The Creeping Terror

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 are some movies that insult your intelligence, that present you with inane dialogue, bad direction, non-existent plots, and sloppy acting. Some movies contain one or more of these factors...some contain all of them in varying degrees. But in The Creeping Terror, each factor is included and ramped up to a Spinal Tap 11. The Creeping Terror is the worst movie I have ever seen. It takes badness to a level I had previously thought unattainable. Motion pictures of this anti-calibre (Manos: The Hands Of Fate is another example, and even THAT is better than this ultra-turkey) are so mind-bendingly awful they achieve a kind of transcendent brilliance that is impossible to describe in words. It takes real effort to make a movie this bad, folks. Anyway, the 'plot'. Reversed stock footage of an ICBM or Mercury rocket crashlands in Angel County, California, and disgorges a hideous man-eating creature that resembles a squashed fish finger with a camo print bridal train. The pantomime meance crawls with painful slowness about the countryside, killing people by somehow encouraging them to not run away and actually force themselves into its' bottomless gullet. As the alien snacks on the populace, the government tries to keep the threat under wraps, while assigning a scientist who is younger than one might think, an army commander with a troop of six men and a newly-wed deputy sheriff to combat the invasion. Legend has it that most (if not all) of the soundtrack of The Creeping Terror was lost after shooting was completed, and if this is true, then the loss was a truly inspired accident. In the place of 99% of the dialogue, we get *incredibly* earnest narration. Narration that swerves giddily off-topic at any moment, mind you. For instance, in the midst of the non-action, the voiceover guy and the movie stop to deliver a bizarre homily on the virtues of marriage. This is accompanied by a scene where the deputy and his new bride make out like demons in front of the former's pal. Creepy is an apt word, especially with a title like this movie has. Voiceover Guy keeps you amused as the flick staggers through its' short-but-interminable duration, detailing what our heroes are discussing as they mouth the words. Some events that need explanation are not narrated, others that do not are. There's no pattern to the use of voiceiver, any more than there is a pattern to the plot. But it gets worse. Who can go past the thermometer scene, in which a soon-to-be-eaten mother takes her baby's temperature THAT way? Thankfully, the act is implied rather than shown, but one must wonder what the scriptwriter was thinking...or on...when he wrote that part. 50s and 60s monster flicks always have some sort of sexual moral on show, and Terror is no exception. Most of the carpet monster's victims are eaten while they're necking. Or dancing. Yes, the hysterically drawn-out jive dance massacre near the end of the film (which comes complete with irrelevant greaser fistfight) shows us clearly that if you're going to boogie on down to the devil's music in the mid-60s, you should fully expect to be consumed by a panto slug from Venus. There are so many fantastically awful bits in the movie I could mention...the death of Fat Grandpa, the anti-tree rage attack said fat person's grandson has shortly before the slaying, the tootling music that replaces sound for most of the movie's last third, the scenes where the army guys pretend to fire their toy guns at the alien...and the truly demented scene where the deputy sheriff ineffectually beats the control panels of the UFO with his gun...and later a steel pipe... for an uninterrupted two minutes without the slightest success. The concluding narration, where Dr Bradford's hope for the future of Humanity is detailed by the narrator, rivals or beats any of the crazy speeches in the films of Russ Meyer or Ed Wood. Students of fetishism may see some significance in the way the director lingers on shots of female legs sticking out of the alien's mouth. Demented beyond words, this is a Grade AAAA+ ultrabomb that makes Plan From Outer Space look like Dawn Of The Dead. Lovers of bad cinema must see it! There is NO film worse, trust me. Oh, and I must add that the deputy sheriff's wife's exceptional beauty makes me wonder why *this* was the best movie she could manage to get signed on for.

