“That’s our strength, being together. Alone we’re nothing.”
The dysfunctional Kelley family has more than its fair share of problems. Carol is jealous of her daughter Sandy. They live in a waste land. Allan has a date farm that has been losing business for the last three years. Mom and Dad argue a lot. The handyman has learning disabilities and creeps mom out. He doesn’t even have a name. They refer to him as “Him”. Then one afternoon something flies overhead breaking windows and glassware. After that things start to change. A flock of birds attacks Allan. Duke wanders out into the desert following a sound. He comes across a tea kettle with spinning measuring spoons on top, I mean a space ship.
Duke returns to the house after seeing the space ship. He is acting strange. He attacks Carol. She kills him. When neighbor Ben goes to milk his cow it kills him. When Carol goes to feed the chickens, they attack her. It seems that all the animals have gone crazy. Then Him starts to act strange.
Him starts to attack people. He tries to kill Sandy’s boyfriend Larry. When Larry comes to he follows Him and knocks him out. Larry then goes to the Kelley house. In the meantime Sandy goes looking for Larry and comes across Him. Him kidnaps Sandy and takes her to the space ship.
This is the third of a three picture deal Roger Corman agreed to do for American Releasing Corporation before it became AIP. Since it was last in line and Roger had to come up with the financing ahead of time “The Beast with a Million Eyes” ended up with a tiny budget of $29,000 to $33,000. To that end the music was, believe it or not, stock music. What is stock music? Anything Roger could get his hands on that’s in the public domain. Bits and snippets of anything, including classical music. I believe the tea kettle, I mean the space ship and the alien cost $200. The space ship is only three feet high. I don’t know about the alien.
If you’re expecting to see a beast with a million eyes, forget it. What does the monster look like? I’m not real sure… I think I blinked. I was OK with the tea kettle space ship and I’m sure I would have been fine with the monster even though it didn’t have a million eyes, if I had been able to see it for more than five seconds. It’s an OK movie if you’re looking for a maudlin story with a moral. But if you’re looking for a monster movie or a science fiction/horror movie, this ain’t it. I found it rather boring and trite but if you like your science fiction with a side of “All you need is love” then you’ll be OK. It’s probably one of my least favorite movies, so far.