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This was the first horror movie I ever saw (at a friend's house).  I didn't remember it being so funny, just bad--

I have loved this movie since I was a kid.  OK, so it's silly.  I still love the eye playing ball with the little girl.  And, of course, the classic "bombing" scene.  Just a fun movie.  

If you're lucky enough to get "Cartoon Network" the show "Freakazoid" does an incredibly faithful send-up of "Crawling Eye" in one episode, except anyone who disappears on the mountain...nah, watch it, you'll see. Heh heh.  

Wouldn't Switzerland be somewhat miffed at the British for bombing one of its observatories on the authority of some guy who used to work for the UN, and a local physicist?

Wow,that Forrest Tucker is a real take-charge kind of guy!  I watched this for the first time on AMC, loved every second of it.  Thoroughly disgusting monsters.  Nice intruding wires on the tentacles.  Everything I hoped and prayed it would be.

That's one of my favourite episodes of Freakazoid

Frekazoid and a guy in a trenchcoat are on a sky lift type thing:
Freakazoid: "Wow, this place is great.  It's just like the sky buckets at Disney world."
Omnious Guy: "Not anymore I'm afraid."
Freakazoid: "What do you mean"
O.G.: "Disney World no longer have skybuckets.  They took them out a couple years ago."
Freakazoid: "Oh, well they still have the little boats right?"
Omnious Guy bites his index knuckle.
Freakazoid: "NOOOOOOOO!"

Also:
O.G.: "We must go.  It's not safe lingering after dark."
Freakazoid: "But... It's day."
O.G.: "Oh, then I guess we can linger for a little while londer............ OK let's go"

Yep Freakazoid is the king.  And he has good taste in movies.  the Crawling eye suffers from the "all movies pre 1960 being slow and boring in parts syndrome."  But the bad science in this movie is great and the overly dramatic acting is good for a laugh.  A fun movie to watch but not good like day of the triffids.

Even with Saddam gone, we still long for the days when any civilian working for the UN could go into another country (even neutral Switzerland) and order its citizens around without even being able to speak their language.

I like this film and have a copy of it, but I couldn't help notice that it has a major script flaw in it (like most other sci-fi/horror movies of any era) -- no one seems interested in what the things look like before they actually meet. Tucker sees one when he rescues the girl in the hotel, but he doesn't mention anything about it to the people in the observatory. In real life, the monster's appearance would be one of the main points of interest.

I saw this on Chiller Theater in the New York/New Jersey area in the 1960's on WPIX Cahennel 11.  Does anyone knoiw where to find those great horror themes from those shows?  Chiller Theater, Supernatural Theater and Creature Features were the big ones.  Please somebody write to me and let me know!  Thanks.

Seen it on chiller theater, remember good ole Zac. New York loves monsters. Too bad channel eleven is not WPIX anymore. Back then our area TV with the old channels five,nine, and eleven were better than today's cable!! Oh yes, if you are a Forrest Tucker fan, then don't forget to watch The Abominable snow man. It may be his best!

I saw this countless times when I was a kid, KTVU must have owned a copy or something, and the first time I saw it it scared the beejesus out of me.  It's still a whole lot of fun and far better (and far, far, far more original) than some of the dreck being dumped into theaters and video rental outlets these days.

Crawling Eye - best thing Tucker did before F-Troop.
Minadog remembers Chiller Theater - I would love to see that creepy plasticine hand emerging from the barren crack in the ground. And that eerie psychedelic music with the evil voice, "CHILLLL-ERRR". Can you tell this traumatized me for life seeing it as a little kid on WPIX Channel 11 in NY?
Can anyone direct me to a place where I can view this again so I can exorcize my demons and sort these issues out!!
Oh - and Creature Feature on Metromedia Channel 5 too, please.

Saw this for the first time at 8 yrs. old. Scared the sh*t out of me, (especially the head part). Had to turn it off, but would go back for more. "Fell in love" at the tender age of 8 with the pretty actress. Anyone know who she is and where is she now? It was shown frequently on "Million Dollar Movie" on WOR in NY, NY.

Forrest Tucker surpasses himself (he has to, he can't do any worse) in this British sci-fi/horror opus.  This movie is like a meeting of alcoholics unanimous as everyone has a drink before going up the mountain.  The ethnic (Swiss, German?) scientist looks like Groucho Marx.  Overall, this is my kind of movie with creeping mists, people calling out to something in the mists, and people then disappearing.  I wish the kid chasing the ball had been caught in the tentacle.  That would have been a no no for a 50's flick.

