The isolated Kelley family struggle to survive on their small date ranch, located in a bleak desert landscape well away from civilization. After a mysterious object crashes nearby, both wild and domesticated animals, and finally the farm's handyman, turn on the family, attacking them. It is finally revealed that a space alien has taken total control of the area's lesser animals and is working its way up to humans, all part of its master plan to conquer the Earth. In the end the family bond together, fighting against the alien menace, finally thwarting its plan of conquest.
Reportedly the film was based on a script called The Unseen by Tom Filer. Roger Corman was attracted to the project because in the original draft of the script, no monster was seen, which meant the film could be done cheaply. In April 1955 it was announced in Variety the film would be the first for Pacemaker Productions, a new company formed by Roger Corman. By that stage the film had been renamed The Beast with a Million Eyes. It would be produced and directed by David Kamarsky, Corman's former aide, while Corman would executive produce. Corman was meant to direct Cobra in India instead. Paul Birch's casting was announced in April 1955. The Beast with a Million Eyes was the third of a three-picture deal Roger Corman had with the American Releasing Company following The Fast and the Furious and Five Guns West. Reportedly, cost over-runs on Five Guns West meant only $29,000 remained to make the film for Pacemaker Productions. The title Beast with a Million Eyes reportedly came from American Releasing Company president James H. Nicholson. His title and treatment had film exhibitors signed on before seeing the finished film. Reportedly The Beast with a Million Eyes was a non-union filming of a script originally titled The Unseen, with Lou Place set to direct. After one day's filming, the union threatened to shut down the production unless everyone signed with the Guild. Roger Corman, who was producing, took over the film's directing chores and replaced the cinematographer with Floyd Crosby; however Corman took no official screen credit. Another version of this story has Corman allocating directing duties to Dave Kramarsky, his associate director on Five Guns West. Filming took place in Indio and the Coachella Valley, California. Corman shot 48 pages of interiors in just two days at a studio on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles.
When the company vice-president Samuel Z. Arkoff received The Beast with a Million Eyes he was unhappy that it did not even feature "the beast" that was implicit in the title. Paul Blaisdell, responsible for the film's special effects, was hired to create a three-foot-tall spaceship for a meager $200. Notably, the Art Director was Albert S. Ruddy, who would later win two "Best Picture" Academy Awards for The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby. It was Blaisdell's first monster made for the movies. He later said:
The creature seen in the last reel... was actually the slave of The Beast, which had no physical being. It used a being from another star system to pilot its ship, but that fact doesn't come across very well in the script. The creature was an automaton and he was quite capable of doing a lot more than he was allowed to do in the film. He was about eighteen inches high - built to the same scale as King Kong. Unfortunately, all of his scenes were shot in about ten minutes, with the wrong camera angles and everything. But it's just one of those things which happens on a low-budget picture.
According to Alex Gordon, when the film was first shown, Joseph E. Levine, then a distributor, offered Nicholson $100,000 to junk the movie and make a new one more in line with the advertising campaign. Gordon says James Nicholson spent two weeks analyzing the film and scratching over the negative to make it seem like lightning strikes to add to the dramatic qualities of the film.
Film historian Leonard Maltin called The Beast with a Million Eyes, "Imaginative though poorly executed sci-fi melodrama with desert setting; a group of people is forced to confront an alien that can control an unlimited number of animals, hence the title." He further described the film as, " early Roger Corman production features Paul Blaisdell's first movie monster." In 2007 Metro-Goldwyn Mayer sold The Beast with a Million Eyes as part of its Midnight Movies DVD catalog as a double-feature with The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues.
