The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Dreadfully Boring

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The awfullest movie I have yet seen- Barely any plot, acting made to get you running for the Pepto Bismol and a deaf blind and dumb 3 year old would do a better job at the technical side of this "movie"-however it was so damned funny it had me rolling on the floor. If you want a film technically made for "real" but is so awfully unreal, this one is for you. Dick Sargent as a barely adult Sheriff is the sole actor that I recognized. It is a revelation that dreck so awful would make me laugh so hard. So I guess it depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a chuckle,this might just fit the bill. If you are looking for even minimal SciFi/Horror try Plan 9 from Outer Space.

That The Beast With A Million Eyes had a shoe string budget is fairly obvious. Not even a budget for each eye the beast claimed it had.We never do get to see exactly what the alien from the other world looks like. The space ship looked like a large Dalek, maybe the original producers of Dr. Who might have got the idea from this film. The beast inside looked something like the creature that was taking over people and who Jimmy Hunt was trying to warn us about in Invaders From Mars.This thing is yet another alien looking for a fresh world to conquer. His kind can control the minds of lower animals and turns docile creatures like a cow, birds, and the family pet dog into beasts of pray against humans. The creature can see all through the eyes of these animals hence the title.I have to say the film did have an interesting anti-big brother message but it was never quite delivered and the dialog within the family terrorized by the alien was trite and talkie. Paul Birch plays the farm father and Lorna Thayer and Dona Cole are his wife and daughter. Dick Sargent has a supporting role as a deputy sheriff.Roger Corman was still looking for his muse with this one.

A dysfunctional family operating an isolated date farm in the California desert is threatened by the arrival of an extra-terrestrial.This film was made by American Releasing Corporation, the company that later became American International Pictures. This puts it firmly in the realm of Sam Arkoff, John Nicholson and Roger Corman. Corman produced this picture, and allegedly he helped direct it. Furthermore, it was apparently done on a budget of only $29,000 and using a tea kettle as the monster. A tea kettle? Yes.Sadly, it is rather disappointing as nothing much happens. Not even throwing Dick Sargent in the mix can save things. For Corman or AIP enthusiasts, it is a must see, but beyond that it does not have all that much to offer.

It's all very well trying to forgive production values etc, by proclaiming that the writing has metaphors for the red scare, unity is powerful etc, but when the dialogue is delivered in such amateurish autocue fashion it struggles to impact. Add in to the mix that for the 75 minute run time the film is immeasurably dull, where someone off screen throwing a rubber blackbird at a car or live chickens at Lorna Thayer doesn't count as dramatic thrust, well you got exactly what The Beast with a Million Eyes is, namely an awful film.Plot finds the isolated Kelley family menaced by animals and their mute handyman when a spaceship lands near their home. Hence that is the million eyes of the title, as in a multitude of creatures of nature acting as surrogate baddies for the one beast in the ship. Which, as it turns out, proves to be a funky puppet we see at the end of the show.There is undoubtedly good ambition here, but the cold hard fact is that the budget wins the day, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. With bland interiors of the farm house rampant, and stilted camera work operating outside, film rarely appeals visually either. The poster art rocks, mind, and an opening shot of a tree with many eyes grabs the attention, even if it proves to be a false dawn.Midnite Movies DVD series have paired it with the equally dreadful Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, don't be fooled by those who say either film is a classic of low budget sci-fi, both films are the epitome of awfulness and should be avoided by those who want to keep their sanity in tact. 3/10