As ridiculous as it is to admit this ; when I was around 8 or 9, I saw this film for the first time and...ok...here it comes...it frightened me on a very profound level...in some ways it was one of the very first examples of how powerful "fear" can be. I remember years later---seeing it's title in TV guide and getting a terrified feeling at the thought of watching it again at midnight or whatever time it was going to be on

I remember, too, the almost primal fear response I had as a child to a few movies, and "The Crawling Eye" was one of them.  The others were "Fiend Without a Face", "The Killer Shrews" and the original "Invaders from Mars".  Some of them had good special effects, some of them had ludicrous effects, but those few scared me at some primitive level, unlike anything I've seen since.  

Did anyone else notice that in the opening sequence of the train going thru the tunnel, that the light at the end and the tracks combined to form a neat optical illusion resembling one of the Crawling Eyes?  Maybe just my imagination? Watch and see what you think.

I was staying with my brother and sister in law when I was six years old and we saw this at the drivein.  It scared me to death at the time.  I had forgotten about it until I saw it listed here.

I just saw this tonight, and between the movie itself and the running MST my mother and I had going, I have not laughed so hard in months. And this was before the Eye proper even appeared. By the time the Eyes made their grand entrance, we were dying.

Addendum to the "fresh air" bit at the end: considering that there are barbecued Eye-gibs all over the place, I don't think the air outside is going to be all that fresh. Eew.

And to the scene with the Eye grabbing the little girl--the kid was JUST STANDING THERE. There were Eye-tentacles wrapped around her, and she didn't so much as "eep." She just. stood. there.

And finally, the let me out-throw molotov-bangbangbang-let me in-lather rinse repeat sequence had me rolling. My mother and I were doing the Young Frankenstein "No matter what you hear, no matter how cruelly I beg you, do not open this door!... ... ...let me in. Let me IN. Open this g-dd-mn door! LET ME IN!"  bit. That, and the "One...two...five!" "Three, sire!" "Three!" bit from Holy Grail.

Saw an interview with the guy who did the Special Effects for this movie.
 He admitted that the cloud on the mountian was just a photo with some cotton wool stuck to it which they moved between shots

Watch when Alan has the villager with the hat open and close the observatory door during the firebomb scene. He mysteriously turns into a little bald guy with glasses then turns back into the villager with the hat again.
This is one of my favorite movies!

I've heard somewhere that this is one of John carpernter's favorite films, and I've gotta agree.  Up to actually seeing the crude eye-creature puppets, this film is downright creepy!  The mountain, the disappearances, the mist, the mangled corpses - good stuff!  And then they flush the whole d@mn thing down the toilet with those laughable creature effects.  Such a pity.  I should make a "special edition" video tape of this with the monster shots judiciously edited out to preserve the otherwise quality atmosphere this movie creates.

I recently read that you can find the truly, scary original opening scene of Chiller Theater (WPIX, Channel 11 in New York) at http://www.21ca.com/chiller/

This is NOT the 6 fingered hand opening, which was scary enough to me as a kid, but the one with clips from a bunch of movies, like the Crawling Eye and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Vampira is shown walking right out at you (I think this was from Plan (....)  The music, I recall was truly eerie.  

I have this video in my collection...love it.  Scared the holy s**t out of me when I was 5.  When they pulled the fat dude out from under the bed and his head was torn off.  I freaked out and begged my Mom to change the channel.  Now I look at it and it cracks me up.

Imagine my surprise in finding that there are websites for this movie and that there are actually other folks out there who remember it!  I saw this many times as a kid in the fifties and have never met anyone else who remembers it!  I live in a costal area where fog often blankets the mountains and I like to refer to it as "crawling eye fog".  This always results in me explaining why with a description of the movie, because no one knows what I'm referring to. It's a fun movie that scared me as child. And it's interesting that such a silly movie would stick in my memory so vividly and I guess I'm not alone.

Great creepy movie from my childhood. Just got it on DVD. I loved Forest Tucker's one note acting especially whenever he saw a disgusting thing like the headless body - he always shut his eyes and rubbed them! He does it three times the same way!! F-Troop Lives!

This movies also scared me as a child.  It is the perfect example of how a low budget B flick could be saved with some effective use of lighting, editing and thick mist! Someone inquired about the pretty actress in the film. Her name is Janet Munro.  She passed away in 1972 in a boating accident, unfortunately.  Her best film was "Day the Earth Caught Fire", a considerably more adult film and a masterpiece of low budget sci-fi. Highly recommended.
Back to "Eye", I've always thought the creatures themselves were well done miniatures.  Les Bowie has never discussed what they were made of.  Anyone know?

