The Crawling Eye

[Georgiann]

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.  

[John]

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.

[bunches]

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.

[Sarah]

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.

[Bernard]

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

[Gail]

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!

[AlphaWoolf]

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.

[Bmovielady]

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.  

[SMAN]

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.

[fiftiesmoviebuff]

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.

[EYE SEE YOU!]

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!

[John Gentile]

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?

[John]

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.

[clarke]

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!

[Allen Talbert]

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.