In this episode of Celluloid Days, we look at the first film riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (not counting the KTMA-TV days). It was The Crawling Eye (AKA The Trollenberg Terror)! It is the story of a man who discovers that an extraterrestrial force is killing mountain climbers in a small village.

The film poster reads… “The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing horror on a screaming world. A man dissolves… and out of the oozing mist comes the hungry eye, slave to the demon brain!” And if that wasn’t enough, the poster also comes with a warning, “if you’ve ever been hypnotized, do not come alone!”

The film was released on July 7, 1958, in the USA, and October 7, 1958, in the UK.

It was based on a 1956 British ITV “Saturday Serial” television program.  According to IMDB, none of the six episodes are known to exist, The original serial was written by George F. Kerr, Jack Cross, and Giles Cooper, under the collective pseudonym of “Peter Key” and was directed by Quentin Lawrence, who also directed the film version. Lawrence directed a lot of British TV, starting in 1955 until his death in 1979. He died young, at 58, but I couldn’t find out the reason for his death.

Starring in the epic horror flick is Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, and Janet Munro. The special effects were handled by Les Bowie

So, on November 25, 1989, this film, The Crawling Eye. was given the MST3K treatment by Joel and the bots. And it is definitely the US version of the film, which is a bit shorter than the original British film. Anyway, find out was Nancy

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The post The Crawling Eye (1958) A Celluloid Days Riffing Review first appeared on Coffee With Jeff.