I loved this movie, saw it many times on million dollar movie.  My Sister and I(EYE)would sing "The Crawling Eye" to the tune of "Gone with the wind", which was Million Dollar Movies' theme song.

Would you believe that as a full tenured professor at a School of Medicine I have used "The Crawling Eye" to teach first year students how to identify nerve cells? True! That eye in the middle of the blob at the center of the tentacles is a dead ringer for the nucelus of a neuron. I love this movie and the opportunity to use it as a reference in this manner was simply to good not to use. I probably should write a journal article or something!

Tho the special effects technology of the 1950's movie industry laughable by today's computer graphic "reality",
this film had it's moments of genuine suspense. Not quite
in the category of the classic "The Thing" (James Arness),
it nonetheless had it's edge-of-your-seat moments when the "fog banks" rolled down the mountain side toward the isolated town at the movie's climax.

Fortunately,  Janet Munro survived this film (figuratively and literally) to give birth to her daughter,the equally beautiful Caroline Munro. You may remember her as Kurt Jurgen's gorgeous hench-woman,"Naomi", the white bikini-clad
motor boat/helicopter pilot who menaced Roger Moore and Barbara Bach in the Jame's Bond flick,"The Spy Who Loved Me". We are indebted to Janet Munro.

 

I agree with the Review - that Anne IS extremely attractive. Makes it easier to endure. When you are in the mood for REAL schlocky - this really fills the bill.

Seems all grounds are covered here! Yes,I have this movie in my collection.. Does anyone remember "Slaughter Of The Vampires"? I have that one, also. I must have spent a good deal of time searching out these titles and have fond memories of the era.That Chiller intro is on chillertheater.com - BOTH intros (horror clips and claymation hand!) I'm going to watch something tonight! They were the best fright a kid could have w/o reality creeping in! Looking up "Supernatural Theater" now.Wish me luck,Charlie

I read in a magazine that the special effects guy was ashamed of this movie and never included it in his resume.

This movie scared me as a kid too. When it came out in VHS I was in college and made up the "Crawling Eye" drinking game, whenever the word "cloud" is mentioned, you take a drink...as in
PROFESSOR: "And then there is the cloud"
BROOKS: Cloud? What cloud?"
PROFESSOR: You know what cloud. The cloud where there not supposed to be a cloud"
BROOKS: "Where there are mountains, there are always clouds"

As you can see, one gets quite drunk playing this game..Excellent movie a good scare and laugh...Long live Alan Brooks!!!

This movie scared the daylights out of me when I was a kid.....the special effects and story-line seemed so real. Forty years later I saw it again ........had a very good laugh.  

Oh.......It is so hot!!!

Why is it I can't get that dumb line out of my head.

"The Trollenberg Terror" is so unbelievably imbecilic... it's difficult to believe that Carpenter would not have shot "Fog" if this garbage had never existed...

Back in the early 60's it was KGO's "Chillers from Science Fiction" that scared San Franciscans such as I.
The terror of the Trollenberg that reached so deep within me as a child was the sight and sense of those spindly tendrils being able invade any area, any shelter.
 
Home was no longer safe.
 
For days after the viewing -no, make that nights- I'd look about the house, and every room betrayed a window, or a door to the unseen horrors awaiting without. The vunerability and treachery those portals now suggested was profound.
 
Now reduced the scope of that realization to the memory of a small mountain cabin occupied by one lone soul watching the night mists slowly enveloping the Trollenberg, all the while unaware of the impending doom stealthily approaching him. Yikes!

Then there was the dark droning announcing the "Ixodes"* themselves. Like the fog, which in and of itself also did not kill, there was no easily escaping it.
 
The otherworldy drone was pervasive, permeating every corner of one's being. The walls themselves became transparent. No use, my hiding in a closet, I'd still have to listen against my will.

So, here was sound, yet another far ranging facet turned traitor. Was there any refuge out of harm's potential reach?

That's what I think scared the willies out of me as an impressionable adolescent. That's what got to me: the loss of boundaries; the breach and total collapse of any zone of protection. All it took was that dumb ol' door being knocked open in the movie. The psychological violation was visceral. Sheesh!

Okay you monsters, you watching eyes, that's bad enough, but d'ya also have to around ripping off peoples heads?! Man oh man!

Of course as an adult, from behind a different bulwark and a span of several decades, I can laugh at that. I can laugh at the risible effects, inane science, and lapses of logic that occasion the film. And I can laugh at myself. In my credulous childhood, however, no such emotional distance was afforded me.

