It’s a poor man’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing. You know the story: invaders from space (or somewhere) are masquerading as people to take over the human population. In the case of The Brain Eaters, small parasites attach themselves to the back of people’s necks and control their actions by (I guess) clawing into their brains. The robotic nature of those under the spell of the parasites, however, doesn’t make them very convincing.
First off, if the filmmakers were gonna call the town Riverdale, they should have included Archie, or more importantly Betty and Veronica. I mean, Archie has been around since the early 40s, so it only makes since!
Back to the movie. Why do the characters not affected by parasites not seem to notice the odd behavior of those who are? It’s kinda ridiculous. And they find out rather quickly that these things are dangerous, so why isn’t the populous immediately seeking and destroying these parasites and identifying those who’d been taken over? Instead, the scientists and investigators are just kind of meandering around, looking for more clues of what’s going on. Meanwhile, the entire town is being taken over.
There are a couple of satisfying twists towards the end that separate The Brain Eaters somewhat from other movies of the sort. But as a whole, it’s rather predictable. It does have the feel of a long episode of The Twilight Zone, complete with narration, though sadly not from Rod Serling.
It’s not a bad way to spend an hour. See it on YouTube.