MOVIES & MANIA rating:
‘The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing horror on a screaming world!’
The Crawling Eyeis a 1958 British sci-fi horror film about a UN expert investigating strange deaths at a Swiss resort. The original British title of the film is The Trollenberg Terror. The US release was shorter.
Directed by Quentin Lawrence from a screenplay by Jimmy Sangster (Fear in the Night; Dracula 1958; Curse of Frankenstein; et al) based upon a 1956 TV series of the same name written by Peter Key. Produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman (The Flesh and the Fiends; Jack the Ripper 1959; Blood of the Vampire).
The Tempean Films production stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro and Warren Mitchell.
The special effects were created by Les Bowie.
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Plot:
One of three student climbers is mysteriously killed on a mountain in Switzerland, his head ripped off. Two sisters are on a train to Geneva. Anne faints as they pass a mountain and on waking, she now knows all about the town and that there is something wrong. She decides they should get off at the next stop, Trollenberg. She was part of a mind-reading act in London.
Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker), a United Nations special investigator is on the train with them. He is investigating unusual accidents occurring in the area of a resort hotel on the (fictional) Mount Trollenberg in Switzerland. He is joined by journalist Philip Truscott (Laurence Payne).
Brooks goes to an observatory a little way up the mountain, where Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell) asks for his help. He is told that despite many accidents, dead bodies are never found on the mountain and a radioactive mist cloud is always on its south side.
Brooks suspects the deaths are related to a series of similar incidents that occurred three years earlier in the Andes Mountains, which involved an unexplained radioactive mist and an odd cloud formation believed by locals to be inhabited…
Trailer:
Free to watch online on YouTube [1080p]:
Cast and characters:
Forrest Tucker … Alan Brooks; Laurence Payne … Philip Truscott; Jennifer Jayne … Sarah Pilgrim; Janet Munro … Anne Pilgrim; Warren Mitchell … Crevett; Frederick Schiller … Klein; Andrew Faulds … Brett; Stuart Saunders … Dewhurst; Colin Douglas … Hans; Derek Sydney … Wilde; Richard Golding … First Villager; George Herbert … Second Villager; Anne Sharp … German Woman; Leslie Heritage … Carl; Jeremy Longhurst … First Student Climber; Anthony Parker … Second Student Climber; Theodore Wilhelm … Fritz; Garard Green … Pilot; Caroline Glaser … Little Girl; Jack Taylor … Jim
Filming locations:
Alliance Film Studios, Southall Film Studios, Middlesex, England
Technical specs:
1 hour 24 minutes
Black and white
Aspect ratio: 1.66: 1
Release:
The film was distributed in the UK by Eros Films Ltd. and in the US by Distributors Corporation of America (DCA) as a double feature with Cosmic Monsters (aka The Strange World of Planet X).
Film facts:
The film was apparently (partly) the inspiration for writer/director John Carpenter’s 1980 horror film The Fog.
The film is mentioned in Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel It as having been watched by one of the book’s protagonists (Richie Tozier) and that the movie terrified him; a crawling eye creature later appears as a manifestation of It, the novel’s title monster.
A song called ‘Crawling Eye’ was featured on American horror punk band the Misfits’ 1999 album Famous Monsters; the song’s lyrics directly referenced the plot of the film.
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