Top 5 Childhood Monsters, #4

October 28th, 2005

Filed under: General

Space: 19994. That Tentacled Monster from Space: 1999
It’s one of those weird situations. I’ve only seen one episode of Space: 1999, but I’ve seen that same episode several times. Whenever I tried to watch the show as a kid, it was always the same episode. I soon gave up on trying to watch the show altogether.

All I remember about the episode (“Dragon’s Domain“) is that among all the low-bid “futuristic” sets and smoke-machine fog, there was this nasty tentacled monster that would devour people and then spit out their dessicated corpses. That’s the part that really creeped me out: the shriveled mummy-like corpses.

The Creeping TerrorAbout the same time (thanks to a local TV station’s Creature Feature movie week), I also ran across the black-and-white groaner The Creeping Terror. In this grade-Z horror film, a shambling alien mass that looked like it was pieced together from carpet remnants would attack and devour nubile young teenage girls, leaving behind shriveled corpses. Of course, the effects were so bad that the monster couldn’t “devour” anything, and its victims had to throw themselves into its mouth to be eaten. Unsurprisingly, The Creeping Terror got the full MST3K treatment, though I’m proud (ashamed?) that I saw it pre-MST3K. With the horrible special effects, the shriveled corpses in Terror were not scary, but they did remind me a little too much of the nightmare-inspiring corpses from Space: 1999.

  • The Creeping Terror earns a 1.8 review on IMDB. Yes, it was that bad. (Manos, The Hands of Fate, considered by many to be the worst movie ever made, only scored 0.1 lower with a 1.7)
  • Forget Land of the Lost, where’s my Space: 1999 comeback comic? (Granted, of course, that it’s now 2006).
  • Speaking of Space: 1999 comics, here’s the full comic book version of the very episode (“Dragon’s Domain”) that I mentioned above. While it was scanned in from the German Space: 1999 comic, it’s been translated into English.

6 Responses to “ Top 5 Childhood Monsters, #4 ”

  1. Roger Green
    October 28th, 2005 at 2:57 pm

    I HATE when that happens. There was some drama (I forget what) that I watched once, didn’t like, but was urged by a friend to try it again. So I turned on the TV: SAME episode.

  2. Randy
    October 29th, 2005 at 7:11 pm

    EVERY TV show has that. You turn it on, maybe even after not having watched it in like a month, a year, whatever. And then, BAM, it’s the one episode you’ve seen over and over and over and over.

  3. Stephen
    April 30th, 2006 at 3:56 am

    Oh my God!

    This is the coolest thing ever. I’m 35 years old. I barely remember watching things like Space 1999 or Doctor Who when I was a kid, but there was always this one scene in one show that I remember scared the hell out of me. For years and years now I couldn’t remember what show it was from. Until now! That was the episode with the tentacle monster that spit people out. Your a life saver, I’m going to run right out and find that episode on DVD. I have to see it again, Heck its been 30 some odd years. It’s so weird to find someone else who felt the same way about that same episode. Thanks Man!

  4. Mike
    November 8th, 2010 at 12:09 pm

    Hilarious. It seems this monster in Space 1999 may have done more damage than thalidomide. EVERYBODY remembers this, and most don’t remember where it’s from, they just know it horrified them. For a relatively unknown show, this monster has gone down in history. I too remember it, I’m 40 now, and I barely ever saw the show as a kid, but I saw this one…

  5. Rob
    July 5th, 2011 at 1:33 am

    Same here. I saw it on youtube after reading about it here, and its almost cathartic. That show scared me for years. I remembered the people walking helplessly into its mouth, like a nightmare. Scary stuff.

  6. Mimi
    December 13th, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    Wow… been wondering for 35 years which episode that was… I would have bet anything there was Maya in it but apparently not…I had it mixed up with another episode. However, I just watched it again after having googled so many different ways to find which episode it was and finally found it here… and God! it was boring!! Loved the show then, but I guess years of special effects have impressed upon me more than I thought :) Will still watch all episodes of it anyway.

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