The Trollenberg Terror / The Crawling Eye (1958)

Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) is summoned by his friend, Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell), to a small village at the base of the Trollenberg mountain. He arrives in town at the same time is psychic Anne Pilgrim (Janet Munro—a year before Disney put her into Darby O’Gill and the Little People), who felt compelled to stop there, and her sister Sarah. Mountain climbers have been disappearing or being decapitated and Crevett thinks it has to do with a strange radioactive cloud on the side of the mountain. It’s up to Brooks, Crevett, the two women, local villagers, and newspaper reporter Philip Truscott (Laurence Payne) to uncover the mystery.

British alien invasion films of the ‘50s have something over their American counterparts. The three Quatermass films, X the Unknown, and Village of the Damned manage to retain their dignity. The acting—particularly in the secondary roles where American films really suffered—is universally good from the Brits, and the psychological drama is more impactful. But they never hit the high notes (Village of the Damned excluded). Special effects are no friend to these low budget features. And sticking in an American “star” to help oversea’s sales gummed up the works. Still, all of the them are at least a good time.

The Trollenberg Terror, like multiple of the others, was first a television serial. I’d love to have seen it—no longer possible as all copies have been destroyed. It is said to be much like the film, with the exception of Alan, who is nowhere to be found. Forrest Tucker is an amiable actor and the least offensive American addition to these British pictures (he is a far cry from Brian Donlevy’s horrible miscasting in the Quatermass films), but I think this story would work better without a pure hero. The effective part of the tale is the semi-ordinary folks, cut off from the outside with no special weapons or skills, surrounded by an unknown horror. I’d like to have spent more time with the locals, the women, and Truscott as they try to survive in this tense situation.

People have radically different reactions once the great evil actually shows up on screen late in the film. I like the design, but as I mentioned, the special effects are a bit weak and take some people out of the movie. Well, the monster, and the film, work for me, as well as for Stephen King (who borrowed from this film for his novel It) and John Carpenter (who credits the film for giving him the idea of The Fog).

The film was cut by ten minutes and retitled “The Crawling Eye” for its American release.