Coventry Ah, those unique low-budgeted Sci-Fi/horror movies from the glorious 1950s … If they were only half as great as their juicy titles and nasty film posters suggest, this would surely be my absolute favorite decade in cinematic history! Unfortunately, however, behind almost every awesome title or poster there's a mostly dull, forgettable and inept amateur film. Take "The Brain Eaters", for example… Do you really think it features any brain munching or purple glaze-eyed creatures with vampire fangs? No, of course not, and even the promising tagline "crawling, slimy things – terror bent on destroying the world" shouldn't be taken too seriously. But that doesn't mean that director Bruno VeSato (usually a second rate actor) delivered a film that is entirely without interest. "The Brain Eaters" is, in fact, an unauthorized adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's novel "The Puppet Masters"; about an evil race of sluggish parasite aliens (?) that attach themselves to their hosts' nerves system at the back of the neck and then slowly take control over their body and minds. When two young love birds discover a cylinder-shaped vessel in the woods, their sleepy little Illinois town is quickly overrun by scientists, politicians and other kinds of nosy visitors. When a bunch of investigators witness how the usually conversational and amiable mayor suddenly transform into an aggressive maniac due to the unidentifiable thing in his neck, they realize that the entire planet is in danger! The plot and the screenplay of "The Brain Eaters" are actually quite good. I don't care if it's considered to be plagiarism or not, but the idea is original and the twist about the parasites origin is surprising as well. Good pacing and a fair amount of suspense are also present, but sadly only during the first half of the film. The second half is incredibly boring and it almost even seems like most of the cast and crew members lost interest to finish the film. It's also supposed to star Leonard Nimoy, but I guess I'm not enough Star Trek fan to have spotted him.

JPfanatic93 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'.

MartinHafer This movie is about an invasion of the planet from deep within the bowels of the Earth. Little stupid looking beings (that look a lot like the old Cootie game from Schapper) invade the brains of unsuspecting humans and begin doing their evil bidding.With a title like THE BRAIN EATERS, this sounded like an astoundingly bad movie--and that's something I can't resist! Older schlock films are a guilty pleasure for me, as I know I should hate them but enjoy them for a laugh now and again. And, with a terribly low score of 4, I sure expected it to be bad. Wow, did it come as a surprise when I did watch this super-low budget film, as in many ways it was quite entertaining and clever---and deserved a score much higher. In fact, almost all the reviews for the film give it a 5 or above--yet, incongruously, there is an overall score of 4!. Given that there is practically no budget, I was surprised that the film was pretty well written and the acting wasn't bad--I really expected so much less. Now I am not saying this is Shakespeare--this is a 50's sci-fi film that seems awfully similar to contemporary films such as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. And while it will never come close to the quality of great 50's sci-fi, it is a touch better than average and better than films with five and ten times the budget. While my score of 6 may seem high for such a modest film, considering how successful the end product was and how little the outlay, I think it is well earned.By the way, although he's heavily disguised with a cheesy and very large wig AND he's within a veil of steam, it's Leonard Nimoy as the leader of the little buggers.

captnhal I found this movie amusing for its low budget effects and several flaws in its continuity. The most frequent flaw was the splicing of scenes in which it would appear to be day and then night and back and forth. Despite, or perhaps because of its flaws, I liked it. It does help if you like 1950's "B" sci-fi films and Shostakovich to start with.In addition to the plot strongly resembling Robert Heinlein's "Puppet Masters", the music was also not original. I could find no evidence that there ever was a "Tom Jonson" who wrote any music for this film or anywhere, ever. Most of it was taken, uncredited, from Dmitri Shostakovich's symphonies 1, 5, & 10. I also recognized an excerpt from Sergei Prokofiev's music score for the Russian language film Alexander Nevsky. At the time Brain Eaters was distributed these composers were not as frequently performed in the US and their music would not have been familiar to almost all movie goers. Both composers were from the Soviet Union (Prokofiev died in 1953). They were perceived as Communist and there was a certain amount of prejudice and/or fear about performing it. During the cold war it would also have been difficult for Shostakovich to pursue legal action against the film company if he even knew his music had been used. I suspect this is exactly why this music was used. I also would not be surprised if it turns out that the source of the performances were records purchased at a record store and the musicians were not compensated either. The credits do not list any orchestra(s)/conductor(s). The editing of the background music was also poorly done. There were several places where the music did not transition smoothly to the next scene or even within the same scene.