WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Crawling Eye 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.600 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.800 Lamb and today we are rearing an episode that originally 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.080 published five point thirty twenty twenty five. It is nineteen 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.439 fifty eight, The Crawling Eye. This one has a pretty 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.720 great monster in it, so dive into the discussion here 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:22.120 with us. 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:31.600 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.080 Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.960 And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.080 be discussing the nineteen fifty eight British sci fi horror 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.440 film The Trollenberg Terror, which was released in the United 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:54.280 States and probably a better known overall as The Crawling Eye, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.200 a title that is in really bad taste because I 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.480 think it flagrantly destroys the tension and mystery leading up 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.120 to the revelation of the monster's true form in the 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.640 final act. Rob, you and I were talking about this 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:12.600 the other day. I love how careless titling and other 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.600 movie meta used to be with just ruining all the 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.320 surprises of the story. Here. I believe we have the 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.640 Distributors Corporation of America to thank for this title, and 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.680 I have to think like if Citizen Kane had been 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.440 a foreign film and they had released it in America, 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.880 they would have called it like Sled Problems or something. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.600 Yeah, I think we still do see trailers in our 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.399 modern day that give away way too much and reveal 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.280 like most of the plot. I've seen trailers where afterwards 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.280 I'm like, Okay, that's most of the movie. I could 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.520 maybe just watch the last five minutes of the film 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.000 to see how it wraps up, and I'd be good 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.440 at this point instead of watching the whole two hour plus. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.720 But yeah, these films of this nature where it was 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.720 it was something being released to the US market and 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.480 then packaged in a different way so as to I guess, 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.960 just try to maximize the eyeballs on it, and maybe too, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.079 there is the idea it's like, look, the American teenager 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:12.800 just wants to know what they're going to be making 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.680 out to. We're just going to go ahead and make 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.440 sure the monster is mentioned in the title. 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.120 Transparency and advertising. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.160 And also maybe leaning more on like the I don't know, 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.480 like the drive and spectacle of the thing. You know, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.000 it's like crawling eye. Don't you want to see that 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.400 as large as life. I don't know that's my best bet. 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.520 I think it's mostly though, just take this thing from 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.960 the UK and just try and get the most attention 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.120 gathered around it, and so yeah, go ahead and spoil everything. 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.679 To be fair, Trollenberg is not a word that most 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.160 people would recognize, and for good reason, because this is 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.519 not a real place in the movie, like the movie 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.239 makes up this mountain in Switzerland called Trollenburg. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.840 The Trolenberg Terror is a better title in many ways though, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.480 because I think The Trollenberg Terror gives you more of 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.600 a taste of the slow build and slow burn aspect 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.680 of the picture. That the picture is more mysterious, and 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.760 it is not really a giant monster movie except for 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.679 you just like the last what fifteen minutes or so 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:14.840 of the picture. 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.760 But then it really goes whole hog on giant monster movie. 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.720 Yeah, it's rather ambitious and its special effects towards the 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.400 end with mixed results but also some great results. 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:29.040 Yes. Yes. On the subject of sloppy marketing material, I 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.000 would like to submit into evidence the poster for the 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.920 US release of The Crawling Eye. Sometimes we talk about 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.440 movie posters, I think, especially with movies from the fifties 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.200 that this was just a golden age of posters and 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.360 we've really got some meat to chew on here. So 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.520 on the crawling Eye poster, we have emerging from a 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:58.200 black void, a giant, distinctly human eye, complete with tear 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.640 ducts and lids, and highlighted by makeup. You can see 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.680 mascara and eyeliner. So it does look a little freaky, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.600 but it does not suggest eyeball monsters from another planet. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:17.680 I think it implies instead a supernatural, disembodied human observer 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.480 reaching out through some kind of dark space. Maybe you 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.360 could say that the eye on the poster here connects 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.440 more to the psychic and esp themes of the movie 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.320 than to the giant physical eyeballs that we will be 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.040 hurling firebombs at later in the film. But I think 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.000 that that's kind of a stretch to say that's really 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.359 what's going for, especially since the psychic character is not 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.320 threatening at all in the movie and this eyeball is 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:42.400 clearly coming to get you. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:44.680 Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good read on it. 