the Russian language film Alexander Nevsky. At the time Brain Eaters was distributed these composers were not as frequently performed in the US and their music would not have been familiar to almost all movie goers. Both composers were from the Soviet Union (Prokofiev died in 1953). They were perceived as Communist and there was a certain amount of prejudice and/or fear about performing it. During the cold war it would also have been difficult for Shostakovich to pursue legal action against the film company if he even knew his music had been used. I suspect this is exactly why this music was used.

I also would not be surprised if it turns out that the source of the performances were records purchased at a record store and the musicians were not compensated either. The credits do not list any orchestra(s)/conductor(s). The editing of the background music was also poorly done. There were several places where the music did not transition smoothly to the next scene or even within the same scene.

"I'm here to keep this spaceship business in check." Dull 50's Sci-Fi.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 6 June 2005]

The Brain Eaters starts with the newly engaged Glenn Cameron (Alan Frost) driving his lucky fiancé Elaine (Jody Fair) to the small American town of Riverdale in Illinois to break the good news when they see a sudden bright flash. Glenn & Elaine stop to investigate & discover a large metal cone that's 50 feet tall by 50 feet across at it's widest. In Washington Senator Walter K. Powers (Cornelius Keefe as Jack Hill) takes full responsibility & flies out to Riverdale where he is met by Glenn who just happens to be the Mayor's (Orville Sherman) son, Glenn informs Senator Powers that his Father has mysteriously disappeared & there has been 3 unsolved murders in the area recently. Glenn takes Senator Powers to the cone where Dr. Paul Kettering (Ed Nelson), Dr. Wyler (David Hughes) & their assistant Alice Summers (Joanna Lee) are busy running all kinds of tests on the unidentified object. Kettering informs Senator Powers that he is baffled by the cone, eventually they all end up in the Mayor's office who has suddenly reappeared. After some macho rubbish between the Mayor & the Senator about who is in charge the Mayor pulls a gun out & makes a run for it but is shot by a cop. Kettering & a somewhat unemotional Glenn examine the body & discover two holes in the back of his neck. Kettering performs an autopsy & discovers that the Mayor was being controlled by an alien parasite previously unknown to man, Kettering puts two & two together & comes up with the startling theory that these parasites have come from the cone. But since the parasites got to the Mayor who else is being controlled? The mystery deepens even further when an expert in bio-chemistry , Professor Helsingman (Saul Bronson), who has been missing for the past five years turns up out of the blue. Kettering & his team face a race against time to stop the parasites before they take over the entire human race!

Directed by Bruno VeSota The Brain Eaters is nothing to get excited about. The script by Gordon Urquhart supposedly based on Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Puppet Masters fails to make the most of it's obvious potential, the potential for paranoia is wasted. The film makes it perfectly clear who is controlled by a Brain Eater & who isn't. Film's like John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) & Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) brilliantly uses the mistrust between characters to heighten tension & make us, the viewer, question who we should believe & put our faith in. The Brain Eaters has none of this which hurts the film badly as it's very predictable & doesn't even attempt to try & pull any surprises. The dialogue is clunky, awkward, static & feels dated as is often the case with 50's Sci-Fi but there are a few laughs to be had if you listen closely enough. To give it some credit it moves along like a rocket, there's no boring exposition here even going as far as having a few scenes narrated rather than try & condense the information into an ordinary conversation & at only an hour long it doesn't outstay it's welcome. The Brain Eaters themselves are rarely seen & when they are they look like wigs with antenna's. There's no blood, gore or violence & the special effects are generally poor as you would expect. The acting is very wooden & everyone looks & sounds like they're reading their lines from cue cards, & yes Leonard Nimoy does make an appearance even if it's hard to make him out you'll definitely recognise his voice. Director VeSota fails to bring any scares, atmosphere, style or originality to the film as a whole. Overall I thought The Brain Eaters was an OK way to pass an hour but could have been more & at the end of the day fails to distinguish itself from any other 50's black & white Sci-Fi film of which there are many better ones available. One to watch only if your desperate.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

[Bruce_Cook · 4 November 2001]

It's only about 60 minutes long, and the special effects (what little there are) are substandard, but some real imagination went into this one, with a plot based on `The Puppet Masters' by Robert Heinlein. A strange Earth-drilling craft surfaces in a small town and disgorges a horde of fuzzy little parasitic creatures who fasten themselves to the necks of the townsfolk and control their brains. Scientist Ed Nelson (who is also the film's producer) battles the invaders. Watch for a scene in which the hero enters the drill craft and confronts a bearded old man . . . played by Leonard Nimoy!

