‘The Trollenberg Terror’ (aka ‘The Crawling Eye’ in territories where they want it all spelling out for them) is a tight, cheap little film adapted from an ITV presentation which, presumably, was even tighter and cheaper and littler.
It doesn’t sound much, but I’ve always found it extremely entertaining and occasionally pretty dark, with several nasty beheadings and some weird alien mind control shit that turns perfectly nice people psycho. Much of the violence is directed towards a poor young woman who, unfortunately for her, has mediumistic qualities. The aliens hate this because she’s onto them and their dirty schemes, so strive to get her knocked off at every available opportunity, the cheeky, slimy baskets.
It all ends in a big bonfire and the aliens learn, as so many do, that humans may not be able to fly around the universe causing problems but, by Christ, they can certainly KILL. The climax is often mocked for its extensive use of models and stop-motion camera work but, unsophisticated as it is, it works in the context of the film, so don’t sneer at them, smart-arse, that’s like having a go at Vasco Da Gama for not using a sat-nav, i.e. wrong.
