Ausgeburt der Hölle

The movie is set in an oasis in the desert--somewhere in the California/Nevada area. The story involves a family plus their hired hand--a mute who seems to be a bit touched. Into their boring little world, what seems to be a plane nearly hits their house and soon all the animals on the farm start behaving in a hostile fashion towards the people. Most of the violence comes from the birds and the film is highly reminiscent of the Hitchcock film, THE BIRDS--though this film at least tries to explain why the animals are going berserk. It seems that the plane was actually a UFO and it deposited some weird machine that can make animals and weak-minded people do its evil bidding!!! Despite this great threat, everything just kind of fizzled and everyone was miraculously fine when the film ended--and I felt pretty confused and irritated by the slap-dash ending.

One of the first things you'll notice about this film is that it was shot on a shoestring budget--much like an Ed Wood film. The actors were obviously not professionals and the setting was amazingly minimalistic. Yet despite this, the film had some very interesting story elements and I found myself actually enjoying this film--that is until the movie degenerated into a cheesy and stupid mess towards the end. And, when it's all said and done, that's what you are left with as the final credits roll--a terrible mess that just didn't pay off and could have with a re-write to the last 10 minutes.

A mysterious device arrives from the sky and begins adversely affecting all around it..first it turns ordinary farm animals, pets and birds into deadly and fierce predators and then it begins to affect the humans nearby. I find it interesting that this is one of the first films to depict birds attacking humans and does it surprisingly well despite a meager budget, much better than a certain sequel which will remain nameless.

Also this has an interesting plot device which was afterwards borrowed by many films and TV series (evil alien brains) which makes for a very entertaining climax even if its embracing of the nuclear family ideal, popular in the time, is a little dated for today's audience which will be shouting "cheese".

Most of the reviews of this movie have focused on acting, writing, and production values (or perhaps the lack thereof). This is what makes the film entertaining. In my view, the most interesting aspect of this film is its allegorical quality.

This movie was released in 1955, during the blacklist period and the McCarthy hearings. The title refers to the alien's ability to takeover the brains of the lesser animals (birds, dogs, cows, chickens) as well as the brains of weak-minded humans. Doing this provides him with the ability to see what the rest of us are up to. To me, that seems a lot like informing on our neighbors and co-workers. And what's the defense against this alien threat? We defeat it by staying united and sharing our strength.

Allegory or no, it's fun to watch the rampaging farm animals (perhaps a precursor to "Black Sheep") and the attacking blackbirds (props, I hope, tossed at a car window).

Historically-speaking, this is quite an important production as far as horror and sci-fi flicks are concerned. For starters, it is one of the very earliest films involving normal animals suddenly turning on humans and attacking them. In fact, there are a enough surprising similarities between this and Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963) to suggest this was a major inspiration to that classic film. Second, this is not only an early producing credit for the prolific Roger Corman, but also the very first genre film he stepped behind the camera to direct. Though it's credited to David Kramarsky, Corman had replaced him early on into the production, sans credit. Third, this was a key establishing film for the fledgling company American Releasing Corporation, run by a few fellas named Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson. ARC would become American International Pictures. Of course if you know anything about vintage horror, drive-in and exploitation films, you'll know just how important these names are.

BEAST (originally titled "The Unseen") was also a production beset with problems. Originally part of a multi-picture package arranged between Corman and Arkoff / Nicholson, the film's budget was initially slated to be way higher but had to be slashed down to just 29,000 dollars. Problems with the filmmaker's union led to the production being shut down after just a day a filming. It also resulted in the original director and cinematographer both having to be sacked and Corman having to complete the film along with new D.O.P. Floyd Crosby. Supposedly the two managed to knock out all of the interior shots (48 pages of the script!) in just two days on studio sets! The exteriors were filmed in Indio, California and, all things considered, the photography actually looks quite good.

Paul Birch - later to appear in Corman's DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955) and NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957) - stars as Allan Kelley, a farmer who lives on a date ranch deep in the California desert along with his wife Carol (Lorna Thayer) and teenage daughter Sandy (Dona Cole). The family have seen better times, especially Carol, who's neurotic, miserable because of the constant isolation and bitter to the point where she starts resenting and hating her own daughter out of sheer jealousy. An alien spacecraft that makes a strange humming noises lands in a cave in the desert, all of the glassware in the home shatters and, soon after, all manner of animals start going crazy and attacking. Birds of all kinds begin swooping out of the sky, a cow tramples over a farmer, chickens flog Carol and the family dog turns vicious and must be chopped up with an axe!

Also living on the farm is a character that would later become a staple of these kinds of films: the pervy, creepy, half wit handyman. The one in this one is a lonely mute referred to as only "Him." He's not only a voyeur who constantly stares at the females through the window, but he also spies on the daughter character stripping down to her swimsuit and going for a swim and then tries to touch her. "Him" sleeps in a shack next to the house where the walls are plastered with pictures of bikini or lingerie clad girls and he lies in bed looking at girlie magazines while his eyes bug out. I've seen this character countless other times in other exploitation movies, portrayed almost exactly the same as it is here, but NEVER before 1955. This adds a rather sleazy touch to the proceedings, which is especially odd considering this is essentially a family drama whose core message is about how it's important for families to stick together and support one another.

Though interesting and boasting an intriguing and original premise, this really isn't a very good movie. It's slow, the dialogue is hokey, the acting is gratingly melodramatic and the animal attacks scenes are very poorly staged and edited and are mostly accomplished by filming the animals approaching the camera followed by a terrified reaction shot from the actor. People also rightfully snicker at the special effects, which include a tiny little spaceship that looks like something you'd serve coffee out of and an alien so bad they had to make the image all hazy and then superimpose a giant eyeball over top of it. Then again, the movie was originally filmed minus all that. Since Arkoff had pre- booked the film on the promise of a "beast" based on the title, he insisted a "beast" be in the film. Special effects man Paul Blaisdell was then given just 200 dollars to create both the ship and the alien creature on short notice. The fact he was able to come up with anything at all is actually quite impressive in itself.

A young Dick Sargent (going by "Richard" here and years before finding fame as Darren in "Bewitched") plays a small supporting role as a deputy and Sandy's love interest. Production manager "Jack Haze" would become Jonathan Haze and later became immortalized for playing Seymour in Corman's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960).

THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES

Roger Corman produced this small but decent enough piece of '50s silliness about an alien ship and a little puppet inside which is able to control minds - first animals, and then progressing to humans. This seems like a precursor to films like THE BIRDS and DAY OF THE ANIMALS, as a modest rancher and his family living in the desert wilderness are attacked by birds, chickens, cows, and even their own dog. These attacks are not well staged and this is ultra-cheap, but it was still interesting enough.

** out of ****