If you just LOVE 1950s sci-fi, here's an obscure little curiosity for you. If not . . . well, try the Sci-Fi Channel.

disappointing movie

[xnet95 · 3/10 · 17 July 2010]

I was really primed to watch this one - expectations were high (how could they not be with a title like "The Brain Eaters"?). Well, as often as happens in life, the reality didn't match the expectation. Actually, this movie made me a bit angry because of the wasted potential. I love seeing old black and white monsters, but this movie showed virtually no monsters. What's the point of making a "monster movie" if you only show the monsters for a total of 10 seconds out of an hour - very lame! Plus, NONE of the characters in this film are likable, which is a very important aspect of a successful film. I didn't care about any of them. They were all either stupid or jerks or arrogant or useless. The doctor was the only one who showed any good qualities, but his stupidity outlined below rendered him useless.

1. A lot of damage was done by the people who were infected by these creatures. ALL of that damage could've been avoided by checking everybody to see if there was a little furry thing attached to the back of their necks. It seems pretty obvious to me...

2. How about when the doctor shot the bullet into the cone and it bounced around and he said, "The point of origin is the point of return." If that's true, why didn't he get injured as the bullet came back to the point of return?

3. The doctor crawls into the cone and is gone for a long time. Everybody is worried about his safety. He finally comes out and says that the tunnel in the cone just winds around and there was nothing inside. WHAT!?! Where were the two missing doctors that appeared later in the film? Where were all the creatures that were with them? This point really got on my nerves.

4. In the lab, the doctor dissects one of the creatures and tells his assistant/girlfriend that the creatures can split apart and regenerate. While he's telling her this, he leaves a piece of this thing HE KNOWS has the ability to hurt people unguarded on the table. While he is distracted, the thing crawls onto his arm and injures him. He uses fire to get it off, but then hurries out of the lab without making sure the thing is really dead. And what about the big piece he cut the little piece off of? Nobody seems very concerned that these two pieces could hurt people in the future.

5. Later, the doctor and the mayor's son go to the teletype office to see if any message came back from the governor. They end up fighting two people that are controlled by the monsters. After our heroes beat these guys up, they just leave them there. What's up with that!?! Kill them, tie them up, get the monsters off their backs, but don't just leave them lying there to cause more damage later. ARRGGH!

Sorry, but it goes on and on and on...

THE BRAIN EATERS (Bruno Ve Sota, 1958) **

[Bunuel1976 · 4/10 · 23 January 2010]

This is one of a series of vintage AIP horror titles released some time ago as part of an R2 DVD collection entitled "The Arkoff Library", though the copy I watched was actually culled from an AMC TV broadcast (with constant streaming advertisements of upcoming shows and pictures!); others include THE SHE-CREATURE (1956), BLOOD OF Dracula (1957) and HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958) – all of which I have acquired in time for my ongoing Halloween challenge. Thematically, the film is a variation on the classic INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) with a small town gradually taken over (though not by an alien organism but rather a vanished – and, typically, superior – civilization); despite the sensationalistic title, the creatures – 'possessing' their victims through small punctures at the back of the neck – are never actually seen, leading to a wonderful POV shot (perhaps the film's highlight) depicting an attack on the hero's girlfriend. The leader of the 'invaders' is actually a bearded old man – only ever shown in silhouette – residing in a cone-shaped rocket! The end result is not too bad though hardly a classic of its familiar kind or genre and obviously cramped by the low budget and necessary compactness (running a mere 56 minutes); interestingly, the film's director is the burly Orson Welles-lookalike sleazeball from DEMENTIA (1955).

