THE CRAWLING EYE (1958) aka The Trollenberg Terror
With a screenplay by the prolific Jimmy Sangster (Horror of Dracula 1958, Scream of Fear 1961, The Anniversary 1968 with Bette Davis, Crescendo 1970, Horror of Frankenstein 1970, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo 1971, A Taste of Evil 1971, Scream Pretty Peggy 1973, episodes of tv’s Circle of Fear 1972-1973, Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode Horror in the Heights 1974) Just to mention a few of the offerings penned by Jimmy Sangster, who adapted his screenplay from Peter Key’s popular television series.
Directed by Quentin Lawrence ( tv series Catweazle 1970) and starring Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro and Warren Mitchell as Professor Crevett a scientist who has followed the mysterious cloud that once daunted him in the mountains of the Andes, to a small Swiss village. Tucker plays Alan Brooks a U.N. scientist who has been summoned by Crevett to the Trollenberg observatory because of their history and uncanny experiences with the strange cloud. Once Brooks arrives, several experienced climbers wind up gruesomely decapitated by the eyeball creatures with their menacing tentacles!
Soon the cloud descends from the mountain top and begins to encircle the village and the observatory. Janet Munro is wonderful as a young woman with ESP who is psychically connected to the creatures. For a low budget 50s B movie, The Crawling Eye is a guilty pleasure that I can re-watch over and over again and still get the goofy yet bona fide chills that seem to tap into my earliest childhood nightmares.
One of my earliest memories of being hooked on afternoon monster movies was the moment that the giant eyeball shrouded in alpine cloud haze busts through the large wooden door in pursuit of a little girl trying to retrieve her little rubber ball. Richard Smith’s sound design creates a perfectly creepy atmosphere when the creatures are approaching. They were one of the first monsters I felt no empathy for. I couldn’t wait for the jets to drop their fire bombs on these decapitating fiendish crawling eyeball creatures.