The Creeping Terror

[dreibel]

  Harry and Michael Medved have a chapter dedicated to "Creeping Terror" in their book "Son Of Golden Turkey Awards", including an interview with Robert Silliphant. One thing of note: the girl who played Brett was "Art Nelson"'s girlfriend. She was also only 16 years old when the picture was made. And the guy who did the narrative in the movie also did a number of driver's ed films....

[kjw]

This isn't one of those bad movies it stinks that it's funny bad.It is just plain bad in the worst way.This ranks as bad as Herschel Gordon Lewis's Monster A Go Go.Come to think of it,that also has a narrator talking pretty much throughout that bombanation as well.I don't know which is worse of the two movies.Both are p**s poor movies and just drag on end.

The thing about Monster A Go Go though,is that the said monster isn't really a monster.It is a human with scar tissue all over his face from radioactivity.I guess one could say that what makes him monsterous is the fact that he is really ugly looking in the looks department and that he is real tall.About 7ft5,and if that isn't enough to scare anyone than nothing is.The film itself sure isn't scary.

What scared me the most was the great name he had Doug,and that was the only thing that was scary about the movie.Just kidding,but Monster A Go Go,along with The Creeping Terror,are both huge stinkers.Throw in The Eye Creatures with John Ashley and you have 3 huge stinkers.And all 3 are just plain unwatchable.

[Mel]

Saw the post by dreibel, and wanted to make a correction.  The actress playing Brett was actually about nineteen or twenty at the time.  She graduated from highschool in 1961.

[Allan Silliphant]

 I wrote the original nine page story outline. Art Nelson,
who I understand was a Mohawk Indian from New York State,
came to my sound stage rental studios, in Glendale, to
discuss renting my facilities. Somehow, I mentioned that
my older half brother was very famous screen&tv writer,
Stirling Silliphant. Nelson had made a film in New York,
a couple of years earlier called "Street Fighter". He
confided that rather than make a follow on sequel to
his first film that he would consider doing something
else...perhaps a sci-fi movie. My half-brother had written
the MGM (english) classic, "Village of the Damned" and
was famous for creating "Naked City", "Route 66", and
writing so many of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" shows.
I mentioned that I was also a writer...This pushed his
button... he asked me if I'd like to come up with a
story line, for the princely sum of $1500. I was a 23
year old struggling to start a studio business,so the
money(same as $10,000 now) seemed like a very good deal!
He, asked me, almost casually..."What kinda monster am
I 'gonna deal with?" I had to think fast, as the conver-
sation had been almost chit-chat, until I realized we was
offering my a deal. Something really ugly!(still thinking)
...an kind of giant slug that eats people! Great! says
Nelson, almost salivating. There are two of them,that
crash in a space ship, One remains in the ship and eats
the scientists who come to reason with it,the other
escapes into a mountian lake...Lake Tahoe! I was making it
up as we spoke.  He liked the pitch! I was half kidding but
he really wanted a story and was really going to pay me!
"The one that is in the Lake, will keep coming out and eat
a lot of people, first isolated, like a grampa and kid
fishing, then maybe raise havoc in a Tahoe Casino",
Nelson was eating it up!"The thing can come into a drive in
movie theater,(the likely venue for the movie to play in)
and pull down the windows and suck the folks out of the
cars!" Why is he doing this eating, so much?" Nelson asks.
"Because he's not the creature who built the ship...he's
just a mindeless, voracious, invertebrate animal who has
to eat. The irony comes out in the end that they were sent
here to "sample" the available protein, and send back the
data to the home planet, who might want to take over the
earth at some future date." A further irony mentioned was
that the ship had transmitted the data to a place millions
light years away...so even since the transmission went out,
it wouldn't likely lead to an invasion, any time soon!
I guess Nelson asked me, because he thought people might
think my brother was involved some way. He never worked
with a finished script, I'm told. From what I heard, he
lots and lots of people being eaten to get them into the
movie after investing. I'm told the whole thing was finally pulled together to avoid prosecution! The tracks
hadn't been tranfered properly for one reason or another.
A local radio news man did the famous narration.

 

[Nikki]

Great review! My favorite line, the same one MST chose for the stinger - "My God! What is it?" The way it is delivered is fantastic, in fact I used it as a greeting on my answering machine for awhile. It amused me to no end. I also love the dance hall music 'ba da da da da da, ba da da da da da, ba da da da da da'. "I gotta get in there- it sounds so hot!"

[Flangepart]

The only way you will ever get me to watch this movie would be to play the MST3K version. I think without Mike and the 'Bots, I'd feel the urge to poke my eyes out. I think the highlight of this movie is the Dance Hall Massacre. That one nameless character who looks and dances like Jerry Lewis was pretty hilarious. Especially when ypou have Crow doing his Jerry Lewis impressions.

Oh, yeah...definatly need the bot on this one.
Actualy, we need them on most of the films reviewed here....
But, i can't watch this with out Mike and the Bots. They realy shine with a turkey like this.