                        ***
On a lighter note:
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning and on the mountain. Smelled like...Ixodes!" (see also: Tarantula)



*"Ixodes" was the name given the aliens in the British teleplay on which this film of the same name: 'The Trollenberg Terror' a.k.a. 'The Crawling Eye' is based. I wonder if any kinescopes of those plays exist? Imagine for instance, getting to view the original Quatermass series!

Sheesh - I watched this movie with my big bro when I was about 5 years old...I remember it being really scary back then (around 1960).  I was so happy when the beseiged mountain folk cooked up those molotov cocktails!
Now - if you want a good knockoff(spoof)of the old 50's sci-fi's - how about 'The Lost Skeleton of Cadavre'?  My bro just showed me that movie last weekend and I laughed so hard I spit out my esophagus!!  :o)

I'm glad to see that the majority of the boarders here were affected by this when they were kids.
It did exactly what it was suppose to: scare you!
Thank God we didn't have VCR's or DVD's back then, we all probably wouldn't have as powerful memories of movies like this (along with "Invaders from Mars", "Kronos", "Invisible Invaders" etc)if we had been able to disect them frame by frame as we can today.
That being said, of course that's exactly what my kids and I do when we watch the old sci-fi/horror flics, and they're fun on a whole different level.
Speaking of which, I read all of the above comments from the 'strings on tentacles' etc. and I was surprised to see that no one seemed to notice that the British jet that was doing the bombing, was actually 2 very different and distinct aircraft.
If you want to check it out the best, pause just as the first one is peeling off and you see large ID numbers, jet engines very integral to the angular wings, no pods or drop tanks, and of course the paint is black.
Later on, we see peeling off a jet with small ID numbers, engines protruding from the more rounded wings, 3 seperate pods, and the jet is now grey!
Heck, it's all in fun, and I hope I get to see more of the old b&w 'classics'---hmmm, I wonder if "The Thing" is on tonight?

I agree that it is a fun movie to watch with the right frame of mind (or a couple of beers).  Anybody notice the doctor give the re-animated dead man a shot to put him out?  How does that work if your blood stops pumping?

I wish you had actually WATCHED the movie. If you had you would probably realize that the "NO" came from one of the "man sized rag dolls" friends as they pulled him up(after he goes over the cliff) and see that his head has been torn off. I know as I watch that movie regulaly. One of my favorite early Horror/Monster movie. And to Bob I also have Invisible Invaders, Plan 9 from Outer Space(Bela Lugosi's last film), First Flight to Venus and many more. I love them all. (I am addicted to cheez.)

I found this on DVD at a K-MART! I didn't know what it was but it look like a B-movie so I had to get it. took me a wile befor i wacht it. but when I read the back i rememberd the episode of Freakazoid just from reading the discription and then i wacht it and it was good.

Oh and isn't the sound the things make funny as hell it just sounds like some one going aahhh!! Or something.

I see one of the postings repeats the old "fact" that Janet Munro was Caroline Munro's mother.
She wasn't.

The Crawling Eye is available in a two DVD set with the original Invaders From Mars.  Deep Discount DVD has the pair for less than $10.  

I like this movie...it's always been one of my favorites...it's not a bad movie, it's a 50's sci-fi movie that had alot going for it at the time.  Technically, it's a dinosaur however, I love it for the sheer satisfaction that it'sa a movie that I used to see 5 nights in a row on the 60's movie show MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE.

There are classic lines that my friends and I make fun of but the one that always tells me that they didn't pay much attention to detail is the one at the end of the mvoie when Phillip asks Ann if she wants to step outside for a breath of fresh air...............even though they just got done napalming the whole mountain that is now full of char-broiled eyeballs......Breath of fresh air indeed.

  I too saw  this movie on Chiller Theatre channel 11 in NYC.  One of my favorite B movies I have it on DVD.

I saw this movie when it was first released while living in Navy Housing in Corpus Christi, TX.  I think it cost a whole 10 cents.  I was about four years old at the time....  This movie scared the holly crap out of me and continued to haunt me for I would guess close to two years later!!!  I had constant reoccurring nightmares about this movie, not to mention many a sleepless and scarred stiff nights.  I am 52 now and NEVER forgot this movie.  I even had to buy a copy a couple of years ago.  I watched it and wondered what the heck I was so scared about...

Scard the feces out of my kid self...now want a copy of the MST3K version. "Dr. Groucho" included.
And old Forest. Joel and the Bots used every F-Troop riff they could.

