The Trollenberg Terror (1958)

AKA: The Crawling Eye

Director: Quentin Lawrence

Writers: Jimmy Sangster, Peter Key

Composer: Stanley Black

Starring: Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro, Warren Mitchell, Frederick Schiller, Andrew Faulds, Stuart Saunders, Colin Douglas, Derek Sydney

More info:IMDb

Tagline:  WARNING: If you've ever been hypnotized, do not come alone!

Plot:  A series of decapitations on a Swiss mountainside appear to be connected to a mysterious radioactive cloud.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe after I've seen every horror movie from the 50s.

This neat little horror picture has a surprisingly well-acted cast.  You kind of expect that with the British but not so much when they have an American at the top of the cast list but Forrest Tucker really holds his own against the Brits and he's great in those little moments that could have easily been tossed off.  The story's pretty good and it's helped with the beautiful mountain scenery and observatory/lab sets with the mountains showing outside the windows.  The monster is pretty cool, too.  Sure, it's fake as shit but I don't care.  The effect and model work were still neat-o.  And it's got a good soundtrack and vibe, too.  There are also some really grisly moments of horror with decapitations and lots of deaths.  You just don't see that in horror films of that time which makes it even more shocking.  The Image DVD (European Edition) sports a gorgeous anamorphic widescreen print but the extras are REALLY weak.  You get the fullscreen theatrical trailer (as The Crawling Eye) and a stills gallery consisting of THREE (!!!) fullscreen images taken directly from the film and that's it.  What a joke.