The Crawling Monster

The Creeping Terror

Despite being more lethargic than a snail on Quaaludes, a shambling alien monster that resembles a giant shag rug carpet somehow manages to devour a bunch of folks in a sleepy small town. Boy, does this singularly inept blunder wonder possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: Hopelessly ham-fisted (non)direction, ridiculously solemn narration that works mad overtime to keep the sluggish narrative pushing ahead, chintzy (far from) special effects (you can clearly see feet underneath the creature throughout!), poorly synced recorded after the fact sound, a strident cornball score, pathetic acting from a lame no-name cast, draggy pacing, extremely plain cinematography, and flatly staged monster attack set pieces (the jaw-dropping sequence with the laughable thing treating a community dance hall shindig as a buffet rates as the definite gut-busting highlight). Moreover, this terrifically terrible turkey was ahead of its time with an early example of the have sex and die cliché that would become a staple ingredient of 80's slasher fare (the monster not only gobbles up a bikini-clad babe who was making out with her boyfriend in the woods, but also eats several libidinous teen couples on lovers' lane). Best of all, the pitiful hairy beast moves like its doped up on anti-depressant drugs, yet people are usually too petrified with fear at the sight of it to run (or even walk) away from it. A complete cruddy riot.

...but "The Creeping Terror" is far, far worse. An unintentional comedy starring the most mind-meltingly ridiculous "monster" (a.k.a. a pile of dirty blankets and slinkies); a deranged, rambling narrator; and a sleepy-eyed, half-baked sheriff and his vapid wife, this movie (and I use the term very loosely) is hilarious even without the "MST3k" gang- I'm glad they included the uncut version on the "MST3k volume 1" DVD, as I can finally watch this undercooked turkey in all its, er, glory. Q: "My God, what is it!?" A: It's the worst freaking movie ever made. Ever.

Where else but in the good ole U.S.A. could a group of people make a movie like THE CREEPING TERROR, get it shown in theatres and on TV (repeatedly), and people admit to liking it publicly? I've loved this flick since the first time I saw it back in the 70's on late night TV and still hold it in high regard as one of the worst movies I will ever love. The carpet and vacuum hose monster that moves at a mall walkers pace seems to have no problem getting victims to into it's mouth, not just to be eaten but to be analyzed and biological info sent back to it's home planet?!? A.J. Nelson must have been dropped one too many times as a baby to make something this bad... and hilarious!

There's no denying it: this is indeed a terrible, terrible movie. Director / star Vic Savage blunders his way through this hall of infamy turkey in memorable fashion. It moves just as slowly as its title monster, and when I say slowly, I mean that the Mummy could easily overtake this thing. And since the monster - with its oddly suggestive looking mouth - can't do much of anything on its own, its nubile young victims pretty much have to willingly climb inside the thing! It arrives on Earth in a crashed saucer, and the local authorities - including a young, newlywed deputy (Savage himself) - bumble and fumble along while always remaining way behind our lethargic creature. Even at 77 minutes long, the viewer can REALLY feel the padding on this silly, silly production - for example, it's a '60s movie, so there's gotta be some dancing. The music score, mostly consisting of an organ, may well bring tears to the audiences' eyes, it's that bad. The acting? Just as abysmal as one could expect. In any event, it must be said that the stories of the making of "The Creeping Terror" are more interesting than the movie itself! Viewers can hardly fail to notice that most of the soundtrack consists of narration - ridiculous, priceless narration. Stories conflict - either the audio to the movie was lost or it was never properly recorded in the first place - so alternate takes were used. Cast members apparently had to buy their way into the movie, to help fund it! And, supposedly, a better looking monster had been built but stolen, so the filmmakers were forced to improvise something new. That's not to leave out the fact that Savage, by some accounts, was a pretty sleazy character. Admittedly, this may be nothing but garbage if you look at it objectively, but still, if you do have a soft spot in your heart but such cinematic abominations, it does have a certain Bad Movie Charm going for it. It would be impossible not to laugh at it at least some of the time. Five out of 10.

