The Creeping Terror (1964 TV Movie) User Reviews

"Did anyone know how to run in the 50's?"

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 1/10 · 21 May 2004]

Another Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic, The Creeping Terror, oh, how this "film" makes me laugh like no other. This is the movie that you hear about that was made in the old days that had the worst effects in the world, the horrible acting, the plot holes that stretch from here to Albania, and the God awful story that just makes you wonder what the writers must have been smoking to think that it was gold in their pocket. Everything that is wrong about this movie, you can imagine it, it's just ridicules.

A newlywed deputy, Martin Gordon, encounters an alien spacecraft that has crash landed in fictional Angel County in California. A large, slug like, monster emerges from the side of an impacted spaceship. A second one, still tethered inside, kills a forest ranger and the sheriff when they independently enter the craft to investigate. Martin, now temporary sheriff, joins his wife Brett; Dr. Bradford, a renowned scientist; and Col. James Caldwell, a military commander and his men to fight the creature. Meanwhile the monster stalks the countryside, devouring a girl in a bikini, picnickers at a hootenanny, Grandpa Brown and his grandson while fishing, a housewife hanging the laundry, the patrons at the community dance hall, and couples in their cars at lovers' lane. The protagonists ultimately deduce that the monsters are not intelligent. They are mindless biological-sample eaters. The bio-analysis data is microwaved back to the probe's home planet through the spaceship. At the end of the film, both creatures are destroyed, but not before the signal is sent, boding ill for the human race, but perhaps a threat that may not come for another two million years. The galaxy to which the transmission was aimed is a million light years away, in the opinion of the dying scientist character.

Seriously, my favorite scene will always be the dance hall scene, this HUGE sluggish slow thing that goes into the local dance manages to eat everybody? Not only that but randomly a fight breaks out between the people for no reason. For some reason people are screaming at each other vs. just trying to escape the monster. I love also how everyone that gets eaten by this creature doesn't really run, they just stand there waiting for the monster to eat them. As a episode for Mystery Science Theater 3000 this is a true classic of it's own, I highly recommend it, if you're looking for the ultimate laugh, go ahead and see it, Mike and the robots just add the commentary that you're pretty much thinking and just needs to be said out loud. This is one of the best bad movies ever made, it's so much fun to make fun of and I'm sure that your parents will deny that they ever existed during the 1950's.

1/10

It Moves, It Eats, It Mates With Cars

[aesgaard41 · 2/10 · 23 March 2001]

There was only one possible reason for this movie to be made and that was to see women's rears stuck up into the air as they went down the monster's gullet. Just to keep from being called a pervert, the director tosses the monster some male actors and extras he didn't want to pay. Monster ? It's a living shag rug with several other dirty shag rugs sewn together. At one point, it even snags on a car and the "puppeteers and victims" inside have to hump a car to get freed. In fact, you know its going to be a bad movie because it requires a narrator to explain what's going on as you watch it. Actually, the narration is supposed to cover up a lost soundtrack; any sane director would have called it off at that point. The "attacks" are pretty ridiculous; the thing moves so slow that everyone has well enough time to run, and it makes so much noise there's no way it can sneak up on you. These people want to be eaten so the monster dutifully obliges. This movie may have been made just to show off the rolling hills and scenery of Lake Tahoe where it was filmed. After this movie, you'd think no one would ever go there again.

They had no shame

[lorne-2 · 1/10 · 19 May 1999]

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.

Hands down, THE worst motion picture of all time - I loved it!

[straker-1 · 11 April 2004]

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.

THE BEST MAN-EATING SHAG RUG MOVIE EVER MADE...

[bbrasher1 · 1/10 · 24 May 2003]

...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 *****

Forget Manos and Plan 9 - This is the Grandaddy of Bad Movies

[bensonmum2 · 1/10 · 15 February 2005]

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.

