THE CRAWLING EYE

The alien eye creatures go on the attack!

THE CRAWLING EYE (aka The Trollenberg Terror/1958). Director: Quentin Lawrence. Colorized.

Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker of The Strange World of Planet X) travels to the Trollenberg mountain in Switzerland at the behest of scientist Crevett (Warren Mitchell), whose observatory is studying cosmic rays. Crevett feels that something weird that happened years ago in the Andes is now happening on the Trollenberg. There are strange deaths of climbers, some of whom wind up decapitated, and a radioactive cloud that is able to move independently. All of this is disturbing to Anne Pilgrim (Janet Munro), who is one half of a telepathic act with her sister Sarah (Jennifer Jayne), and who picks up "thoughts" from whatever it is on top of the Trollenberg. Brooks and the sisters, along with reporter Philip Truscott (Laurence Payne of The Tell-Tale Heart), try not to panic when the cloud starts moving downwards towards the village and they finally see what's inside ...

Telepathic: Janet Munro picks up signals from the mountain

Based on a British mini-series, The Crawling Eye is a highly creepy and suspenseful horror show with more than competent acting, an eerie premise, and several memorable sequences. The FX work is crude and low-budget, but nevertheless effective, and there's a good score by Stanley Black (there's an especially nice passage during a scary sequence at a cabin which is slowly being enveloped by a freezing mist). A particularly tense scene occurs when the cable on the car taking frightened passengers up to the observatory begins to freeze ... As usual in films of this nature, there is plenty of illogic. When one little girl leaves her mother's side near the lower landing of the cable car to look for her ball in the inn below, one can't imagine this toddler being able to make it such a distance in so short a time. (This could have been corrected if the shot of the inn made it seem much closer.) The sequence in the cabin as shot also seems a bit impossible. But the movie is such gruesome fun that it scarcely matters. The color definitely adds a new dimension. 

Verdict: Giant eyeballs with tentacles, severed heads -- what more can you ask for? ***.