The Borg From Deep In Planet Earth

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 30 April 2009]

Were it not for the presence of two men who scored great success later on television, Ed Nelson on Peyton Place and Leonard Nimoy on Star Trek, The Brain Eaters would have no reason to be remembered. Then again with your half eaten cerebrum it would be impossible to remember this film anyway.

It's not monsters from Outer Space, but a collective of Borg like parasites, speaking of Star Trek, from the Earth's core who've come to the surface in rural Illinois and start invading the populace of Riverdale. When they take over the police authority and cut communications from the outside, our intrepid heroes led by a US Senator of all things have to deal with them on their own.

Ed Nelson and Leonard Nimoy play two of the scientists. But the saving grace of the film if it has any is the performance of Cornelius Keefe as the blustering United States Senator who is most aware of the prerogatives of his office and ain't gonna let no aliens, parasites, whatever stand in his way.

Leonard Nimoy's name is misspelled in the credits and for reasons of posterity he probably considers it a blessing.

What is it! What happened! What did you kill them for!

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 19 January 2008]

**SPOILERS** The only thing new about this aliens from space movie is that the aliens, or as their called in the film parasites, don't come from other space at all they come from deep down in the earths core.

It take's a while for Dr. Paul Kettering, Ed Nelson, and the person put in charge of this pressing matter by the US Department of the Interior Senator Warren K. Powers, Cornelius Keefe,to realize what exactly their up against. These strange brain-eating creatures are in fact 200 million year old amoeba-like brain-suckers who emerged from their home deep down in the earth's crust. The creatures are planning to take over the human race by destroying their victim's brain cells after they took over their bodies. They, the Braineaters, plan to accomplish this feat by first taking over the brains of the unsuspecting humans in the little town of Riverdale. Turning the town's population into mindless zombies the parasites then plan go on to the next town city and then country until the entire human race is no longer a factor or obstacle to their eventual conquest of the earth!

With little money on hand the film "The Braineaters" lacks the very things that would make it worth watching decent, not spectacular , special effects. The "spaceship" that the parasites came from is nothing but a 50 feet tall aluminum tepee with a hole in it's nosecone. The Braineaters themselves are nothing but sponge-like creatures with pipes sticking out of them. These pipes are used to latch on to their victim's necks and then, after taking over their bodies, suck their brains out and cause their victims to die within 24 to 48 hours.

It's after the town chief executive Mayor Cameron, Oville Sherman, flips out and goes bananas and is shot and killed by the police, whom he's in charge off,that Dr. Kettering realized that he was in fact taken over by some strange creature, the underground parasite, who had him do its bidding. Little by little the parasites take over a number of the townspeople including Dr. Kettering's girlfriend Alice Summers, Joanna Lee, making it almost impossible to know who's the good guy or parasite.

It's only when it's discovered that there's a number of persons inside the "spacecraft" that the truth comes out to what exactly is going on. One of the men inside the craft turned out to be Prof. Helsingman, Saul Bronson, who mysteriously disappeared five years ago. Helsingman lived just long enough to tell Dr. Kettering what the real purpose of these strange creatures really is: To take over the earth's surface.

Later going into the craft Dr. Kettering is confronted by the also long missing Dr. Cole, Leonard Nimoy, the late Prof. Helsingman's close friend and associate. Dr. Cole, looking like the old man of the mountain,tells the astonished Dr. Kettering that he and his fellow humans should just lay down their arms and give up, resistance is futile Dr. Cole tells him, to their superiors the parasites.

Of course Dr. Kettering is not at all impressed with Dr. Cole and his army of brain eating parasites and comes up with a fool-proof plan to put them out of business: 60 to 80 thousand volts of electricity. It , Dr. Kettering's plan, was just about to be put into operation when an unexpected glitz developed at the very last moment! The sudden appearance of of girlfriend the brain damaged, and parasite controlled, Alice Summers!

Predictable ending with Dr. Kettering unable to do what he at first planned to do in ridding the earth of the underground parasite invasion. It took the sharp-shooting ability of the late Mayor Cameron's son Glenn, Alan Frost, to in the end finish the job that the reluctant, in not being able to off his parasite-controlled girlfriend Alice, Dr. Kettering was unable to do.