...and that certainly isn't saying much. Interplanetary monster devours people who are too stupid to run away. Like BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER, and unlike PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, it's too annoying to be entertaining. To add to the sheer stupidity, half of it is narrated, just because some lunkhead lost the sound equipment. Not a total loss, however. The most entertaining aspect of this movie are the negative reviews trashing this movie on IMDb. Now that's entertainment! Rating: A redundant 0 out of *****

The Creeping Terror, where to begin? If you thought Hal Warren, Jerry Warren, Larry Buchanan, Ed Wood or Coleman Francis were inept, well everyone let me introduce to you Art J. Nelson, director of this fun flick. Dialogue? Well it's hard to find, we got a narrator instead who tell us what the actors are doing or talking about. It's important because you may not know what the actors are discussing about. Monster? Well steal a Chinese dragon from your local Chinatown community and glue carpet and shop vac hoses to it (don't forget a mouth hole) Hero? Well get the mutant offspring of Chris Isaac and KD Lang to be our hero. Choreography? Well your local high school teachers group are having a mid-afternoon dance (big band music with lots of horns and saxophones all re-created by two women playing a piano and drums)And don't forget the military who stole their younger siblings cap guns. Put em all together and you have all this complicated story of a monster who flies millions of light years across space.....to eat people. Look there been times when I've really been hungry for something that I don't have in the food pantry but I don't drive half way across the country just for a quick snack (which humans are for the monster since it can't seem to get full) But again I'm not a Chinese dragon. The film seems to be easily found on DVD thanks to MST3K, no idea where to get the original version. Enjoy at your own risk!!

you people are nuts-this is a solid 10 for pure entertainment value. and i can say this even though this movie almost killed me! when i first saw this movie at my college dorm i was laughing so hard that i actually fell off the couch gasping for air! and i was not alone. usually the jocks would come in and try to change the channel but not this time! people would walk in to by a soda or snack and ended up sittting down to watch. soon the tv room was packed-standing room only! and this was on a sunny saturday afternoon-and everyone was hollering in laughter. never before or since did this happen, and when i ran this with 'plan nine' in a so-bad-its-great double feature-creeping terror won hands down as the king of bad cinema. so, forget these idiots. if you ever get a chance to see this do it! i only wish it were rereleased-especially on dvd!

A few days ago, I wrote that The Skydivers was one of the two or three worst movies I had ever seen. Well, I had completely forgotten about The Creeping Terror. This is the Grandaddy of Bad Movies. Forget what you've heard about films like Manos or Plan 9 - there not even in the same ballpark with this pile of llama dung. The ineptitude on display is mind boggling. The story concerns an alien monster who has landed on Earth and begins feeding on the populace. The monster resembles an old, large carpet with five or six guys underneath. The monster has no arms, so he must get his mouth (I suppose it could be called a mouth) close to his prey in order to eat them. In one of the most ridiculous scenes ever filmed, the female victim can be seen actually climbing up into the creatures mouth. The monster moves slower than any other creature I've ever seen. The creature from The Blob is greased lightening compared with this monster. And the people in the movie seem willing to oblige the slow moving carpet. They look absolutely silly just sitting and waiting to be consumed. One of my favorite scenes is the face-off between the Shag Monster and the Army (here, the Army consists of six guys in the back of a pickup truck). As the trained soldiers move in with their toy guns at the ready, they are careful to stay in a very tight pack. Just when they least suspect it, the monster charges (at the breakneck speed of 0.5 mph) and crushes the tightly packed soldiers. What drama! The movie is not without lessons for those who pay attention. For some inexplicable reason, in the middle of the film we are treated to a 10 minute lecture on how life changes after marriage. The narration is straight out of one of those 1950s school films. As bad as this movie is, and it just may be the worst I've ever seen, this is actually my second viewing of The Creeping Terror. I'm a glutton for this kind of stuff.

So badly made that a portion of the soundtrack is a nonsensical narration describing the action on the screen! In one scene of dance-hall devastation, you can actually see the person inside this mutated, slithering vacuum-cleaner bag pulling the "helpless", "struggling" (struggling to get inside the "monster") victim into the maw of the amazing whatzit! Check out the nifty folk Hootenanny and sing along with the dorks before they climb into the Dirt Devil from Death Valley and discover that it's really the Kingston Trio taking revenge on the public for their waning career!