Don't Fear The Creeper

[dunmore_ego · 1/10 · 19 November 2005]

Worse than Ed Wood's "Plan 9", worse than Hal Warren's "Manos: The Hands Of Fate", even worse than Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor".

Not having been born when this movie was first released, I can only assume that it died the burbling, cinematic death it wholly deserved, released alongside the likes of "Dr. Strangelove", "Goldfinger" and even such pap as "A Hard Day's Night". Fact is, "The Creeping Terror" would have remained in its Z-Movie graveyard were it not for the notoriety it achieved via its skewering on MST 3K.

A monster from space is a large offcut of shag carpet draped over a few drunk college students, waddling about the countryside "eating" people, victims courteously lining up to step horrifyingly apathetically into its maw (a rug doggy-door on its anterior surface). Oh, the blandly unmitigated terror. Oh.

Auteur director Arthur Nelson (who went on to never make another movie), apparently lost the soundtrack, substituting narration and abominable looping over the "action", elevating the movie to the level of excruciating infomercial.

My only hope is that more educated audiences fifty years from now will be saying the same things about "Pearl Harbor"…

(Movie Maniacs, visit: www.poffysmoviemania.com)

The Worst Movie of ALL-TIME

[The_Man_With_A_Harmonica · 1/10 · 23 August 2005]

Forget Manos, this is without a doubt the worst movie EVER MADE! The incredibly dull monster, bad dubbing, bad acting, annoying narration and lack of narration during parts where you need it, the stupid couples who never learned how to run, the idiot military who cant figure out how to shoot a gun, the unexplained sub plots,no Torgo, EVERYTHING IS WRONG IN THIS MOVIE!! Even watching it on MST3K is nearly impossible, but if you are going to watch it, use Mike and the bots!!

The movie starts with stock footage of a space shuttle lifting playing backwards. A couple and a cop decide to investigate, blah blah blah monster eats people, blah blah blah monster explodes. AVOID THIS FILM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

It's a rug! It's a parade float! It's the creeping terror!

[Hey_Sweden · 5/10 · 4 February 2013]

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.

Wow!! Awesome!!

[khudak_2000 · 1/10 · 3 May 2004]

Guys, I got to tell you, this movie is tremendous. It is the ultimate sci-fi epic. The ultimate tour-de-force!!

slowly puts crack pipe down

I agree with all the other comments. If "Manos" The Hands of Fate is the worst film ever made, this is the number one contender. It doesn't have the hilarious cheese of Hobgoblins, Warrior of the Lost World, or Werewolf (or Werewilf). It is as slow moving and poorly done as you can ever imagine.

This colostomy bag of a movie stars no one, and the actors do nothing. The "creature" is the slowest moving, most ridculously designed monster in movie history. the actors have to crawl into the Creeping terror's mouth themselves. Yes, it that bad!! I won't go over the movie again, just see it for yourself, you will not believe it.

This movie sucks canal water - big time!

[arthel-1 · 1/10 · 7 April 2005]

I usually get a kick out of watching science fiction movies made forty or more years ago, especially those where the inside of the spaceship is so spacious with an enormously large amount of headroom, the astronauts dressed like factory workers, the equipment on board looking hopelessly cumbersome gawky and ineffectual. The story line was usually lame and the special effects usually extremely amateurish and sometimes laughable. But to some extent or other they are good fun to watch and are funny since no sensible person could possibly take such movies seriously. One just sits back and enjoys the ride. There are exceptions, however. Those include movies which unabashedly demonstrate the lowest possible acumen in ALL departments namely plot, story line, quality of cinematography, editing, sound, special effects, props, acting, revealing mistakes etc. A lot of movies are deficient in all of these but most directors make some sort of attempt to ensure some sort of acceptable standard otherwise, why bother, right? The other night I watched TCT on the Drive-In channel and, as the movie progressed, I was scarcely able to really believe what I was looking at. It was rock bottom in ALL departments. It was almost as though the people involved in this movie did not really want to have anything to do with it but they were somehow or other obliged to persevere, to the detriment of the actors, crew and ultimately the audience. The Swiffer, Shag pile..no sorry I mean err umm Monster (yes, that's the word I was looking for), the absolutely superb acting, the incredibly high quality sound track, the really authentic looking spacecraft (later eagerly emulated by the producers of 2001 - A Space Oddyssey), the crack troop of soldiers with their pop guns and water pistols, the Oscar nominated editing work. All these facets were displayed and undertaken at the lowest possible standard. In fact, the producer of this movie must not simply have scraped the bottom of the barrel, he must have looked underneath it!