Pleasingly old-fashioned

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 10 September 2018]

THE BRAIN EATERS (a great title for a sci-fi flick, by the way) is a pleasingly old-fashioned 1950s-era B-movie which involves an alien invasion along the lines of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. It's a low budget affair but one which tells the brisk story quite efficiently, beginning with some scene-setting involving an alien craft and building to the usual takeover and action sequences. It's not a classic like INVASION but it does the job well enough and manages to entertain for the hour-odd running time.

Far, far better than the horrible title would imply

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 28 January 2008]

This movie is about an invasion of the planet from deep within the bowels of the Earth. Little stupid looking beings (that look a lot like the old Cootie game from Schapper) invade the brains of unsuspecting humans and begin doing their evil bidding.

With a title like THE BRAIN EATERS, this sounded like an astoundingly bad movie--and that's something I can't resist! Older schlock films are a guilty pleasure for me, as I know I should hate them but enjoy them for a laugh now and again. And, with a terribly low score of 4, I sure expected it to be bad. Wow, did it come as a surprise when I did watch this super-low budget film, as in many ways it was quite entertaining and clever---and deserved a score much higher. In fact, almost all the reviews for the film give it a 5 or above--yet, incongruously, there is an overall score of 4!. Given that there is practically no budget, I was surprised that the film was pretty well written and the acting wasn't bad--I really expected so much less. Now I am not saying this is Shakespeare--this is a 50's sci-fi film that seems awfully similar to contemporary films such as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. And while it will never come close to the quality of great 50's sci-fi, it is a touch better than average and better than films with five and ten times the budget. While my score of 6 may seem high for such a modest film, considering how successful the end product was and how little the outlay, I think it is well earned.

By the way, although he's heavily disguised with a cheesy and very large wig AND he's within a veil of steam, it's Leonard Nimoy as the leader of the little buggers.

It's Spelled Nimoy

[PCC0921 · 3/10 · 25 September 2023]

Roger Corman was an uncredited co-producer on the Brain Eaters (1958), which was produced by the film's main actor, Ed Nelson and cost, in 2023 numbers, around $275,000. That is still seriously, low-budget numbers. The Brain Eaters (1958), is a silly premise about creatures from a metal cone, attaching themselves to the necks of human beings, in an attempt to take over the world, through mind-control. The film has potential, because it does begin to resemble an Outer Limits (1963-1965), episode, but the acting, poor production values and low-budget atmosphere, makes it hard to really enjoy this film. The creatures look like clumps of wet hair in glass tubes.

I knew I was in trouble, when, one of the actresses from Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), showed up, as the main leading, female character, of the Brain Eaters (1958). It is fair to say though, that Joanna Lee's performance in this film, was much better than her embarrassing turn in Ed Wood's classic, but that isn't saying much. Even at 61 minutes, this film was still a tough one to watch, so I am definitely putting the Brain Eaters (1958), on my Unwatchable Films List. There is however, one saving grace for this film. Covered in smoke and barely recognizable, this film costars a young, Leonard Nimoy, who was so new to his career, that the credits were accidentally misspelled as Leonard Nemoy. He makes a brief appearance, as the emissary of these brain-eaters and is really the only great part of the film. The rest is an embarrassing mess, with droplets of cinematic gems flicked in.

3.0 (UNWATCHABLE) = 3 IMDB.

Not as bad as all that.

[Sperry23 · 9/10 · 5 July 2002]

This is a classic Saturday Matinee movie; short, icky monsters, black & white, and 50's paranoia. It's about a good an adaptation (for the time period) that Heinlein could expect and still make the transition from book to screen. Yes, the FX look lame compared to today's cgi and bluescreen. Yes, the story is pure 50's. Still, it is watchable, even enjoyable if viewers simply accept it for what it is . . . a low-budget, backlot SF film.

It's no classic, but I can think of worse ways of wasting away an hour.

[Wilbur-10 · 6/10 · 30 September 2001]

One of B-movie legend Bruno VeSota's three directorial efforts, 'The Brain Eaters' shows enough promise to make one wish he had split his time more evenly between acting and directing.

