The Brain Eaters (1958)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

A Disappointing Continuation

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.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

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.

Terrible low budget science fiction/horror flick about alien parasites invading a small American town and taking over people's minds. A small band of brave uninfected individuals tries to stop their hostile take-over. Lousy story, boring execution and mostly non-existent visuals, courtesy of schlock production studio American International Pictures (AIP), specializing in only the cheapest of horror and science fiction flicks to provide drive-in theaters with content to show to teenagers who aren't watching anyway because they're engaged in other activities. Noted science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein sued the producers (including Roger Corman, an expert in producing this type of quick, cheesy, cheap cinema of the late fifties) for stealing the plot of his book 'The Puppet Masters'. Otherwise this movie is only noteworthy for featuring Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame, obviously) in one of his earliest roles, playing the host to the Brain Eater Overlord: unfortunately his last name was misspelled as 'Nemoy'.

A team of local scientists discover alien parasites when they investigate a mysterious, three-story-tall, cone-like object that has appeared outside of town. It becomes obvious that the parasites' first victims, who's minds have been taken over, are the town's leading citizens. "The Brain Eaters" released in 1958 is a classic science fiction story than blends both the other worldly with the creature feature concept that explodes later in Hollywood b-movies. The film stars Edwin Nelson, Alan Frost, and Jack Hill. Written by Gordon Urquhart and directed by Bruno Vestor the film is a cookie cutter format that spawned in the 1950's bringing much of the science fiction short stories to life on the drive in and theater screens across America."The Brain Eaters" story has been reinterpreted many times over the years. Most notably "Puppet Masters" and "The Faculty". The story is as eerie and classic as "Body Snatchers" and one of the best sci-fi premises to break through the 1950's craze for everything extraterrestrial. I am pretty sure that in this film the parasite invasion which is soon found to be from our own prehistoric beginnings is actually a metaphor for communism fears that ravaged the middle of the 20th century. I don't normally get that deep into a films meaning because for me it takes a lot from the shear enjoyment of the story."The Brain Eaters" is cut and dry in its concept, showing a clear path to the end by exposing the enemy right from the beginning, leaving no real room for suspense or drama. The story moves more like propaganda than fiction thriller. The dialogue is your basic 50's arrogance of American triumphant over any and all threats. However simply from a nostalgic approach to appreciating all that came before "The Brain Eaters" is one of the best examples of Man's fears of the unknown and the growing threat of the new fields of scientific studies. "If we explore to much into our world would we somehow destroy ourselves?" This is still the burning question today, and "The Brain Eaters" is one of the first time we see those questions explored in science fiction writings spawn a b-movie craze that has spanned the decades since.

**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.