Whoever it was that conceived and executed this DUNGHEAP of a movie must be severely smitten with such a level of masochism as to warrant their being incarcerated into a lunatic asylum. When they had finished this movie, and then reviewed the pre-release pilot and agreed to circulate it, what on earth went through their heads? How ANYBODY in their right mind could POSSIBLY have thought that this movie had ANY merit whatsoever is mind boggling. Did anybody at the original review REALLY think "Wow, is this ever a GOOD movie. Can't wait to see how it is received!" No cinema that showed it could have possibly felt happy about doing so (the viewpoint that a movie is good because it is so bad did not have prevalence in those days).

A deserved career suicide for ALL concerned.

So bad, its good.

[tony-1 · 9/10 · 7 July 2002]

I agree with another viewer, this is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I must admit I have only seen it once and was with a group of people in a party atmosphere, but we all laughed til it hurt. I would like to know where I can get a copy of this classic.

The Creeping Terror is sublime

[jadedalex · 6/10 · 15 January 2010]

What can you say about a film that makes Ed Wood's 'Plan 9' look like a horror masterpiece?

I say like the french do: 'Magnifique!'

I get a kick out of this film every time I watch it.

Some of my thrills:

The fact that they lost most of the soundtrack is utterly charming. The narration added is often hilarious, especially the attempt at characterization in the Barney/Brett/Martin domestic situation.

Contains one of the scariest scenes ever filmed....the terrifying rectal thermometer episode with the infant ranks up their with Hitchcock's shower scene from 'Psycho'.

The plodding and obvious 'quilt' that is the 'Creeping Terror'. The spectacle of admiring a woman's legs as she is eaten by (or rather crawls into) the monster was a disturbing self- realization for me.

The movie soundtrack is hilarious. The pastoral theme as 'Bobby' chases a lizard and his morbidly obese grandfather is eaten by the 'terror' is lovely.

And is that one hot dance sequence or what? Overweight lovelies shaking their hulking bottoms to a jazzy 'Hold That Tiger' theme. As grandmother looks on, sipping her beer. Party hearty!

It gets a bit tough going by the end. One wishes some of the dialogue had been kept, but I am nit-picking. This is a thoroughly inept and fun time at the cinema.

I am giving all of my 'bad movie' reviews a six, which equals to a 'ten' for a truly fine film. I do this in hopes of raising a bit of interest in these 'classics'. As bad as 'The Creeping Terror' is, I do so look forward to seeing it again.

I can't say the same thing for so many other truly bad movies.

Two thumbs up, and in both of my hands -- rectal thermometers!!!

The absolute worst

[wgviper13 · 1/10 · 4 April 2002]

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.

Brief review

[boris-26 · 4 November 1998]

You think "Plan Nine" was bad? At least Ed Wood had sync sound, and shot the film with the right exposure. This wacky little gem from 1964 is my vote for the worst film ever. A monster (made up of a moldy carpet flung over crawling kids, who are plainly visible) attacks locals in Nevada. Director Art J. Nelson (Who resembles a spaced out Tarantino, and plays the film's hero.) reportingly lost the dialog track to the film, but replaced missing talk with a narrator for driver safety films. Highlights include the carpet guy attacking a high school dance (Monster makes sure he doesn't wreck tables and chairs) the army is called out in one scene (This "army" consists of five guys in helmets being transported in a pick-up truck!) 80 minutes of mindless fun. It's like watching local third graders doing a production of "Bridge On River Kwai"