We are once again in the realms of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and 'I Married a Monster from Outer Space', with aliens trying to take over the population of an isolated American town. The spaceship turns out to have burrowed up from beneath the earth's surface, letting loose vindictive slug-like creatures which attach themselves to peoples necks, taking over their minds. Lots of Communist paranoia/infiltration undertones as usual.

The plot manages to lose itself despite a running time of only 60 minutes, but at least 'The Brain Eaters' recognises its limitations. The film prevents the normal ridicule caused by feeble special-effects by not having any and within the boundaries it sets itself, there is nothing to offend.

Like most releases from American International Pictures the film is primed for entertainment value, if not artistic merit, and it is none the worse for that.

I remember a particularly good scene where the camera follows one of the malevolent slugs point-of-view as it stalks its victim ready to latch onto the neck - an early influence on Spielberg for 'Jaws' maybe ??

Stinkweed excuse for a film

[scsu1975 · 2/10 · 14 November 2022]

Furry little things that take over people's brains ... or something to that effect.

The film opens with narration, which is usually a sure sign that crap is about to follow. A husband and wife (Alan Frost, Jody Fair) are driving along, when they hear an explosion. Upon investigating, they find a couple of dead animals. Then they stumble across a large cone-shaped object.

Fair: "What is it?" Frost: "I don't know."

Now the scene shifts to Washington DC, where Senator Walter K. Powers (Jack Hill) is part a UFO committee. We see film of the cone, and are informed that the cone is 50 feet high and has a base diameter of 50 feet. Now I ask you, what is the volume of the cone? (Not really, I just got carried away.)

Senator Walter K. Powers arrives in town and meets with Frost, who happens to be the Mayor's son. They head out to the cone, where scientist Ed Nelson is investigating, along with Joanna Lee and some old guy. Nelson fires his gun into a hole in the cone, to show that the "point of origin becomes the point of return."

Senator Walter K. Powers: "What's really on the inside of that thing?" Old guy scientist: "I don't know."

Nelson enters the cone, searching for the plot, and finds nothing.

Senator Walter K. Powers: "Well that thing has some purpose. What's it for?" Nelson: "I don't know."

Audience: "Why the hell are we watching this?" Me: "I DON'T KNOW."

Things go downhill quickly, but not fast enough to suit me. The Mayor has been taken over by something attached to his back. A cop gets taken over by something attached to his back. Lee gets taken over by something attached to her back. Everybody has a gun and shoots at anything that moves.

Eventually Nelson and Frost get inside the cone and find Leonard Nimoy, and a bunch of the furry things. Nimoy bores us with his philosophy: "Our social order is pure ... innocent ... it has the exactitude of mathematics. We shall force upon man a life free from strife and turmoil." Sounds great ... let's start by deep-sixing this film.

It's Communist paranoia a go go in this crazy "Reds under the Bed" bonanza!

[ErasmicLather · 22 October 1999]

If you like cheesy sci fi flicks THE BRAIN EATERS will not disappoint. Cheap and tacky, paranoid about thinly-veiled Russki invaders, it still manages moments of genuine excitement and atmosphere. Dig the moment when the loopy zombie grabs for our hero through a garden shed window! Thrill as a creepy man with a long beard in white robes from inside the earth plots his invasion then disappears in a puff of smoke! Gasp as the leading lady provides everyone in sight with endless cups of coffee! Leonard Nimoy's in here somewhere, narrating the plot and (I suspect) lurking behind that white beard!

Low-budget nonsense best known for alleged plagiarism

[jamesrupert2014 · 4/10 · 3 November 2019]

Furry subterranean creatures that latch onto people's necks and take over their brains invade a small town. Probably best known its notable (and supposedly coincidental) similarities to Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel 'The Puppet Masters' and the famous author's resulting lawsuit, "The Brain Eaters' is a ultra-low-budget shocker with little to offer other than an interesting premise (courtesy of Heinlein's imagination?) that unfortunately devolves into a ridiculous story about an invasion by a tiny, fuzzy hypogean megalomaniacs. The acting (including a bearded Leonard "Nemoy"), script and special effects are pretty bad. On the plus side, the downbeat ending is unusual for the genre, some attempts were made to include interesting images (POV, shadows, Dutch angles etc), and the score (courtesy of uncredited Russian masters Shostakovich and Prokofiev) is quite good. Of historical interest only (and even then the film is barely worth watching).

