A Besta do Milhão de Olhos

To call this film "cheesy" or imply that it is "worse than Ed Wood" is absurd. The Beast With A Million Eyes may indeed have a pathetic space ship that looks like a coffee percolator, but the film itself is an understated and serious attempt to deal with issues as diverse as individualism, loneliness, guilt, and spirituality. The film doesn't rely on stock footage, giant bugs, prescient scientists, granite jawed generals, or any of the other cliches of 50s sci fi. Shot in the deserts of California on a meagre budget, it manages to convey the depression and decay that have overcome the small, but nuclear, farm family headed by the excellent Paul Birch. Birch went on to play a similar role in the 1956 ARC production, The Day the World Ended--another film that is remembered primarily for its goofy monsters instead of its interesting story. This film scared me to death when I was 10 years old, and seeing it now reminded me of the primal fears of betrayal and disloyalty that were the obvious triggers of my pre-pubescent psyche. By no means a 'classic': simply an outstanding example of low low budget independent filmmaking and intelligent screenwriting.

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).

Now it is very easy to lambaste this film for so many things. The cheesy special effects(where reviewers have compared the alien spacecraft to a percolator or tea kettle)or how about the cloth birds thrown at Paul Birch's car. That is the extent of the special effect except of course for the "horrifying" finale where the mastermind is revealed. Somebody pinch me so I do not relive that horror another moment. Okay, let's get real. What about the animals - real, live animals - which are supposedly mad and dangerous. A dog wagging it tail in attack mode? The dog looked liked it was being trained in real time and was about as dangerous as the chances of any actors in this film winning an Oscar. A mad bull suppose to be a milking cow moving on in an attack like molasses. Paper and cloth birds and an innocuous crow sitting in a date palm. Scary stuff. The story basically has some alien mastermind introduced at the film's beginning saying he will take over earth for his dying alien race by first mastering the simple minds of the animals and plants and then moving on to the human beings. Whilst its execution is anything but pretty, The Beast with a Million Eyes is really one of the first nature goes awry films - films like The Day of the Animals, Prophecy, Grizzly, and so on owe the film a little bit - okay, a micro-little bit, but it is one of the first of its kind. What does it have going for it? Honestly not much. Paul Birch is mediocre but at least can act. I wish I could say that about the other thespians but would choke if I tried. Lorna Thayer plays his wife with reckless over-acting. She was an actress of some note and today is best known as the waitress from Five Easy Pieces with the notorious chicken salad sandwich scene. Dona Cole plays the daughter Sandy and she is just awful - no wonder her film career was quite limited. Dick Sargent(the second Darren from Bewitched) and Leonard Traver as the hulking, mute, ax-wielding "Him" are barely serviceable. One minor surprise was seeing great silent film comedian Chester Conklin in a brief but satisfying role. He even gets to do a little shtick for us before his udderly ridiculous departure. I have one big question. Why would an alien mastermind trying to take over the world start on a barely populated date farm in the middle of nowhere. Nothing much here in terms of animal/plant/or human life? You can tell the movie was made on a shoe-string budget and has obvious, for many, irrevocable flaws. But despite all of these imperfections, I found the movie to have some heart and think we should all get together and give it some love. Paul Birch's character would be so happy with that.

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".