History Film / FiendWithoutAFace

* CulturalStereotypes: The Canadians as backwoods yokel types.

* BourgeoisBumpkin: Hawkins likes to come off as being very down to earth, but lives in pretty a swanky mansion and is actually fairly out of touch with his constituents (besides sharing their disdain for the Americans).

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Atomic engineer Pete says, "Okay, but it's your funeral. [[{{Beat}} ....]] [[ForeseeingMyDeath Mine too, probably]]." [[spoiler:He's the guy getting brain-sucked in the page image.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Atomic engineer Pete says, "Okay, but it's your funeral. [[{{Beat}}....]] [[ForeseeingMyDeath Mine too, probably]]." [[spoiler:He's the guy getting brain-sucked in the page image.]]

One night, people hear [[HellIsThatNoise mysterious thumping]], [[HellIsThatNoise schlurking noise]], followed by a [[ScreamDiscretionShot blood-curdling scream]] and the discovery of a corpse with a look of frozen horror on his face. More victims follow. This gives the locals (especially Hawkins) the ammo they need to bring grievances to the feet of base commander Colonel Butler and his second in command, Major Jeff Cummings. Butler tasks Jeff with solving the mystery to restore good relations with the Canadians. He starts seeing Barbara Griselle, the sister of the first victim. She works as a typist for a scientist named Professor Walgate.

One night, people hear [[HellIsThatNoise mysterious thumping]], [[HellIsThatNoise schlurking noise]], followed by a [[ScreamDiscretionShot blood-curdling screams]] and the discovery of a corpse with a look of frozen horror on his face. More victims follow. This gives the locals the ammo they need to bring grievances to the feet of base commander Colonel Butler and his second in command, Major Jeff Cummings. Butler tasks Jeff with solving the mystery to restore good relations with the Canadians. He starts seeing Barbara Griselle, the sister of the first victim. She works as a typist for a scientist named Professor Walgate.

At a base in CanadaEh, the US Air Force is conducting long-range radar tests to try and get a leg up on [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar those pesky Russians]]. But life isn't easy in good old Canada. The reactor powering their radar equipment is run by an atomic reactor which keeps experiencing mysterious power drains which interfere with their work, and to top it all off the people living near the base don't like how the constantly taking off and landing aircraft spook their animals, and the churlish, anti-American Mayor Hawkins is spreading nasty rumors about the possible [[NuclearNasty side effects]] of radiation from the Americans' atomic reactor.

One night, people hear [[HellIsThatNoise mysterious thumping]], [[HellIsThatNoise schlurking noise]], followed by a [[ScreamDiscretionShot blood-curdling screams]] and the discovery of a corpse or corpses with looks of frozen horror on their faces. This gives the locals the ammo they need to bring grievances to the feet of base commander Colonel Butler and his X.O., Major Jeff Cummings. It's up to Jeff to solve the mystery and restore American-Canadian relations if he can.

Jeff starts seeing Barbara Griselle, the sister of the first victim. She works as a typist for Professor Walgate, scientist who is conducting strange experiments in the materialization of thought ForScience Hmm...

Eventually Hawkins himself falls victim to the [[InvisibleMonsters unseen menace]]. "Something" leaps from the first floor landing and latches itself to the back of his head, whereupon he promptly topples down the stairs, dead. The base doctor autopsies the victims and discovers that each person has had their brain sucked clean out! Jeff theorizes that a "mental vampire" is at work. One that may have been created by Professor Walgate... intentionally or unintentionally.

* PickyPeopleEater: ''All'' the creatures want to eat is human brains and spinal cords.

->''"It's good brain-bashing fun."''
-->-- '''[[Creator/JamesRolfe James Rolfe]]'''

->''"It's good brain-bashing fun."''
-->-- '''[[Creator/JamesRolfe James Rolfe]]'''

* DiscretionShot: Averted ''hard''. Although the scenes of people getting their brains sucked out are free of gore, even when the fiends become visible, the shots of the fiends themselves getting killed are quite gruesome for a 1950s film. We see them shot, hacked, stabbed, etc., complete with oozing, splurting brain matter and gobs of what's supposed to be blood but looks more like chunky salsa or thick goopy jam.