Completely lacking in any creepiness or terror, instead it is terribly amateurish but provides some unintentional humour

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 14 July 2013]

Other than that you can laugh at how badly done everything is, there is nothing remotely decent let alone good about The Creeping Terror. It is a truly dire movie that while it is unintentionally fun to watch deserves everything bad that has been said about it. Visually, The Creeping Terror is one of the most inept movies there is, the stock footage is clumsily utilised and you question why they were there at all. The editing is some of the worst known to man, making everything slipshod and incoherent, even Space Mutiny's editing wasn't this bad and the editing in that movie is the very meaning of how not to edit a movie. The sets are dull and look like a first timer constructed them, making those in Ed Wood's movies seem award-worthy in comparison. And the creature looks terrible, even worse it has no menace and doesn't even have a personality. There are scenes where the music is the same tune repeated over and over, and sadly it is one of those tunes where it gets irritating very quickly. The dialogue, when there is any, is guaranteed to have you doubled up on the floor, and not because it is legitimately funny but because of how appalling it is, if there was a list of the 20 worst scripts The Creeping Terror would be on there and towards the top. The Creeping Terror makes the extra mistake at being really preachy at the end, which will leave a bad taste in the mouth. The story is equally disastrous, again like the dialogue when there is one it is incredibly contrived. Not to mention dull, so dull in fact it makes Manos seem exciting(and the problems with that were eerily similar to those in this movie). It is a very thin story with lots of filler and no creepy atmosphere or sense of terror whatsoever, if there were scenes that tried those it came across as contrived and predictable instead. The narration is irritating as well, sometimes it just intrudes over everything and other times in some scenes things are so incoherent they're crying out for explanation. The acting is beyond description and in a very bad way, their dialogue and the cardboard archetype excuses the movie has for characters do them no favours though but that doesn't excuse anything at all. All in all, amateurish and just dire, another classic case of the MST3K episode being infinitely better than the movie they're riffing(and they really hit the nail on the head here). 0.5/10, extra half-point only for the good laugh, despite the fact that that good laugh shouldn't have happened in the first place. Bethany Cox

the creeping tapestry

[lee_eisenberg · 1/10 · 18 May 2005]

We've heard of movies that are unintentionally hilarious. "The Creeping Terror" is probably the best example. The title refers to a creature that looks like an over-sized rug lurching around eating anyone who gets in its way. Actually, it doesn't really eat them; they sort of crawl into its mouth. The best scene is when it gets some people in a car: it looks like the Creeping Terror is humping the car. If you fear carpets, this is the movie for you! If really want to see this movie, watch the "MST3K" episode where they watch it. Mike, Servo and Crow affirm that the title character looks like a cross between a carpet and a slug, and naturally have more than a few comments about the car humping scene.

Really Bad, and That's Being Kind

[mrb1980 · 1/10 · 21 July 2017]

People say that "The Giant Claw", "Plan 9 from Outer Space", and similar films represent Grade Z movies and are among the worst ever. Well, those films are great works of cinematic art compared to "The Creeping Terror" which, if it's not the worst movie ever made, is pretty close.

The plot--such as it is--involves the landing of an alien spacecraft with two monsters aboard. One of the monsters, which resembles a hairy, lumpy carpet with a kind of head, gets loose and is soon ingesting all the humans it encounters. The military (unsuccessfully) attacks it before finally destroying it with hand grenades, while the local law enforcement and a "concerned scientist" looks on. Not to worry, though--another monster takes its place. The ending poses the question "can earth be saved?", and I was beginning to wonder the same thing by that point.

The interesting thing is that the creeping terror monster is so slow and awkward that it shouldn't really be able to catch any humans at all. Anyone who walks normally would be able to escape it, but it consumes everyone at a dance hall, a woman hanging her laundry, and several soldiers. The soldiers all bunch together and charge the monster from the front (it eats people using some kind of mouth) but alas, they're almost all gobbled up. Wow.

