The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)

Am I Missing Something?

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Steve (John Agar) and Dan (Robert Fuller) make important scientific discoveries and dangerous expeditions into the desert, because they are male, while Sally (Joyce Meadows), Steve's fiancée, just stays home in the kitchen and worries they may not be in time for dinner – that's the 1950s for you. When their Geiger counter shows strange radioactive readings which suddenly appear and disappear again, Steve and Dan go to Mystery Mountain where a cave has recently been blasted into the rocks. Soon they find traces of an alien, the brain from planet Arous, which looks like a painted balloon and is greeted by the Earthlings in the traditional way (with gunshots). When Steve returns later to Sally, he seems to remember nothing and acts strange. The big brain has an evil influence over him, obviously. Even Steve's kisses become threatening. Sally now goes to the cave with her father, where they find the body of Dan and another brain which politely explains it is chasing the first one because that brain is a dangerous criminal with plans to conquer the world...Typical B movie silliness, mostly good fun. The painted balloon aliens (superimposed, so you can see through them) are something to remember. Since the story is not simply men vs invaders, but also involves a helpful alien, the flick is more interesting than most of its kind.

Brain from Planet Arous, The (1957) ** (out of 4) Silly sci-fi tale of a scientist (John Agar) who goes into a new cave to see what made it and discovers that it was a large brain (with glowing eyes) from outer space. The brain takes control of his body in hopes of learning the various secrets of Earth but fear not because space also sends a good brain to help. Just reading a plot like that lets you know that you're watching a "B" movie from the 1950s that probably thrilled and scared thousands of kids who were taken to the drive-in by their parents. When seen today these movies certainly don't have the ability to scare and more likely than not they're laughed at due to how melodramatic their story lines are. THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS isn't a very good film but there are a few good things that make it worth viewing. Needless to say, with such a low budget the special effects really leave a lot to desire and this includes our friend, the deadly brain. The effect of the brain is quite simple but my one real question is why on Earth they decided to give the thing eyes. The site of a flying brain is silly enough but to then give it eyes wasn't really a smart move but it does provide a few laughs. Another silly aspect in the story is that Agar's character becomes possessed by this thing and is given the ability to blow things up with his eyes. There are scenes towards the end when he's showing the government his "power" and you have to wonder why they all just sit around and let him do this stuff without even attempting to stop him. Speaking of Agar, he's certainly the main reason to check this film out. Fans of the genre are certainly going to know him from his countless entries into the genre but this here is a rather unique way to see him. For the most part he was always playing the good guy trying to stop the evil monsters but here he gets to play a real jerk and he does a wonderful job with it. There are several scenes where he's abusing his girlfriend (Joyce Meadows) and they're actually quite effective. I thought the actor did a very good job playing bad and it's a shame he wasn't given more opportunities to do this. Meadows is decent in her role of the love interest but you have to admit that she's one of the dumbest girlfriends from this era of films. Robert Fuller, Henry Travis and Thomas B. Henry co-star. Fans of the genre will probably want to check this out simply for the silly nature of it but I'm sure most others will want to skip it and check out something better.

I was looking for a very early Leonard Nimoy film appearance and found this corny gem. I have enjoyed Mr. Agar in all his roles and films. I know he was made a star as the on-screen husband of Shirley Temple in Henry Fonda/John Ford film called Fort Apache. (Fort was filmed in Simi Valley's Corriganville theme park of the 50 & 60's.) Temple and Agar became a real life couple, soon after. This film is very reminiscent of many 'aliens landing in the desert' films made on the 50's. But the interesting twist is that the alien brains shown in this film. The alien brain is almost laughable to see in the broad daylight scenes. The brain seems to be made out of a floating brain looking beach-ball with large pair of monster's menacing eyes plastered on the frontal lobes. The plot is well acted out and the ending twist involving another alien chasing the evil brain is nice. The gimmick of the alien good brain living in the body of Jon Agar's personal friendly dog gives the story something different and unique to experience near the end. Fun to experience.

my gosh.. to me that was the scariest series. I would love to see creature feature come to the scifi channel, the best movies but most off, the scariest intro, scenes when returning to and leaving from show for commercials, both in sound and imagery. I clearly remember it in black and white as that was the TV I most watched creature feature on.This was the 2nd or 3rd scariest show, especially when the brain w/eyes comes zooming in. Its creepy looking enough as it is. That alone makes it worth watching this film. The best was house on haunted hill, 2nd was some movie that maybe someone could put up here but all I remember was a china closet slowly spookily moving across the room in sort of an attack fashion but this is definitely either 2nd or 3rd best.A definite must see, scary in a creepy sort of way, 7.0