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:50.240 Also, this human eye on the poster has translucent yellow 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.240 and pink octopus arms, but only four of them, so 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.520 I guess this would be a tetrapus arms, and the 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.000 arms are wrapping around the body of a shrieking record 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.360 woman in a yellow party dress and high heels, who 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.880 I'm pretty confident does not appear in the movie unless 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.960 this is supposed to be Janet Monroe, but it does 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:11.960 not look like her to me, and I don't think 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:13.600 she ever wears an outfit like this. 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.880 No, no, you know, like we've talked, we've talked about 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.600 before on the show, if you could at all get 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.960 the monster carrying a screaming woman on the poster, you 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.920 absolutely did it. The monsters in this film, maybe it's 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.160 a little more of a stretch to imagine them carrying 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.120 a woman, and therefore this is just a rough approximation 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:34.279 of what that might consist of. 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.440 The only person we see them carrying in the movie 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.320 is the newspaper guy. We see he gets grabbed up, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.480 but he has not even held horizontally like the woman 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.640 shown in the poster. They're holding him firmly vertically. Yeah, 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.159 and it implies that they usually pick people up vertically 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:50.880 because they got to pop the head off, so they're 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:52.719 going to be going around, you know, kind of like 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.280 around the neck near the top anyway. Nothing about this 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.640 poster also, I would point out, suggests that the movie 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.440 has to do with mountains or mountain climbing, which it does. Next, 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.400 there is the copy on the poster. It says, the 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:13.360 Nightmare Terror of the Slithering Eye that unleashed agonizing horror 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:18.000 on a screaming world. Now, on one hand, I'm hesitant 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.719 to nitpick because I myself completely lose the ability to 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.320 write with any style when what's needed is some kind 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.719 of marketing or promotional copy. I just kind of freeze 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.400 up mentally there. But this is too wordy. Not every 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.360 now needs a modifier, but more to the substance of 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.560 what they're trying to say with taglines like this that 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.919 unleashes agonizing horror on a screaming world. This got me 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:51.840 thinking about how titles and taglines and plot descriptions of 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.520 horror and sci fi movies from the nineteen fifties display 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:03.400 an incredibly strong trend of plot scope misrepresentation. By that, 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.719 I mean like the actual plot and the events of 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:11.560 the film are incredibly local and small ball, but the 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.600 title and the description imply a feeling like the end 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.680 of the movie Independence Day, where it's the alien Horde 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.960 against a coordinated attack by the entire planet Earth. And 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.600 usually in these movies, only a few characters are involved 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.920 or presumably even aware of the events of the story. 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.680 Probably the whole thing takes place within a five mile radius. 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.600 That's usually the case with these Roger Korman movies and stuff. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.000 And yet the movie will be called the Monster that 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:39.520 conquered the Planet Earth. 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.360 Yeah, like it conquered the world. As a classic example 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.480 of this, as we discussed in the show, it basically 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:45.920 conquers the Tri County area. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.760 Yeah, but it's like bigger than just those few examples. 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.400 It happens over and over again. The actual story is local, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:59.280 but the title suggests a world world spanning events. And 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.600 I'm kind of cure curious about this, Like, why did 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.560 advertisers always want to make it seem like the plot 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.440 had big implications involving millions of people. There's nothing wrong 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.400 with small stories. Small stories that affect only a handful 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.800 of characters can be just as thrilling. In fact, I 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.160 would argue it's easier to make a small scale story thrilling. 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.000 Was there actually any evidence to suggest that drive in 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.640 audiences would always prefer the plot of an alien monster 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.000 movie to involve the entire world. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.800 This is an interesting question. I imagine some folks have dug 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:36.559 into this. There might be some sort of a Cold 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:41.760 War read on the ramifications here. But yeah, but I 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.480 do certainly agree with you that like the lower stakes, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.320 the localized stakes can certainly be just as thrilling. And 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.600 I think many of these movies are not nearly like 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:57.320 incidentally having like a low stakes, like small hometown invasion angle, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.920 like that's the kind of thing that people can relate to, 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.120 like the aliens are coming here, the zombies are coming here. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.160 It is actually what makes the story work in the 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.040 cases where it does work. I mean not to say 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.760 there are some movies from this period that there are 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.199 more kind of world stage in terms of their actual mechanics. