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8 creepy facts about The Crawling Eye
A loving look at The Crawling Eye
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird — it's a plane — no! It's a piece of cotton taped to a photo of a mountain to give the effect of a giant cloud monster in... The Crawling Eye!
While The Crawling Eye may not be as widely remembered as some of its '50s B-movie brethren, the movie's legacy is far-reaching, even to this day! Just look at Jordan Peele's Nope, with which it shares a very similar plot.
The Crawling Eye is a fun, fast-paced horror movie that packs more than a few surprises in its short runtime. As a tribute to this exciting movie and its enduring impact, here are eight neat facts you may not have known about The Crawling Eye!
1. John Carpenter's "The Fog"
This movie is directly responsible for one of the most legendary horror flicks of the '80s. Director John Carpenter is on the record stating that this movie's monster, hiding in the clouds, is the partial inspiration for his own monster in 1980's The Fog.
2. Literary Cameo
The Crawling Eye monster makes an appearance in the Stephen King novel It. During a segment that takes place in 1958, the Losers Club kids run into the monster in the sewers of Derry!
3. What's in a name?
The Crawling Eye is only The Crawling Eye in America, where it was renamed for American audiences. In the movie's native United Kingdom, its original title was The Trollenberg Terror.
4. Trollenberg
The film, under its original title, is named after the Swiss mountain "Trollenberg" where the bulk of the story takes place. In real life, Trollenberg doesn't exist... At least in Switzerland. There is, however, a Trollenberg, Germany!
5. Time's Ticking!
The title wasn't the only thing producers changed when they exported this horror movie to the States. In addition, The Crawling Eye's runtime was cut quite a bit. The movie's running length of 84 minutes was hacked down to just 75, so impatient American audiences could get to the monster faster!
6. Southall Studios
This was the final movie produced by Southall Studios, one of the United Kingdom's earliest film studios. It was built out of a former aircraft hangar all the way back in 1924!
7. Forrest Tucker
In the opening minutes of the movie, Forrest Tucker's character off-handedly mentions the abominable snowman. Just one year prior, Tucker starred in the Hammer Film Productions movie The Abominable Snowman!
8. Other media
Svengoolie isn't the only show to feature The Crawling Eye, as the movie was the first one shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 after the series moved to Comedy Central in 1989!
49 Comments
I discovered MST3K literally a week after we'd gotten drunk & watched "The Crimson Ghost", a serial they put together into a movie. We made fun of it the whole time - a week later I stumble across MST & yell for my wife to come see! "They're doing the same thing we did last week!!"
The Joel era was the best era!!
If you already have an antenna, go to your tv menu & re-scan (important step!) the antenna channels to see if your tv then picks up all the MeTV channels. I also do not have cable or satellite & watch free over the air tv & get all the MeTV channels. If you live near a large city/tv market , betcha if you re-scan your tvs you will pick it up. Good luck!😃
Grew up in NY, Long Island. Before cable, had an antenna on the roof about 45 miles from NYC. One of the channels we got was WOR-TV, Channel 9. They had Million Dollar Movie and it ran the same movie for a week. Don’t remember many but remember The Crawling Eye. My parents had enough of it after two showings. We wanted to watch it over and over. Looking forward to viewing it again after 60 years!
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Just don't crawl on me.
I chuckled at the line in the story stating this is a 'fast paced' horror movie cuz this is the 2nd time I've watched it & find it to be on the slowwww side. 🐌🐢☁️ I luv bad "B" movies!!!
