HYSTERIA

HYSTERIA (1965). Director: Freddie Francis.

One of Jimmy Sangster's worst scripts is the main problem of this silly pseudo-thriller in which an American (Robert Webber) traveling from France to England winds up losing his memory in an auto crash. The dead driver's widow, Denise (Lelia Goldoni), arranges for his treatment in a clinic and for him to stay in her luxury apartment. Trying to summon up comparisons with Psycho, there's some business with a bloodied knife and then a corpse being found in or near a shower stall with the water running and so on -- but this is no Psycho and doesn't even come close. The film never works up more than the mildest of suspense as it tries to make you wonder who Webber really is and how he fits in with Denise, the dead body, and Dr. Keller (Anthony Newlands), the doctor who's been treating him. Jennifer Jayne from The Crawling Eye plays Gina, a nurse and romantic interest. A riot of loose ends and stupid contrived murder "plots," Hysteria is simply tedious and terrible and never makes much sense. Goldoni had a better role in Theatre of Death a couple of years later. Sue Lloyd of Corruption briefly plays a zesty French hooker. Dan Banks' jazzy score is pretty bad.

Verdict: Unmemorable British thriller. *1/2. 

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? ***. 

THE TROLLENBERG TERROR

pitiful victim of Trollenberg Terror

THE TROLLENBERG TERROR (aka The Crawling Eye/1958). Director: Quentin Lawrence. 

Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker), who works for the United Nations, arrives in the Swiss town of Trollenberg -- named for its mountain -- along, coincidentally, with two sisters, Anne (Janet Munro) and Sarah (Jennifer Jayne), who form a mind-reading act. Anne is a genuine telepath, and she senses that something strange is happening up on the Trollenberg, where climbers are having "accidents" in which their heads are inexplicably torn off. Alan's friend, Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell), runs an observatory on top of the mountain that is studying cosmic rays and he has observed a strange radioactive cloud on the Trollenberg that never moves, until ... 

Janet Munro and Jennifer Jayne

The Trollenberg Terror is a feature-length version of a now-lost British TV serial. Say what one will about the absurdities of the story and production and the occasional lapse in logic, the fact remains that the film, better-known as The Crawling Eye, piles one creepy incident on top of another -- bizarre decapitations, ax-wielding maniacs, dead men who walk and talk, clouds that move without wind and can freeze telephone wires to brittleness, tentacled monstrosities with huge eyes that pop out of the cloud -- quickly and methodically building up eerie atmosphere and suspense in equal measure. Quentin Lawrence, who also directed the TV version, worked mostly in television and did very few feature films, but he does a fine job with this flick. The actors are also on target, and these include Laurence Payne [The Third Alibi] as a reporter and Colin Douglas as the frightened bar man, Hans, among others. 

Warren Mitchell and Forrest Tucker

The FX work in Trollenberg is quite good, especially when you consider that this is a low-budget production. Although the crawling eyes have somewhat limited movement, they prove lively enough when they need to be, and the sounds they make are unnerving. Stanley Black's music summons up plenty of chills during the scary scenes, and Monty Berman's photography adroitly turns pleasant locations into sinister ones. One of the best scenes has a group of people trying to escape via cable car high, high above the mountain when the cables start to freeze, and it's a question if they'll make it. The climactic attack on the observatory is also well-handled, and the miniature sets are first-rate. One could quibble that the characters don't quite display enough amazement about the nature of these alien creatures, but since they're fighting for their lives they have other things on their minds! NOTE: For more on this film and others like it, see Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. 

Verdict: Crackling good British horror sci-fi. ***.