No one can doubt my affection for the master Ed Wood, I am second to none in my appreciation of the master's diabolical touch, but I maintain that "The Creeping Terror" exceeds in awfulness even his magnum opus, the immortal "Plan 9 From Outer Space." To start with, "The Creeping Terror" was not just an awful movie, it was also a cheesy scam. The director arrived in a small American town, told everyone there that he was going to make a Hollywood movie, and proceeded to charge the poor rubes to be in it! The only professional movie maker on the set was the sound man, whose career was in a nose-dive due to rampant alchoholism, and who greeted every inquiry about the audibility of the film with bland reassurances. Most of the sound turned out to be unusable, and so the ever-resourceful director got a man (whose previous experience consisted narrating insurance commercials) to put a completely lifeless and matter-of-fact voice-over into the film.

High (low) points include:

- The cast appearing mystified about what they are doing and wandering around grinning at each other for most of the time.

- A fat man who presumably paid extra for the privilege to torture a guitar that he later half-heartedly swings at the creeping terror itself.

- The dance hall scene were the same woman is dancing in the foreground no matter what the angle of shot, and the resulting terrified stampede as the creeping terror enters the hall -- one of the funniest things on film. Giggling helplessly, the cast attempt to convey fear as they claw at each other in a desperate bid to be first through the door. It looks more like a boy scout jamboree than a panicked throng running for their lives.

- A fight between two men in which they smile broadly and wave their fists at each other, missing each other by a full yard yet still knocking each other down.

The arrival of the creeping terror in a spaceship that is stock footage of an ordainary rocket launch played backwards. This large spaceship lands behind a very small bush that makes it almost impossible to find, and the impact appears to completely change the shape of the craft, as it thereafter resembes a doorway cut into a piece of cardboard. Within the control room is more cardboard with the gutted remains of a radio stuck to it. This room is supposedly indestructable; to show this, the sheriff (played by the director) swings a crowbar at the flimsy set with extraordinary gentleness, but even so the walls waver as if in a strong wind.

As for the creeping terror itself, the Monster is little more than a carpet with what seems to be pizza spilled on it, supported in its rampages by a few people underneath. Shoes are clearly visible from time to time protruding from beneath the monster costume, and the inability of the operators to see where they are going explains its lumberingly slow gait. Victims are quite often obliged to linger, screaming in terror, as they patiently wait to be devoured. This devouring consists of the front of the carpet being raised over them. (They usually conveniently fall down to allow this.) Thereafter they are dragged under, smiling and giggling.

One of the most dramatic scenes occurs toward the end of the picture wherein the Army General carefully falls over and drops a hand grenade that falls a few feet away from him. Despite being completely uninjured he rolls around upon the ground pretending that the thing is out of reach and grunting dramatically.

Response From RinkWorks:

Wow. I really wish there was a good "cult classic" video store around here somewhere. Maybe there is, and I just haven't looked hard enough yet, but I suspect, this being Boulder, Colorado, just about the snottiest high-falutin town in the country, that there isn't. -- Dave.