Since in recent years i found it was “HD remastered” on DVD by the Italian distributor Sinister Film (hence it was cheap and something i didn’t need to pay extra to import), i’ve been curious to check this out. Even if this italian re-release is under the “I Mostri Delle Rocce Atomiche”(lit “The Atomic Rock Monsters”) title, somehow an even worse title than the more common one its known in the US and worlwide, The Crawling Eye, which fuckins spoils how the monsters look.
But oh well, who cares, since the movie had quite the legacy, which included being the inspiration for the latter John Carpenter’s The Fog and being spoofed during the early days of MST3K.
Kinda funny how despite the DVD title the movie itself still shows the original title, The Trollenberg Terror…. i kinda understand why it was changed for international releases, honestly.
It’s not incorrect, thought, as the plot starts off with mountaineers being mysteriously decapitated on the slopes of the Swiss mountain known as the Trollenberg, scientists with a mountain observatory for catching cosmic rays finding there’s an odd cloud that simply sits upon the mountainside, never moving, while emanating a clear radioactive trace.
Meanwhile a psychic girl sees visions of the strange cloud and seems called upon – despite not consciously knowing why – by a force which seems to telepathically communicate with her, and the American UN diplomat turns out to known a lot more about these things than he leads on, even when some of the climbers come back in a zombie like state, almost as if controlled by something…
On one hand, it kinda has a fun sounding plot, and on paper it should be an underrated, forgotten film of the alien invasion-atomic monsters, since it has a psychic girl that seems to be receiving visions of the future and maybe of the present from the point of view of people she doesn’t known, it does have radioactive clouds that are actually weird tentacled aliens with one giant eye on their bodies that also spawn an area of incredible cold, and that are able to mentally control their dead victims as flesh puppets.
But the execution is kinda dull, sure the director is Quentin Lawrence (a prolific TV director mostly known today for his works on the Edgar Wallace Mysteries, the Avengers 1960s’ TV series and various film adaptations of other TV series, like 1963’s The Man Who Finally Died), here in his feature debut and honestly not given the best hand, you can just tell that this is a film compilation cut of an UK TV series, in this case a mini-series by the same name that came out 2 years prior and was also directed by Lawrence.
And while i’ve seen plenty of cheaper 50s b-movies made for the screen (as in the drive-in more than everything else), you can tell this wasn’t originally made for a theathrical release, there’s nothing really cinematic about the photography, pacing or sets, and in this context, the heavy reliance on obvious rear projection (very obvious even for that era) and off screen happening of many events as it’s faster and cheaper that way.
Heck, considering that, the effects are cheap but not even that cheap, i grilled a lot of american drive in hokum for far less, and the fog is quite good, if anything else.
By contrast, keeping that in mind the origins as a TV series also explains the weird, sluggish pacing and even more reliance on having mild mannered men talk about stuff in laboratories and room talking about science stuff more than actually doing science stuff or much at all, until the end where the Forrest Tucker character decides to first molotov cocktail the slithering radioactive crawling eye monsters then ask a favor to carpet bomb the refuge and hence killing the monsters.
Fitting being an UK production of the era, on the upside it does take itself serious enough to actually cook up a decent atmosphere and make one wonder how the alien will look like, there’s a decent ssense of mystery before that, even more since a couple of sisters with psichic abilities are travelling there, and the younger one (played by Janet Munro, who delivers the best performance in the movie) seems able to spontaneously mind-link with the entity, even if she doesn’t want to.
I do like the design of the eye aliens, it’s iconic in its own right (and most likely was the inspiration for Kracko, one of the Kirby series’ bosses), a slight change of pace from the usual big rear projected bugs or reptiles of the era, as it actually trying to have proper suspence and mystery about the creature, but i won’t lie, even at just 80 minutes, it feels kinda boring and a bit long, not quite, Forrest Tucker is weirdly cast as the hero, acting is over the board a bit stuffy (Munro aside) but decent enough, even with the expected array of (mostly) British and American character actors playing as the Swiss townfolk, hikers and so on.
While it’s influence got it referenced in IT (the original Stephen King novel), Small Soldiers and even got the Misfits dedicating a song to the film, The Trollenberg Terror/The Crawling Eye today is just… okay, predictable but alright, not bad but also not much else.
If nothing else is the movie Quentin Lawrence is mostly remember for, and overall not as forgotten as the other UK production it was double billed with for its US release, The Strange World Of Planet X, also starring Forrest Tucker.
Wise Cafe (International) 