The Trollenberg Terror (U.S. title: The Crawling Eye; also known as Creatures from Another World) is a 1958 British science fiction horror film produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman and directed by Quentin Lawrence (in his directorial debut). The film stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Janet Munro, and Jennifer Jayne. The story is based on a 1956 British ITV "Saturday Serial" television programme written by George F. Kerr, Jack Cross and Giles Cooper under the collective pseudonym of "Peter Key".

The film was first released as The Crawling Eye in the United States on 7 July 1958 by Distributors Corporation of America, and released later in the United Kingdom as The Trollenberg Terror on October 7, 1958 by Eros Films. It was an early film role for Janet Munro.

Release

The Trollenberg Terror was released in the United States on July 7, 1958. It received an October 1958 release in Britain.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Several sequences in this Alpine science fiction production are genuinely alarming, although much more could have been made of the dramatic moments. The film gives the impression of having been shot and edited in a great hurry and the characteristic addiction to close-ups of such details as severed heads and melting flesh is more in evidence than in most science fiction pieces. More accomplished direction might have resulted in a film as effective as the Quatermass film series".

In the 1 January 1959 issue of The New York Times, film critic Richard W. Nason reviewed the double feature starring Forrest Tucker and opined that "...The Crawling Eye and The Cosmic Monsters do nothing to enhance or advance the copious genre of science fiction".

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "Efficiently suspenseful British cheapie marred by awful special effects. Two bits of cotton wool stuck on a mountain photo make do for the cloudy snowscapes in veteran Hammer scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster's screen version of the BBC [sic] TV series. Forrest Tucker is miscast as the hero, but Janet Munro is affecting as the telepathic heroine the aliens seize as their mouthpiece."

Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin considered The Trollenberg Terror as "ok, if predictable", a feature that showed its humble origins, being adapted by Jimmy Sangster from the British TV series (also called The Trollenberg Terror) about cloud-hiding alien invaders on a Swiss mountaintop. Maltin noted that the film was "hampered by low-grade special effects".

The main title music from The Crawling Eye was featured on the album Greatest Science Fiction Hits V by Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra, released in 1979 on GNP Crescendo Records.

The Trollenberg Terror was one of the inspirations for writer/director John Carpenter's 1980 horror film The Fog.

In Stephen King's 1986 horror novel It, one of the protagonists, Richie Tozier, watches the film and it terrifies him. A crawling-eye creature later appears as a manifestation of Pennywise, the novel's title monster.

A scene of the film was briefly seen in the 1998 film Small Soldiers.

The Freakazoid episode "The Cloud" spoofed the film's opening credits, as well as key elements of the plot, though with the victims being turned into clowns instead of being killed.

A song called "Crawling Eye" was featured on American horror punk band the Misfits' 1999 album Famous Monsters; the song's lyrics directly reference the plot of the film.

The film was shown on the MeTV show Svengoolie on 26 November 2022.

In the 2023 Riverdale episode "Betty & Veronica Double Digest", a 4D screening of the film is held to increase popularity of a financially struggling movie theater.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Under the title The Crawling Eye, the film was featured in the first episode of the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 after the series moved from KTMA to The Comedy Channel. The episode aired on November 25, 1989. The Crawling Eye was also briefly mentioned at the end of the season 10 finale (the second series finale) covering Danger: Diabolik. Because the Comedy Channel was not available in the Twin Cities, the cast and writers watched the episode at a bar in Bloomington, Minn., the only town in the area that offered the channel.

As is the case with all the first season MST3K episodes, writer Jim Vorel rated the episode poorly, ranking it four spots from the bottom at #193 in his evaluation of the show's first twelve seasons. "The film itself is nothing too special or memorable," Vorel writes, and not as painful as some others. However, the "uninspired riffing" by Joel and the 'bots bring the episode down, and they contribute "more low-energy or awkward moments" than later in the series.

The episode featuring the film was released on the Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XVII DVD collection by Shout! Factory on March 16, 2010. The Crawling Eye disc includes the film's original theatrical trailer. Other episodes in the collection include The Beatniks (episode #101), The Final Sacrifice (episode #910), and The Blood Waters of Dr. Z (episode #1005).

References

Bibliography

  • Blush, Steven. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. New York: Feral House, 2001. .
  • Hamilton, John. The British Independent Horror Film 1951–70. Hailsham, U.K.: Hemlock Books, 2013. .
  • King, Stephen. It. New York: Viking, 1986. .
  • Lenburg, Jeff. "Steven Spielberg Presents Freakazoid!". The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons (third edition). New York, New York: Checkmark Books, 1999. .
  • Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2009. New York: New American Library, 2009 (originally published as TV Movies, then as Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide), first edition 1969, published annually since 1988. .
  • Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Films of the Fifties: 21st Century Edition. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009 (first edition: Volume 1 (1982), Volume 2 (1986)). .
  • The Trollenberg Terror at the British Film Institute
  • Review of film at Variety
  • The Trollenberg Terror episode guide at Action TV
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000
  • Episode Guide: 101- The Crawling Eye