Plot
On the Swiss mountain Trollenberg, one of three climbers is suddenly killed, his head ripped from his body. Two sisters, Anne and Sarah Pilgrim, a London mind-reading act, are travelling by train to Geneva when Anne faints as the train passes the mountain. Upon waking, Anne insists that they must get off at the next stop.
UN troubleshooter Alan Brooks, in the same train compartment as the sisters, is going to Trollenberg's observatory to meet with Professor Crevett. Crevett goes on to explain that, despite a series of climbing accidents, no bodies are ever found, and an always-stationary radioactive cloud is regularly observed on the mountain's south face. Brooks mentions similar incidents that took place in South America in the Andes three years earlier, just before a similar radioactive cloud vanished without a trace. Local rumors circulated that something was alive in the heavy mist of the cloud.
Anne is giving a mind-reading demonstration at the nearby hotel when she "sees" two men in a base camp hut on the mountain. Dewhurst is asleep when the other man, Brett, under some kind of mental compulsion, walks outside as the cloud envelopes the hut. Anne suddenly faints again. Brooks phones the hut, Dewhurst answers, screams, and then the connection suddenly goes dead.
A rescue party, including Brooks, climbs up to the camp hut looking for both men. Anne, in a trance-like state, urges the rescuers to stay away. Inside the hut, the rescuers discover that everything is frozen solid, despite the door being locked from the inside. Dewhurst's body is found under a bed with its head missing. A spotter plane arrives and circles overhead, and a man is spotted a half mile away. The first rescuer finds a rucksack at that location with a severed head inside. He is set upon and killed by Brett, who also kills the second rescuer when he arrives.
Later at the hotel, Brett suddenly staggers in, claiming that he had been lost on the mountain. Soon after, he attacks Anne with a knife, but Brooks manages to subdue him. Brett sustains a severe head gash during the struggle, but no blood flows from the wound. He is heavily sedated and locked away. Brooks recalls to journalist Philip Truscott a similar incident in the Andes that followed a similar pattern: a man murdered an elderly woman who allegedly had psychic abilities like those displayed by Anne. The killer's body was discovered to have been dead for at least 24 hours prior to his murder of the old woman. Brett escapes his improvised cell and resumes his hunt for Anne, this time armed with a handaxe. Before he can reach her, Brooks dispatches him with a pistol. Brett's flesh appears crystallized upon inspection and rapidly decomposes in the heat.
The cloud has begun to move down the mountainside towards the hotel, so the guests retreat up to the fortified observatory. A mother realises that her young daughter is missing as they enter the cable car. In a thickening mist, a giant tentacled creature with a single huge eye appears at the hotel, smashing down the front door. Brooks manages to rescue the child from the lobby, both of them narrowly escaping. They return to the cable car, but the delay gives the mist a chance to reach the car platform. The transport motor begins to freeze, starting and stopping, the cable slipping, but the cable car arrives safely. The single cloud has now split into five while converging on the observatory.
Hans, who left the hotel by car, suddenly turns up at the observatory. Once inside, he begins exhibiting the same obsession with Anne. Hans tries to strangle her, but Brooks and Truscott stop him as Brooks stabs him. As the monsters near the observatory, everyone makes Molotov cocktails to combat them. By radio, Alan orders an aerial firebombing raid against the observatory, which has reinforced walls and concrete roof that can withstand the assault.
Truscott strikes one of the creatures with a Molotov cocktail, setting it ablaze. He is caught by a tentacle from another monster now atop the observatory's roof. Brooks sets that one ablaze with another Molotov cocktail, forcing it to drop Truscott. Later, Truscott firebombs another creature that manages to breach a portion of thick wall to get at Anne. The aerial firebombing assault begins and successfully torches the remaining monsters.
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". [5]
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". [6]
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." [7]
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". [8]
In popular culture
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. [9] [10]
The Trollenberg Terror was one of the inspirations for writer/director John Carpenter's 1980 horror film The Fog . [11]
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 It, the novel's title monster. [12]
Under the title The Crawling Eye, the film was the first of many productions to be mocked on the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 , after the series moved from KTMA to The Comedy Channel. The episode aired on 11 November 1989. It was also briefly mentioned at the end of the season 10 finale (the original series finale) covering Danger: Diabolik . [13]
A scene of the film was briefly seen in the 1998 film Small Soldiers when the Gorgonites, Slamfist, and Ocula are watching a wrestling match on television and one of them accidentally hits the TV remote which changes the channel showing a scene of the film's crawling eye creature.
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. [14] [15]
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. [16]
The film was shown on the MeTV show Svengoolie on 26 November 2022. [17]
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. [18]