Odor eaters couldn't cure this stench.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 22 October 2019]

Poor sound, choppy editing and unnecessary narration are the keys to this unimaginative "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rip-off that is about as believable as "The Tingler" is serious. A mysterious cone contains the alleged brain eaters that control their thoughts, not devour them. It's as dull as poor science fiction can get with Ed Nelson and Joanna Lee leading the search for the mysterious control center and facing human monsters taken over by these parasites.

I've seen dozens of these science fiction/horror films of the late 1950's and 1960's that range between imaginative and intelligent, hysterically campy and pathetically sleep enducing. The horrible title is just the beginning of the flaws of this miserable disappointment that is often difficult to see in scenes depicting extreme fog. Fortunately, it's over in just an hour, but even that was a challenge for me to tolerate.

Roger Corman special

[SnoopyStyle · 3/10 · 5 July 2015]

A couple driving home discovers a metal structure in the woods 6 miles south of Riverdale, Illinois. Mysterious occurrences and murders are reported. Two days later, word has reached Washington and an investigation led by Senator Walter Powers is secretly sent. Alien parasites have taken over some of the town's population. Powers leads a group of survivors. They try to communicate but the operators have been taken over.

This is a low grade copy of many other sci-fi fantasy. The acting is bad and the production is poor. The direction is basically people standing around spouting bad dialogue. The logic of the parasites doesn't make sense. First they're from space. Then they're from below. Also it's the easiest detection method possible. Just take off your shirts! It's also notable for Leonard Nimoy as an ethereal presence inside the cone.

The credits say Leonard Nimoy is in it but I didn't recognize him.

[13Funbags · 2/10 · 25 April 2017]

A couple are driving down a country road and see a bright flash,so of course they pull over to investigate. It cuts to a crazy angle shot of them and some high voltage power lines so you know those lines will have something to do with the lame plot. So they start walking into the forest(why not?) and it immediately becomes dark outside.There ends up being many times when it goes from dark to light when the camera switches angles. They find some weird dead animals and a "space ship",a senator is sent to take charge,a scientist goes inside the ship and says its just one big spiral tunnel(while you can clearly see its a big empty space inside). So the group which consists of 2 scientists,a few random girls,the senator and others,decide to search the forest in pairs,great idea. Of course they all have guns and constantly use them.They always point the guns at the ground and to the right of the person but the person dies. Two of them run into some guys from the ship,there's a little smoke and the woman goes way overboard on the fake choking.I've seen enough of these crappy movies to know that smoke means something.Just not sure what. They later go into the ship again but this time it's not just a spiral and there are people in it.The entire thing is full of smoke so you can't see how dumb it looks. This movie is only good for making fun of it.

Not even a funny bad movie

[echanove · 3/10 · 4 January 2021]

The problem with this modest by-product directed by the sympathetic characteristic Bruno Vesota is that, in addition to being quite confusing and poorly narrated (characters, plot), it is hardly restless. And that, despite the final fireworks, which leaves an open ending, it does not matter either. And it's not a problem of special effects or low budget.

Of course, the film is very representative of the psychosis that in those years existed in North American society due to the Cold War, which together with phenomena such as the well-known "Rosswell incident" impregnated not only the science fiction of series B of those years , but all the literature of that genre and, of course, Robert Heinlein work and the novel in which the movie is inspired.

Robert Heinlein, in In fact, the plot premise of this film has been later adapted, with different variants, to the cinema many times more, although I do not know if ever so awkwardly. In that sense, it is very striking how at certain times it uses a certain semi-documentary tone, in addition to the presence of numerous local political authorities and the state of Illinois in the script.

As a curious fact, it may be worth mentioning the presence in one of his first and rare appearances on the big screen aside from the feature films derived from the Star Trek series by Leonard Nimoy, the beloved Dr. Spock. Although it is barely seen, it is curiously the one that brings a conceptual air to the film with his dialogue lines, although it contributes very little.

