200th Post

Based on a 1956 UK television series, the 1958 film, The Trollenberg Terror was directed by Quentin Lawrence. Distributed by Distributors Corporation of America, it stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne and Jennifer Jayne. It was also the first film to be mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000.

At the remote Alpine village of Trollenberg, something is killing off mountain climbers, which journalist Philip Truscott (Payne) is investigating. He finds an army of one-eyed, tentacle aliens who hide themselves in a radioactive cloud which must be taken care of by American scientist Alan Brooks (Tucker).

This is everything you’d ever want in a B-Movie. It’s got bad acting, a plot that tries to come off as complex but ends up being incredibly simplistic, and sets that seem borrowed from a pre-war silent film.

The acting is naturally terrible. Honestly though, this seems odd on Tucker’s part since he had roles in good films and television shows like F-Troop, Sands of Iwo Jima, and The Yearling. However, that could possibly be attributed to the bad, bad writing by Jimmy Sangster. But there is one good aspect. Jayne was able to halfway pull off terror and screaming. Maybe she knew the prospects of the film beforehand.

The plot tries to be complex. Aliens enveloping a mountain in radioactive air to hide themselves and killing their foes by freezing them in fog. Meanwhile they’ve mentally enslaved some of the locals and a journalist and scientist have to find out what’s going on. Problem is, they’re taken out in a relatively simplistic way: firebombing. Could be worse. They could have water as their one weakness.

And then there’s the sets. It’s set in Switzerland, but obviously filmed on a backlot in the UK. There’s the oft returned to shot of the mountain that the aliens are on. But since the production company didn’t have the funds to get a shot of a real mountain, they constantly show a matte painting of one.

The Milestone category is starting anew. The 100^th post was a classic film, but now, the milestones are going to be just B movies. It doesn’t make sense to have Seven Samurai in the category anymore as it’s in a completely different league. So, The Trollenberg Terror is the new #1 for the category, but since it toes the line between plain ol bad and so bad it’s good, it just narrowly misses the Edge of Satisfaction.