What really sets this movie apart from other bad films is the makers' utter lack of embarrassment at the disastrous technical execution of the film. It isn't just that the monster is an old carpet, the exterior of the spaceship appears to be a garage door, and the editing is so incongruous it seems almost abstract. These shameless idiots actually lost or destroyed or never made a soundtrack, so they substituted bad narration (complete with weird pseudo-psychological non-sequitor explanations of characters' motivations), random dubbing of snatches of dialogue ("My god! What is it?"), even more random music (startlingly awful music) and under-mixed sound effects. You must see it. It's so bad it commands your attention, but the pacing is so slow it can only really be watched in fast forward.

With its awesome ineptitude, 1963's "The Creeping Terror" can lay claim to be among the most beloved bad movies of all time, though producer/director A. J. Nelson (actually star Vic Savage) deserves no credit due to his swift abandonment of the project once funds ran out. The opening credits feature a swirling background shot taken from Steve McQueen's "The Blob," followed by a downed spacecraft yielding two carpet monsters, one escaping to terrorize Simi Valley, the military keeping tabs on its still caged mate (only an exterior is shown, actors crawling under a mockup to view a dimly lit yet fairly ordinary facsimile of screens, dials and buttons). The human interest story with Savage and real life spouse Shannon O'Neil pales compared to the hilarity that ensues with each creature attack, the camera representing the monster's POV as the victims stand their ground and watch its approach. First up are two lovers, the louse of a boyfriend hightailing it to leave his bikini babe as breakfast, continuously screaming as she enters the bobbing and weaving maw of the beast; a housewife bids her husband farewell in the morning before hanging up the wash, gobbled up off screen while her baby cries; a grandson vanishes as chubby granddad babbles in a brook; a group of 12 on a sunny picnic are quick to get swallowed whole, their fearless leader fighting off the invader with his acoustic guitar, which would never sit well with John Lennon; the big dance hall sequence lasting 11 minutes, the creature entering the building after seven endless minutes of juking and jiving (one guy could be mistaken for Jerry Lewis on quaaludes); Lover's Lane sees its occupants worrying less about contraception than survival (this lasts six minutes, only a solitary car driving off); finally, army sharpshooters get too close to their target, going down like dominos with one soldier's feet up in the air waiting for the director to yell 'Cut!' The original monster costume was not stolen (confiscated for lack of payment by the man who built it), nor was the soundtrack lost as it was intended to be post dubbed after shooting wrapped, the damn thing unspooling like a silent movie with its constant organ motifs. The obscene looking carpet creature is kept mostly off camera for the first half, making an already difficult sit a real chore, but once unleashed it's impossible not to laugh, not so much at the beast but its comatose victims, who display little affinity for staying alive by hightailing it out of there. The first female victim is clad in a fetching bikini, the camera ogling her cute little caboose and long slim legs in almost slow motion (this was even before the Beach Party series kicked off), a pattern that would be repeated at the dance hall, from shimmy and shake to quiver and quake, with one unfortunate miss losing her top after being pushed aside by a rough customer. Lover's Lane finds the make out crowd too occupied doing imitations of Siamese twins joined at the mouth to notice a huge invader doing its bit by humping cars! Since director/producer A. J. Nelson alias Vic Savage vanished before filming was completed (May-June 1963), the final product was assembled by actor William Thourlby, playing a major role as Dr. Bradford, who put some of his own money into the production and was determined to earn back his investment (curiously, Nelson retains his editor credit). It's not likely that any theatrical distribution took place before its belated debut in late 1975 (mere months after the demise of its disgraced director at age 41), as part of Gold Key's 20 film Scream Theater television package, among the 16 Crown International cheapies to earn some notoriety for their relative obscurity.

I figured that this movie got a lot of its "10" ratings from the MST3K version, but this is without question, the WORST movie I have ever seen. The voice-over play-by-play while a conversation is going on is hilarious!! The advice on married life (Officer "Third Wheel"), the cowardly boyfriend, and the lack of footspeed or common sense that the victims implore are memorable moments. And of course, the monster itself....an overgrown carpet sample!! Wow. My favorite scene: the bad edit of the couple's momentum after they slam on the brakes. Absolutely atrocious.