The Crawling Eye

Rating:
Summary: Spying this eye won't get your skin crawling.
Review: This was one of those movies that popped up on TV regularly in my youth and scared me half to death when I first saw it. Today it is just a modest little entertainment I enjoyed sharing with my son. Forrest Tucker plays a United Nations...scientist?...investigator?...it's kept unclear. He is called to the Swiss town of Trollenberg because a scientist friend (one studying 'cosmic rays' at high altitudes) feels that events (mysterious deaths and disappearances) are linked to a similar occurrence in the Alps some years back. An occurrence that led to a great deal of embarrassment for Tucker (who blew the whistle a tad too late). Genre buffs will get a kick out of some of the sequences that clearly influenced John Carpenter when he made The Fog twenty some odd years later (in the commentary track on that disc, Carpenter states this movie's influence on him) and the groaning bug eyed aliens are still effectively gross. Nonetheless, only purists will consider this clearly low budget effort a classic. Those wanting one that retains it chills better should look to X the Unknown or the Quatermass movies.

Rating:
Summary: Singularly Underrated
Review: Why this movie is considered some sort of "Golden Turkey," worthy of Ed Wood's imprimatur is beyond me. It's not "Gone with the Wind," to be sure, but it's never pretended or claimed to be. "The Crawling Eye" is an entertaining and engrossing film. Everyone does a good job, particularly the always underrated Forrest Tucker and the absolutely bewitching Janet Munro. Want a movie you can watch numerous times over the years? Then "The Crawling Eye" is your baby.

Rating:
Summary: An example of how good bad can be.
Review: You need to be a fan of silly, classic '50's Sci-Fi films to appreciate The Crawling Eye to really enjoy it. If you are not, don't waste your time. This movie has some really bad visual effects (Two men, mountain climbing in the Swiss Alps. It was so obvious that they were placed in front of a bad painting, I enjoy that scene over and over.), but it's the acting and the story that really pulls it together. It's amazing that actors can give such convincing performances while standing in cardboard sets! On a positive note, the eyeball creatures were actually not bad. A nice little classic "Creature Feature" that should be in everyone's collection.