[mrgb46]

The only way to watch this is with Mike and the Bots of MST3K,but you can watch it without them,too,but trust me,would you really want to?? What I don't understand(and maybe it doesn't matter)is why the director would allow his actors to get "eaten" instead of running away?? The woman hanging her laundry outside,the couple sitting on the rock and so on..Was this suppose to create horror?? Maybe it was a turn on for the director to show the women's legs while the monster is eating them.Who knows!! It makes for a so-bad-it's-good monster movie and I'm glad MST3K was there to help me get through it...Thanks guys! Gb

[Drew]

I was amazed at how SLOW the creature was. The people in the film stood and looked at the creature as if to say, "Hurry up and eat me!". Honestly, how did they NOT escape? Al it would take is to casually walk away. In fact, I spent most of the film yelling and screaming at the TV for the people to walk away.

Things I learned from this film:

-Women DO, in fact, scream with the assistance of another woman while being eaten. This is displayed in the video - listen, there ARE two people screaming! 

-Narrators are annoying. I think this guy was worse than "Future events affect you in the future" guy from Plan 9.

-The acting in this is worse than the acting in Plan 9. Seriously, I thought the people in Plan 9 were bad, but at least they didn't speak in monotone. "My god, what is it..." was about as convincing as the dogs in Killer Shrews.

-Plan 9 is no longer the worst film ever.

Sure, this may not have flying saucers that are 6 inches wide (Watch the graveyeard landing scene - the 'gravestones' are bigger than the ship) or "That's nothing from this world", but that monster is HILARIOUS.

And I'll say it again: WHY DIDN'T THE PEOPLE WALK AWAY? I said walk, not run - you could move an inch a minute and it wouldn't catch you. Instead, people just stood there. I can understand the girls not running though - in old horror films, they always fall over a perfectly placed tree branch.

[DeepRed]

This movie is like a drug of sorts its bad for you but yet you can like it.  have aslow speed copy on vhs from
late 80's when i worked at a local Video Store and became addicted to it.CT is a Narrated sixties lowest level possible sci fi(?)
Becomes apparent it's got to be comedy(?) It warped my brain which brings me to sites like this craving that obscure and unseen movie that will give me a 'B' RUSH!!
We all know the music da da da da da da..... and the funny wail of the well ,creeping terror.
"Oh my god ! What is it?

[GoHawks]

... it was just unrelentingly, hypnotically bad, for every frame, all the way to the very end.
... Even really bad movies have occasionally adequate moments, but not "The Creeping Terror."  Not one good frame.  Not a single one. It is pure.

I have to disagree slightly with this.  Go to about 58:12 into the MST3K version (don't know about the uncut time), where some people are trying to escape from the dance hall.  A woman is trying to get out, but a man grabs her and violently pulls her away from the door.  He accidentally rips her dress off, and there are several frames of her bare breasts!      So there are about 30 good frames in this movie.

I have to admit I didn't catch it myself; I read about it on another movie site.  I have looked, though, and they are there.  The woman obviously knows her breasts are showing, as she covers them up, but the other "actors" keep on "acting".

[Jed Siple]

Another great quote:

Narrator: The Sergeant, a shaken man, returned babbling about what had happened. Realizing the full danger of the situation, decided he had only one means left to stop the monster: Grenades. Now Bradford made a drastic move. Acting on his superior authority, he forbade Caldwell to destroy the creature. The Colonel, more concerned with saving human lives than advancing Science, told Bradford to "Go to Hell."

[twallinger]

Creeping Terror fans unite! Emmy-winning director Pete Schuermann is currently filming Creep!, a documentary on the making of The Creeping Terror. He has already snagged interviews with film critic Michael Medved, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News and much of the original cast and crew of the The Creeping Terror and hopes to establish that this cheesy monster movie truly is the worst film of all time.

But the real monster was behind the camera. As the interviews reveal, director Art Nelson was a con man, pimp and part-time prostitute who was known to "audition" 13-year-old girls and completed the film only because he was threatened with jail time if he didn't.

Visit creepfilm.com to view the trailer and keep up with all the latest developments.

[HorrorofBob]

  :thumbdown:Aaaarrrhhhhh!!  This film is horrible, horrible.  Need I say more?  OK, horrible.  I really like the scene where the slow, shuffling magic carpet ride (oops!) goes into the dance and slowly, painfully collects various babes (pardon me, ladies) and sucks them into it's might jaws.  Last thing seen of each victim is a pair of high heels which the gals had been twisting in just moments before. 
Military types in his awful opus are more than just incompetent, they are very similar to the actual armed services.  They charge standing right into the thing and get eaten or blown up by their own grenades.  Oouch!  Oh, the horror!!
Well, I could go on but I won't.  Whew!  I know all of you are just as relieved as the actors who were eaten and could leave this woeful tale of sci-fi misery.

[GoHawks]

Military types in his awful opus are more than just incompetent, they are very similar to the actual armed services.

I hope you garbled your meaning and this is not what you meant to say.  Speaking as one with personal knowledge (military family, 6 years active duty including Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm), as flawed as some of our military may be, overall I would not call our armed services "more than just incompetent".  I believe Andrew would agree.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a veteran.

[SwimTiger]

I used to think Plan 9 from Outer Space was bad ....The Creeping Terror was worst, but I would love to have a copy of this on DVD. I used to watch this movie late night on TV. I always got a kick out of the acting and the fact that there was no music in background. Then I found out years later that they lost the soundtrack to the movie and had to dub in a narrator. This is one movie that is safe from being a remake.