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.640 I think, you know, The Day the Earth Stood Still 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.480 is more kind of a world stage movie involving those 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.800 big stakes, but a lot of them, yeah, they're actually 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.000 quite local, and when they work, they work because they're local. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.200 They set the scope of the plot correctly to the 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.280 ambitions of the story they're going to tell. But then 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.840 the other thing I was going to ask is I 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.440 think the answer to this question is more clear, But 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.360 I was thinking specifically with these lower budget movies. If 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:46.440 they thought audiences wanted a huge story with global implications, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.200 why did they not actually write a story like that? 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.600 Why did they make these local stories? I think the 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.160 answer there is just got to be budget, right, Like 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.240 the bigger story requires more actors, probably more sets. And 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.800 so I think you sometimes see these movies trying to 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.680 bridge the gap by having the direct plot be very 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.480 local with a small number of characters. But like the well, 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.680 they'll have a character like placing a phone call to 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.080 a general in Washington, you know, to like relay the 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.160 events or something as if that that kind of gets 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.040 you halfway to the feeling of world spanning events. 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.360 Yeah, throwing a few phone call, throw in a little 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.920 stock footage, and you're good to go. News footage as well. 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.400 Oh that's a good one, yes, yeah. 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.600 Yeah, Like you know, a great example of this is 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.040 Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, you know. Yeah, they actually 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.680 pull a number of levers in that picture to really 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.160 drive home the international scope of the of the threat. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.520 That's a really good point. Yeah. So, anyway, I was 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.000 thinking about this, and I did have another thought back 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.439 on the other side, which is that with a lot 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.440 of these movies, you could make the argument that, well, 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.120 the direct plot doesn't really involve the whole world, there 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.480 are a lot of downstream implications for the whole world. 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.880 Like I was thinking about, how many of these fifties 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.800 alien monster movies essentially have the same basic plot situation, 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.160 and it's that a small group of humans encounter a 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:16.319 some sort of advance team or small contingent of alien invaders, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.400 usually just a single alien individual, with the idea that 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.360 if this one alien monster is not defeated, it will 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.640 pave the way for a full scale invasion and takeover 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.200 of Earth. So even though the actual plot you're seeing 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.720 in the movie is small and local, it presages a 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.800 global conflict. And yet in this case, I've been promised 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.600 by the poster that the world will be screaming, not 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.320 just that a guy named Hans will be a couple 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.920 of other great things about this poster. I love posters 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.719 that try to make you feel like your life might 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.199 be in physical danger by seeing the film. This one 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:58.600 says warning, if you've ever been hypnotized, do not come alone. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.959 I like that, and that's that's that's some William Castle 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:03.559 will be proud. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.520 Uh huh also we get the like a second tagline, 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.040 as if the first one wasn't good enough. We see 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:15.200 a man dissolves ellipsis, and out of the oozing mist 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:20.320 comes the hungry eye, slave to the demon brain. How 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.360 well does that describe the movie? That's interesting because it 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.800 those are all words that would describe things in the movie, 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.680 but in this sentence they refer to the wrong things. 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.959 This is back when they would employ poets to compose 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.880 a short poem that could go on the poster that 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.080 that speaks to, you know, some theme or a particular 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:42.040 scene from the picture. 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.480 That's right. And then final thing on the poster. We 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.439 get a DCA release again this Distributors Corporation of America, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.240 and it's uh, it promises that this is the company 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:53.319 that brought you rodin. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.680 I mean, come on, yeah yeah. And then then also 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.440 star Forrest Tucker's name is in red letters. Really, you know, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.960 going after that F Troop audience, make sure they make 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:05.840 it in for the picture. 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:07.840 I don't even know what that refers to. What is 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:08.320 F Troop? 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.920 F Troop was a TV show that Forrest Tucker was on. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.840 Oh okay, I have questions about what you're supposed to 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.760 get out of Forrest Tucker in this movie. He's not 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.120 bad in it, but he is. He's such a roast beef, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:21.560 you know. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.079 Yeah, Yeah, we'll definitely talk about his performance. But I 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.400 think in general, it's the nineteen fifties, there's an interstellar threat. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.040 You need a tall, strong man to potentially lean your 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.320 head on, and that's where Forrest s Tucker comes in. 