->''It's good brain-bashing fun''."

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Gibbons]]. Hawkins may also count, depending on how one feels about his blatant anti-Americanism. See JerkassHasAPoint.

* EagleLand: This would appear to be how most of the Canadians (''especially'' Mayor Hawkins and Constable Gibbons) feel about the Americans. It's actually averted, though, as the USAF personnel go out of their way to be friendly and accommodating to their Canadian hosts. Hawkins and Gibbons are just jerks.

At a base in CanadaEh, the US Air Force is conducting long-range radar tests to try and get a leg up on [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar those pesky Russians]]. But life isn't easy in good old Canada. The reactor powering their ridiculously powerful radar equipment keeps experiencing mysterious power drains which interfere with their work, and to top it all off, the people living near the base don't like the Americans being there at all. They don't like how the constantly taking off and landing aircraft spook their animals, and the churlish, anti-American Mayor Hawkins is spreading nasty rumors about the possible [[NuclearNasty side effects]] of radiation from the Americans' atomic reactor.

''Fiend Without a Face'' is a 1958 British-American coproduction directed by Arthur Crabtree. It was based on the ''Magazine/WeirdTales'' short story ''The Thought Monster'' by Amelia Reynolds Long.

* AdaptationExpansion

* ApocalypticLog: Dr. Walgate's journal in the short story.

* CanonForeigner: Babara Griselle. The closest thing Walgate has to an assistant in the short story is a housemaid.

** The detective in the short story suffers the same fate under similar circumstances.
** This is also what happens to [[spoiler:Dr. Walgate]] at the end of the short story. See HeroicSacrifice.

** This is even weirder in the story, where the detective is convinced that the killer is a deformed convict whose very appearance frightens his victims to death (!) and like Gibbons he pursues this (highly improbable) lead to the exclusion of everything else.

* HeroicSacrifice: In ''The Thought Monster'', [[spoiler:Dr. Walgate]] uses himself as bait to lure the "terror" (as the creature is called) into a lead-lined room where he traps it and kills it using violet light, and is found by psychic investigator Michael Cummings and the town doctor "a gibbering idiot."

* InfantImmortality: Played straight in the film (where no children appear at all), but in the short story the creature's victims include two little boys.

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: This seems to be what happens to [[spoiler:Dr. Walgate]] at the end of the short story. See HeroicSacrifice.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: This would appear to be what befalls [[spoiler:Gibbons]]. Either that or GoMadFromTheIsolation since he was alone in the woods for a long time.
** This is also the fate of the New York detective in the short story.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Walgate makes something like one when he attempts to go outside and order his creations to stop, only to end up ''covered'' in fiends.]]
** In ''The Thought Monster'', he is more successful. He uses himself as bait to lure the "terror" (as the creature is called) into a lead-lined room where he traps it and kills it using violet light, and is found by psychic investigator Michael Cummings and the town doctor "a gibbering idiot."

** Walgate uses atomic power to amplify his own psychic powers, as well as give thoughts physical form, creating the "fiends."

** Then there's the fact Walgate repeatedly uses ''radiation'' to boost his thought projection. That ''can't'' be good for his health...

* DirtyCoward: Melville. During the siege of Professor Walgate's house, he's the only entirely useless character, standing around blubbering and whining [[spoiler:until he gets killed]].

** This is even weirder in the story, where the detective is convinced that the killer is a deformed convict whose very appearance frightens his victim to death (!) and like Gibbons he pursues this (highly improbable) lead to the exclusion of everything else.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: This would appear to be what befalls [[spoiler:Gibbsons]]. Either that or GoMadFromTheIsolation since he was alone in the woods for a long time.

* AdaptationNameChange: Psychic Michael Cummings from ''The Thought Monster'' is new US Air Force officer Major Jeff Cummings.