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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Creeping Terror (1964)

Starring Vic Savage, Shannon O'Neil, William Thourlby, John Caresio, Norman Boone
Directed by A.J. Nelson
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

An alien spaceship sets down near a small Southern town and ravenous monsters aboard set out to swallow alive whatever human victims they come across.

This film's been ridiculed for years, and let's face it, even for a movie made by amateurs on a shoestring budget, it's pretty rough.  Largely filmed without audible dialogue, probably due to the unavailability of sound equipment, a narrator explains to us what's going on, while the story focuses on Savage's small-town sheriff (aka director A.J. Nelson), who spends most of the film not doing much of anything except making out with his on-screen wife.  The alien creatures, often dubbed "the carpet monsters," are far from convincing, but are certainly unique, and their swallowing of people whole by pulling the actors within the creature's orifice becomes even more amusing when they seem to have trouble finishing the job.  Frederick Kopp's eclectic musical score probably reaches its high point with some unexpectedly catchy but cheesy rhythms for a sequence in a dance hall, in which a number of the dancing patrons seem to need many more lessons.  As with many amateur productions, the film isn't exactly edited with care, leaving in a number of tedious scenes with no relevance to the plot.  Still, for all its faults, and despite Savage/Nelson's reputation as an odious individual, there's definitely some entertainment value to be had here.

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