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.080 Yes, Now, all of this said, I actually think The 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.920 Crawling Eye is not bad. It is in my opinion. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:45.800 I wonder if you agree, Rob, This is one of 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.280 the better drive in sci fi monster movies of the era. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:54.199 I found it quite engrossing, not boring, with a lot 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.120 of the same kind of goofy character tropes you often 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.960 see in these films, but with some pretty good dialogue 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:04.280 and some intrigue, some actually quite scary moments, especially with 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.480 like the zombie assassins later on and the scenes in 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.000 the cabin up on the mountain and stuff. There's some 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:12.679 stuff that actually works as horror. 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.680 Yeah. Absolutely, I think The Crawling Eye is a pretty 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.559 solid picture. It works better as the trollingberg terror though 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.360 again because it's ultimately that sort of film. There's a 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.280 lot of intrigue, a lot of mystery. It gives you 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.760 some things to think about leading up to the monster battles, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:31.640 which again is it's only going to be the last 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.000 ten to fifteen minutes of the picture, and at that 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.440 point they do attempt to pull out all the stops. 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.120 Yes, And regarding pulling out the stops in terms of 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.200 the visual effects, I want to say also, this has 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.280 got to be one of the glorioust films I have 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:50.240 ever seen from the nineteen fifties, some actually rather shocking gristle. 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.240 The scene I was thinking of is when they pull 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.160 the geology professor Douhurst out from under the bed and 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.280 you just see a bloody stump on his neck. You 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.120 don't see other fifties movies like this. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:08.000 Yeah, yeah, I thought that the gore was shocking, you know, 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:09.360 certainly for the nineteen fifties. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.880 As for the monster design, this is one that has 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:18.880 gone down through the ages as a widely mocked monster design, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.120 and I do the design is indeed hilarious, like the 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.600 effectively scary moments sort of dry up after the monster's 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.880 true form is revealed. But also I really admire this monster. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.840 It's not hilarious in the attack of the the eye 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:40.080 creatures way like that. It's hilarious in its shoddiness. This 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:45.000 is hilarious in its exquisite detail. I really admire when 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.920 movies of this era would commit to a fully realized, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.640 absolutely insane monster anatomy like we get here, rather than 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.160 trying to like tone it down, make it maybe look 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.960 more tasteful or plausible, take less risks. No, no, you fool, 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.680 get weirder, risk more, And they absolutely did here. This 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.480 is a this is a swinging for the fence's monster design, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.320 and it looks weird, and yes, it looks funny, but 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:12.360 it is it makes the movie. 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.360 Yeah, absolutely, I really like the monster design here, and 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.160 I agree that. I don't know. On one hand, I 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.840 certainly agree that people have laughed at it over the years, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.000 and we'll get into some of the reasons why. And 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.360 you know, I made sure to point it out to 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.440 people in my household so that they could laugh at 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.120 it as well. But I don't know. I don't that 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:32.880 I didn't think it was that funny. I thought it 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.560 was pretty effect like. It looks real, like I feel 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.520 like it's a real monster. And if I'm laughing at it, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.440 I'm not laughing at it because it's an effect, but 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.640 I'm like mocking an alien life form. 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.000 It's just funny that aliens look this way. 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.600 Yeah, I mean it's some of it, to be clear. 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.880 Some of the shots are shot here looking than others. 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.880 But like that main shot of the crawling eye coming 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.280 directly at you, I think it's pretty amazing looking. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:00.880 The smoke coming up around it. 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.080 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a solid sequence, and that's 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.600 one of the reasons they use it several times like that. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.320 I also like how many different themes are thrown against 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.720 the wall in this movie. I think it keeps the 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.359 plot feeling kind of fresh, the fact that it's not 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:21.320 just an alien invasion movie. We get themes of mountaineering, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:28.280 mysterious fog, psychic powers in esp international intrigue kind of espionage, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:33.240 like themes Witchcraft and Resurrection of the Dead. There's there's 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.800 a lot of stuff going into the stew Yeah. