Films: The Beast with a Million Eyes, The Beast of Hollow Mountain
Directors: David Kramarsky, Lou Place, Donald Myers, Roger Corman (uncredited), Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodríguez
Years: 1955, 1956
Country: USA
‘Beasts Unleashed’ is a Bluray package containing two independently made monster science-fiction films from the 1950s with a pair of accompanying video essays and a booklet, put together by label Eureka.
These include The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955) and The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), each presented in 1080p. They’re a pair of similar movies by design, as they are low budget monster invasion movies, despite being set in vastly different locations. The films slowly build up to their deadly foe, using the best special effects 1950s technology could allow on a low budget.
The Beast with a Million Eyes
The Beast with a Million Eyes is significant for being produced by preeminent low budget horror expert Roger Corman (House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Masque of the Red Death), before he was an acclaimed director, with his company Pacemaker Productions. He had an uncredited hand in the direction. It’s a film where the title and poster were conceived before plot details were ironed out.
The black and white film is a slow-burn moody picture which sees a nuclear family date farm invaded by an alien who possesses animals. There are a few sequences similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).
The family – husband, wife and their daughter – is struggling. Not only financially, but mentally they are struggling to keep afloat in their isolated desolate-seeming home.
Lead actress Lorna Thayer as Carol Kelley was particularly great as a bitter housewife jealous of her young and carefree daughter. Paul Birch gave an intense performance as husband Allan. From the very beginning, he fears the unknown, from behind the mountains.
There’s a sense of lingering dread that haunts the picture, before eventually building up to a disconcerting finale. The alien is suitably nefarious and unsettling which intensifies the admittedly sentimental conclusion.
After a few splotches to begin with, the picture quality was great with a rich depth and darkness in the photography, enhancing the foreboding tone of the story.
Film:
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beast of Hollow Mountain, starring Western star Guy Madison, was unfortunately a ponderously dull affair. It feels like more of a standard Western, following a ranch in Mexico where farmers and cattle are mysteriously disappearing.
We don’t see the dinosaur for a whole hour and the comedy following a goofy Mexican farmer and his son really doesn’t work. The stop-motion dinosaur would have been more impressive if King Kong (1933) hadn’t been released two decades earlier. The conclusion is a thrilling twenty minutes but the film seriously took its time to get to that point.
The picture quality greatly fluctuated in the film with long sections remaining damaged. The climactic scenes towards the end look great, however, as they are sharp and colourful, having been filmed in ‘single strip color’ process DeLuxe Color.
Film:
Special Features
Terror from Beyond the Stars – new interview with science fiction expert Mark Bould on The Beast with a Million Eyes and alien invasion cinema in the 1950s: This was a fantastic 22-minute video essay that explored the history of aliens and science fiction. Bould goes into detail, referencing how alien stories evolved overtime and their surprising roots in literature. He also speaks about The Beast with a Million Eyes place in film cinema history, and examined its (potential) legacy. Bould also comments on the birth of independent cinema with the death of the studio system.
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth – new interview with critic Kim Newman on The Beast of Hollow Mountain and the resurgence of dinosaur films in the 1950s: In this 17-minute video essay, Newman, who seems to appear on just about every Bluray release going these days (and that’s not a complaint, he’s great), speaks about what sparked dinosaur movies in the 1950s. He discusses the rise in paleontology in the 50s, then earlier examples in fiction, such as The Lost World by Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and speak extensively about the history of animated monsters in film. It was quite amusing to hear about how filmmakers would use lizards with fins instead of stop motion in many cases.
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by genre film expert Christopher Stewardson on special effects artist Paul Blaisdell and The Beast with a Million Eyes and a new essay by film journalist Sean McGeady on Weird Westerns and The Beast of Hollow Mountain: I didn’t receive this but Eureka has a great track record with their booklets.
Extras:
Eureka releases Beasts Unleashed on 20th July, 2026.