The movie has no dialogue, only ominous narration throughout. The only really recognizable actor is William Thourlby, who was once a Marlboro Man and later provided Richard Nixon with fashion advice. The movie actually is rather enjoyable if you want to watch something with almost zero production values, no dialogue, and the most preposterous monster ever captured on film. Don't expect anything good, but it's entertaining in a sort of perverse way.

Not Interesting Enough To Earn A One Rating

[boblipton · 2/10 · 26 April 2020]

Everything rotten you have read about this movie is true. The monster is a couple of cheap shag rugs with felt triangles stapled to it, and a performer underneath to make it move. There is no dialogue, just a narration that tries to make sense of the pictures, but merely makes everyone seem stupid. The print is grainy, although that might be a deliberate choice of the MST3000 crew. There is an attempt to raise some tension by showing some teenagers dancing at a party, intercut with the shag-rug monster moving. This implies, I suppose, that it's coming for them. The technique has not improved since before D.W. Griffith adopted it.

There's a strong tendency for people to rate movies like this 1 on the IMDB, because negative numbers are not available. I prefer to reserve that rating for misfires that are so bizarre that you can't help but watch, like a train wreck. Others will give it a 10 because it makes them feel superior, This is inept and dull.

"Manos" was bad...

[albertmartorano · 1/10 · 31 January 2005]

...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.

Funnier without MST comments

[drystyx · 2/10 · 21 November 2012]

There's no question that this "creeping bush-like monster from another planet story" is a terrible movie. The only questions are: 1. Is it intentionally funny, or is it this pitiful? 2. By killing so many young, beautiful dark haired women, is director Vic Savage saying he's gay or a nazi? 3. Is it funnier on MST, or on its own? To answer the first two questions, most of us are okay with "cheese", and most of us don't care if a monster looks like a lot of time was spent to make the outfit. The monster itself is imaginative enough to make me think it was a serious endeavor.

The fact that Savage directs this with so much venom and hate, instead of fun, the fact that we ask ourselves the second question, also leads us to conclude that he didn't make this to be funny. He's genuinely sick.

As far as if he's gay or simply worships Hitler, I don't care. There just isn't any reason to care. He has too much hate in him for me to care.

So the only question to answer is the third one. Is it funnier to watch this insane movie on MST or on its own? The trouble with MST is that their comments detract, and don't let you see how good or how horrible a movie is. No offense against MST. In this case, I think 95% of us will agree it's "how horrible this movie is".

So we watch this movie to laugh. Honestly, it is much funnier to watch with friends, and make your own comments, if you can keep from laughing. This movie is hysterical on its own, without comments.

Adding MST commentary to this hysterical movie, a definitive "unintentionally hysterical movie", is like adding Zeppo to Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. If you watch it, you'll see what I mean. Have your own popcorn and soda, watch it with your buddies, and let the one who can hold back his laughter make the comments.

"Life has its way of making boys grow up and, with marriage, Martin's time had come."

[utgard14 · 2/10 · 21 November 2014]

Holy crap what did I just sit through? A tour-de-crap from Vic Savage, who produced, directed, and starred in this travesty. The story (like it matters) is about a newlywed sheriff and his bride trying to stop a carpet monster from outer space. The entire thing is narrated like a badly-written book. The narrator describes the scenes as we're watching them! What the hell was with the obsession with marriage vs bachelorhood? Talk about someone working out their issues through their "art." I felt like I just listened to Vic Savage's therapy sessions. The movie's budget must have been whatever Savage found in his couch cushions. The monster literally looks like pieces of carpet mixed with the contents of a garbage can draped over some people crawling along at a snail's pace. The awful sound effects they use when it's growling or gurgling or whatever will make your ears bleed.