And it is that the film does not even have those, curious, hilarious or disgusting elements for which those of its kind appear amusing us.

Strange visitors come to Riverdale

[chris_gaskin123 · 7/10 · 31 January 2005]

I have seen The Brain Eaters a couple of times and is quite enjoyable, despite the low budget and reading some bad reviews about it. This movie was first released on video in the UK as part of the Drive-In Classics series, of which I own a copy. It has since been re-released on video and now DVD.

A strange alien cone shaped craft of unexplained origin appears in the small town of Riverdale. Some scientists and government officials are sent to investigate the craft and at the same time, some of the local residents start acting strange and then die. All of the people who have died have bite marks on the back of their necks and it turns out these are the work of parasites from the cone. These turn out to be millions of year old aliens who want to rule the world and have been living underground all this time. Some of the people enter the cone and are attack by more parasites and are defeated in the end.

The movie's cast is mostly made up of unknowns, although Ed Nelson has appeared in several drive-in movies of this kind including Attack Of the Crab Monsters and A Bucket Of Blood. Also look out for a then unknown Lenard Nimoy, some years before he played Mr Spock in Star Trek.

This is a worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of 1950's science fiction like me.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Your brain may suffer if you watch this.

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 18 December 2017]

A mysterious 50ft metal cone is found sticking out of the ground. As scientists try to figure out precisely what it is, small parasitic creatures emerge and attach themselves to various people, controlling the host but slowly destroying the brain in the process.

If there's one thing that most fifties sci-fi/horror movies did right, it was the promotion, the films boasting sensational titles and wonderfully lurid posters to lure in the punters: 'The Brain Eaters' is an amazing title, while the incredible poster promises 'crawling, slimy things terror-bent on destroying the world'. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Of course, with many of these films made on a shoestring budget, they rarely lived up to the promise, and that is most definitely the case here: yes, there are crawling (and possibly slimy) creatures, but the shonky, bug-like critters are more likely to evoke laughter than terror. Perhaps if there was a decent story to be told, I could be more a little more forgiving of the 'monsters', but The Brain Eaters doesn't have that either. The plot is a mess of cliches (the one and only original idea being that the bugs come from inside the earth as opposed to outer space), and the acting is perfunctory (future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy wisely hides behind a big, fake beard).

2/10

Brain Music

[RotwangsGirl · 6/10 · 9 September 2007]

I read your post re: The Brain Eaters. I have done extensive research on the music and have also come to the conclusion that there never was a Tom Jonson. I have identified much of the score but the piece that eludes me is the Main Title. Does anyone have any idea what that's from? Your help would be greatly appreciated. It's driving me crazy.

In the meantime , this is a fun film (if derivative). The biggest mistake might be the Pipe Cleaner antennea on the little monsters. The idea the creatures are subterranian in nature was very different for the period. All in all a good fun romp. The classical score does add a weirdness that somehow compelling.

THE BRAIN EATERS

[TCurtis9192 · 4/10 · 1 January 2024]

THE BRAIN EATERS is not a terrible film at all, but despite its short runtime I found myself tempted at times to switch it off.

Unfortunately there's not enough of the parasites. Instead it opts to show them for a few seconds near the end. Although the film is well directed, it would have benefited from more creature action, being a low rent film.

It was funny to see Leonard Nimoy playing essentially the same role as he had in the great INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS from 1978. In that film he does have a much larger role, but he tells us about the pods, their history, and their intentions, in such an eloquent way that only he could pull off. He does the same here for the parasites.

The film makes great use of music, proposes some interesting ideas, and isn't too long. Again, it's a shame about the lack of parasites.

Decent Sci-Fi

[Michael_Elliott · 27 February 2008]

Brain Eaters, The (1958)

** (out of 4)

AIP sci-fi about a ground an alien like critters that attach to the neck's of humans of suck their blood out. This is a decent time killer since it runs just over an hour but God knows this isn't the greatest film the genre has to offer. The low budget nature adds a lot to the film and the alien things are actually pretty neat and work well with the small budget. The performances and direction aren't anything to write home about but if you like silly little "B" movies then you might enjoy this one. The film would have worked a lot better without the Dragnet like narration.