The Creeping Terror

Yesterday, I invested some time and a few brain cells in watching the best movie I shall ever see.

I mean that. This is the best.

I consider myself a fairly hardened B-fan; they can’t make movies too cheesy to suit me, and I’d of course heard of the members of the Hall of Shame, alias the Worst Movies of All Time, and even seen Plan 9 From Outer Space, and my word that was bad.

But, let me tell you, Plan 9 had nothing on this one. The Creeping Terror isn’t bad. The word “bad” doesn’t do it justice. It’s transcendent. It leaps over bad like it isn’t there. It pole vaults over worse like Sergei Bubka. And it jumps over the utmost definition of worst like Javier Sotomayor at the Olympics. Trust me on this. It’s not so bad it’s good. It’s so bad it’s...it...OK, I think my brain imploded from trying to think of words to express my feelings.

Right, I’ve dunked my head in ice water and I’m back.

Before I go further, it might be worth a few moments to describe what passes for a story. The film begins with stock footage of a satellite launch being played in reverse an alien spaceship landing. Then, from inside the spaceship, which now looks nothing like the "spaceship" we just saw launching landing, a Creeping Monster, uh, creeps out. Believe me that this film wasn’t kidding about the “creeping” part of the “creeping monster”. An arthritic snail could move faster.

So this Monster creeps over the town, its shaggy carpet-covered behind humping along as though there were several people underneath. Oh, did I just write that? I meant of course that there were several people underneath. You can, actually, see their shoes.

                                                                    The face of fear

Meanwhile, humans arrive at the spaceship, crawl in, and promptly stuff themselves into the mouth of a second Creeping Monster which happens to be tethered to the wall for, maybe, some goddamn mating ritual or something. Did I mention that the Creeping Monsters have mouths highly reminiscent of anuses, down front, and that their victims have to literally crawl into said mouths to get themselves eaten? No? Consider it said.

                                                              Or see it for yourself

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah. Monster Number One creeps across town, and finally eats its way to a dance hall where a lot of people are drinking/fighting/dancing (or all three at the same time; sometimes it’s kind of difficult to tell where one stops and the other begins). It then proceeds to eat them all, including a couple who considerately wait until it finishes to be consumed in their turn, though they were behind it and could have literally, um, crawled away. (In fact, come to think of it, the male part of the couple seems to be pushing the female part into the Monster’s mouth. How very considerate of him.)

OK, from there the plot gets – if you want to know – stupider, to the point where I can’t be troubled to describe it here. Instead, I’ll just mention a couple of things...

First, this flick has hardly any dialogue. What it has is a lot of...narration. Someone keeps narrating the events as they’re happening, including the conversations. Apparently this was either because the original soundtrack was lost and the makers lacked the cash to recreate it in the studio, or else they had no money to record sound in the first place. The same allegedly happened to the monster, which was stolen before filming began and substituted by this...creeping...thing.

In fact, the story of the making of this piece of cinematic gold platinum plutonium Metal X from the Andromeda Galaxy is fascinating in itself. The director, producer and star (all the same guy, one Vic Savage, and that’s a hell of a name) was apparently a con man who sold parts to the actors. They paid to be in this film. I’m not altogether surprised that he skipped town before production wrapped. Are you?

But, again, what’s not to love about this film? Look at what it’s got that you’ll never see anywhere else.

First, the Creeping Terror. Let’s look at it one more time, shall we?

                                                                   Oh the humanity!

 

Then, it’s got lots of screaming hussies (remember this is a film made in 1964, and daring to enjoy yourself by, say, dancing or lying around in a bikini, kissing, made you a hussy) getting eaten.

It’s got an army of precisely six soldiers who pack considerately together so that the Creeping Terror can creep up to them and eat them in a gulp.

It’s got alien spaceship controls marked in English.

It’s got that wonderful, wonderful narration, which often swerves off the storyline into bizarre territory, including a seemingly interminable homily on the benefits of marriage. I kid you not.

Yeah, baby, this movie’s got style. Not what you think when you hear the word style, but, style. The kind of style why it’s officially my best film ever.

Verdict: 10,234,567 stars. Do you hear that, Creeping Terror? I gave you 10,234,567 stars.

Now please don’t eat me.