The Trollenberg Terroris set in the Swiss village of Trollenberg where several climbers have mysterious disappeared while climbing th Trollenberg mountain with one being found dead after having been decapitated. A nearby research observatory run by cosmic ray scientist Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell) has detected a strange cloud that seems to be hovering at the peak of the mountain, Crevett sends for UN scientist Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) who arrives is shown the cloud & informed that is is radioactive. The cloud starts move down the mountain as more people turn up dead, finally the scientists realise that they are dealing with hostile aliens that want to take over the world.
This British made sci-fi horror film was released in the US under the more sensationalistic title of The Crawling Eye & was cut down from 84 minutes to 75 minutes by the distributors who wanted to get to the alien monsters quicker, the version I will be basing my comment on is the full 84 minute cut under the title The Trollenberg Terror. Directed by Quentin Lawrence from a script by Hammer horror regular Jimmy Sangster this is a fairly decent little sci-fi horror film, the setting helps with it’s small isolated village & hazardous mountain terrain & the actual alien monsters are kept off screen until the last fifteen minutes which helps build suspense because when they do make an appearance the special effects are not very special at all. There’s a fair amount of theorising going on & huge leaps of logic are made by the character’s, it’s never really really revealed why the aliens are here anyway apart from a guess by Crevett. There’s no explanation as how the aliens decapitated that guy in the log cabin since all the doors were locked from the inside, why did they decapitate people anyway? It moves along at a decent enough pace & has a nice mix of horror & sci-fi but I wouldn’t call it a classic. A perfectly fine way to pass 80 odd minutes but not much else, it’s fairly predictable & just about meets the genres standards but rarely rises above them if truth be told.
Once the alien monsters are seen at the end they look alright when required to do nothing but sit there, when they need to move & act menacing the effects fall apart. The monsters look like giant pulsing brains with an eye & tentacles that are alright conceptually but when brought to life on screen with unconvincing model shots, silly sound effects & tentacles that look more like rope the effective creepiness that the film had built up with it’s mystery is lost. The main hero doesn’t even really get to fight them as he just ask’s for a load of bombs to be dropped, The Trollenberg Terror never quite comes to life. The film was based on an original six part television series made by the BBC called The Trollenberg Terror (1956) which no longer exists, the makers obviously saw the success the Quatermass film had after that too had been adapted from a BBC serial & wanted to cash-in with more of the same. Unusually for a film of this period there’s a headless body shown & a decapitated head in a sack.
Shot on what was probably a low budget this was filmed in Middlesex here in England. Production values are alright, some of the sets look a little fake & the special effects don’t hold up too well but it’s a product of it’s time & could have been worse. The acting is OK, it’s not great but again it could have been worse.
The Trollenberg Terror, of the The Crawling Eye if you prefer is a good 50’s sci-fi horror film that is of it’s time & suffers from the limitations of it. A decent enough way to pass 80 minutes if nothing else.