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.040 A lot of times in nineteen fifties films, there's this 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.480 feeling of a very straight laced world and then there 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.840 is the strange element that is the threat. And here 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.040 there are enough of strange elements that kind of create 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.960 a world itself that feels a little off kilter from 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.119 the buttoned up world we might expect to encounter. The 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.560 psychic aspects of the plot particularly interest me because while 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:02.760 the sisters that will get into here while they are entertainers, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:08.040 one of them does have psychic abilities, and the reality 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.840 of psychic phenomena in the film feels widely accepted. I 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.280 don't know to what extent this is just kind of 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.359 an accident of the writing, or if this was a 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.280 part of their vision for it, but this would seem 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.240 to be a world where psychic phenomena is legitimate, but 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.720 also perhaps not widely understood or certainly capitalized upon. 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.119 I think in the nineteen fifties there were probably a 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:34.280 lot of people who generally thought that among those in 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:39.639 the know, parapsychology phenomena were widely accepted, that it was 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.760 to some people thought of as a kind of a 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.240 kind of thing that the elites were just aware of. 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.640 That parapsychology really is onto something. There really is something 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.080 strange going on. There are powers we don't quite understand, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.760 and that the people at the highest levels of society, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.040 the real operators there, all know about and accept this. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.199 Yeah, yeah, I think a pretty good read on it, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.639 and certainly we do have historical evidence for some of 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.960 the things that were being researched, either in the military 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.720 or by groups adjacent to the military at the time, 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.920 just to at the very least see if there was 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.480 anything to them. But yeah, but it's one of the 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.600 things I did like about the picture, this idea that 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:24.800 like nobody was like, Oh, those silly psychics, what can 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.640 they teach us about this this real world threat. They 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.479 were like, I don't know, get the psychics in here, 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:31.760 let's see what they can figure out. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.160 Well. Yeah, and I would say also within the structure 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.160 of the movie, there's no real way that the psychics, 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.880 that the main one psychic character could be trying to 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.520 like scam anybody. There's like nothing she's going to get 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.640 out of trying to trick anybody into thinking she's psychic. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:53.280 She's just like clearly experiencing some kind of information download 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:57.159 from extraterrestrial sources, and this is having an effect primarily 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.040 on her more than on anybody else, And so the 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.760 other characters are trying to be helpful, and yeah, you 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.720 don't see any like undue hostility toward her or anything. 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.080 But I also like the scene where they talk about 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.680 how the sisters used to be tricksters that they started 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.919 off doing their psychic mind reading act by using a 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.359 code where they would just be you know, sleight of 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:21.200 hand type stuff. 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:21.439 Ye. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.040 But then they discovered through their career that oh, just 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.879 so happens one of us actually is fully psychic and 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.720 we don't need to use tricks anymore. Yeah, which I 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.800 thought that was interesting because that almost suggests it's not 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.480 a that in the world of this movie, psychic powers 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:41.879 are not something you're born with, but maybe something you 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.960 develop through training. That somehow by playing the part of 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.840 a psychic that is how she actually developed the psychic powers. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:50.600 Yeah. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.720 Yeah, Anyway, I thought maybe we should hear just do 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.159 a basic plot summary and then we can refer we 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.000 can know what we're talking about when we refer back 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.720 to things throughout the connections section and stuff. So the 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.520 basic plot is that you've got the Trollenberg Mountain in Switzerland. 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.320 This has long been a popular destination for sightseers and 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.760 mountain climbers. It's got a mountain side observatory that you 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.320 can reach by suspended cable car, a selection of well 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.639 established routes to the summit, and a cozy village in 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.600 the foothills, offering accommodations for travelers. They don't really play 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.800 up anything in this movie, like, oh, you know there 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.240 are legends about this mountain going back centuries that you 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.199 know there's something evil afoot. It really is more like, 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.800 this is a beautiful, well known mountain and lately something 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:38.600 weird has started happening here. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.679 Yeah, it's not something old that is threatening the folks. 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.440 It's something entirely new. 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:46.560 Right, And what is that new thing? It is a 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:51.120 series of grizzly accidents in which climbers have disappeared without 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.240 a trace, or in a few cases, have been found 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:59.760 with their heads torn off. So in the action sort 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.520 of be with an American agent of the United Nations. 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.199 That's an interesting main character here, a guy who's like 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:12.440 a un fixer, basically named Alan Brooks, who has been 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.679 sent to meet with the observatory's lead scientists to investigate 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.760 this phenomenon. Also visiting Trollenberg are a pair of sisters 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.840