The Crawling Eye was the first scary movie I saw on TV as a young kid.  It had to be around the time it was first made, which makes me old.  Anyway, it scared me so much I didn't want to go down the hall to bed afterwards and I've been hooked on Sci Fi ever since.  Recently, I found it on DVD and loved it just as much as ever. 

I do remeber this movie they destroyed it with molitove cocktails

If only they made movies half as good as this nowadays in terms of chilling atmosphere. Only the ending disappoints as it seems much too easy a solution. Apparently THE MIST owes this big time.

This one has shown up recently on MonstersHD cable channel. Forgot how it gave me the creeps, too, when I was a kid. Still think they're the most hideous things I've ever seen and in a B movie no less.

Considering it was pretty cheap, how did they make those things with the eye moving and all??

Also, to early posters, don't think this was a Chiller Theater entry. I seem to remember it on Channel 9, probably on Supernatural Theater.

I have no memory of watching this as a kid.

The shot of Glenn Manning spearing a guy with a giant hypo needle is probably my first Horror memory.

But I do have the MST version. Only movie to show up in two episodes. It's been mentioned that the original title was "The Trollenberg Terror". I agree with the thought that such an ambiguous title didn't give away the ending. Who would've expected such a monster, until it was actually revealed?
But The Crawling Eye is a perfect Sci-Fi / Horror title, too.

to this day  it`s still my favorite all time horror classic. and it did scare the hell out of me when i saw it as a kid....couldn`t sleep that night....i`ve been reading all the comments and a lot of them are so true with my feelings also...i`ve turned so many people on to this movie and everyone  loved it...my kids the most when they were small...now every time we see fog it`s also the first comment out of their mouths....and they`re teens now!!!lol....i loved the statements about screw-ups in the movie but didn`t all  50`s movies have screw-ups?????......still wondering how the monster got into the hut without breaking any doors or windows!!!lol....and still wondering how hans got up to the observatory after he left the motel and was infected like brett........my favorite line..." cute little things , aren`t they!!!!!!".....and i do remember it being on supernatural theatre before chiller theatre......was very disappointed when forest tucker died and they listed his accomplishments and this wasn`t one of them...very disappointed......one more.....do want to get the chiller hand stuff......know anywhere i can get it????

For "Chiller", it's on YouTube. Just search on "Chiller Theater" or something like that. You can even find the earlier one (that I remember) with 50-Foot Woman and Plan 9 clips in it.

I recall,when I was VERY young(6 0r 7) in the late 60's,we lived in Milton,NY. I watched TWO on a GUILLITINE on Chiller. The opening theme,with Vampira and the Collassal Man, scared the p**s outta me.

I was given a copy of the DVD of CE a couple of years ago, and I must have watched it a dozen times since.  I find it incredibly re-watchable.  I'm also withdrawing my previous comments on the effects - they're not all that bad.  Certainly the excellent sound effects help make up for the creature visuals.  But in my repeated viewings I noticed a couple of things:

1.  An actual blooper - freeze frame as Janet Munro collapses onto Forrest Tucker in the early train scene, and you'll notice that the newspaper he's been reading is already crumpled up from previous takes of the scene.

2.  Intended humor?  CE takes itself very seriously.  There's really no humor in the film at all - or is there?  When the doctor is conducting the examination of the zombified Brett in the basement of the inn, the hotel manager is holding a lamp for him to see by.  The "lower...  lower...  lower...  put it on the floor." bit of dialogue has the ring of a scene from "Young Frankenstein" and gets a laugh from me.

Great to to see this site still kicking!

I've just got to say: this is the best title to any movie, ever.

Okay, As for the good Professor. Just what kind of scientist is this?  If he's studying mountains, he's likely to be a geologist, right? So why would he be qualified to perform an autopsy on the Andean woman, the autopsy that he didn't get a chance to perform? 

Pretty entertaining movie. I thought the non telepathic sister was the pretty one.

I love how every 50's horror movie has to have the 'radioactive science' included.

One last thing, how the hell did Hans manage to make it to the observatory with the cable cars out?

 Yes, I too love this movie on Chiller Threatre- Channel 11 here in New York City in the late 60's and early 70's.  I have it on VHS and still looking for it on DVD.

Saw it via MST3K, actually one of the movies that still has some decent stuff in it.

Also, it wasn't the falling guy calling out NO!, it's the friend trying to pull him up that couldn't see him. He yells NO! when the other guy sees the one that fell has no head and lets go forcing him to let go or be pulled down too.