It is terrible in a way that defies belief but there is something fascinating about it. I must have shook my head and said "this must be a joke" a dozen times while watching it. That anyone could try to pass this off as a movie boggles my mind. The entire production would have to improve by a million percent just to be considered amateur. I've seen more riveting home movies than this. Objectively, it's one of the worst movies of all time. The only thing redeeming about it is that it has some "so bad it's good" qualities. If you watch it with friends you can all make fun of it, which improves the viewing experience but doesn't change the fact that it's a really a shitty movie. I'm giving it a 2 solely for the giggles at its incompetence. I reserve 1's for movies that should be fed to carpet monsters.

Driving, pounding ecstasy...

[svia-1 · 10/10 · 27 January 2006]

Yes! It's all true! By any standard of film-making (acting, lighting, sound, direction, writing, pacing, camera-work, sets, characterization, etc.) The Creeping Terror justifiably earns the very lowest score possible. I don't believe that a worse movie could be made, intentionally or otherwise.

So why do I love this film?

There's something undeniably sincere about this movie. The writer/director/leading man Art Nelson must have believed so strongly in the project that he insisted on finishing it even when he accidentally dumped the audio equipment into Lake Tahoe. The actors were REALLY trying to look scared when they were crawling into the creature's mouth. (OK, maybe Grandpa was a bit slack in that department.) The dancers were giving it their all--even that guy that keeps hopping up and down and twisting his forearms in tight little circles. The narrator did his best to dramatize the action. ("...GRENADES!") The soldiers took obligingly took Mr. Nelson's direction and stood motionless in a small group waiting for the creature to devour them. They all must have BELIEVED that they were doing good work. It's a tribute to the (admittedly bizarre) vision of Art Nelson that this movie was made, much less released. What did he see that we can't?

This is a fascinating movie that I have watched dozens of times and will watch many more times. It's not a worthless waste of time. It's true auteur-ship at it's misguided best.

Insane

[haildevilman · 6/10 · 16 October 2006]

Bad, bad, BAD.

A pile of material lumbers along swallowing people too scared (yeah, right) to run. Notice the boyfriend who takes off and leaves his girl behind screaming? And the thing still needs a few minutes to get her. Men can be cads, but come ON.

The dancing at the party even looked hammy.

The narration was there because no one would have had a clue other wise.

Rumor; Arthur Nelson made this film as a tax dodge. Then ran off on his investors. Hiding from them until his death. I don't know if that's true though.

The triple bill to die for; This, "Beast of Yucca Flats," and "Robot Monster." I'll bring the beer.

Bad movies at their worst.

Even without setbacks, this would have been a total disaster.

[BA_Harrison · 1/10 · 23 April 2013]

According to IMDb trivia, the original monster for The Creeping Terror was stolen days before shooting was to begin, and an alternative (something resembling a giant mouldy omelette or an unwashed duvet) was hastily assembled to take its place; several sources also state that director Vic Savage (hiding behind the pseudonym A.J. Nelson) lost the original soundtrack, which might explain why much of the story is told by a narrator.

Although the lack of soundtrack could have been an intentional cost-saving measure, it doesn't alter the fact that Savage was clearly an all-round incompetent when it came to film-making, his dubious creative decisions easily qualifying this film as one of cinema's all-time worst.

The plot for this mega-turkey sees a ravenous alien creature arriving on Earth to feed on humans. Moving at a snail's pace, the creature wanders the countryside preying on people who are so petrified by it's hideousness that all they can do is stand and scream until the shuffling beast smothers them. Meanwhile, deputy sheriff Martin (played by director Savage, proving that he's every bit as bad at acting as he is at directing) and his wife Brett (Shannon O'Neil) try to track the thing down and destroy it.

After eating several canoodling couples, everyone at a hootenanny, members of a community dance hall, some incredibly dumb soldiers, and an old guy so fat that you would think it might burst, the monster is destroyed, leaving Martin pondering the wonders of the universe, and the viewer trying to figure out why they just wasted part of their life watching such utter garbage.

1/10 (not even the hilarious dance scene could make me give it more).