The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)

Directed by Arnold Laven [Other horror films: N/A]

Though sometimes heralded as one of the many solid giant-animal movies of the late 1950’s, I have to say that The Monster That Challenged the World didn’t do much for me. The movie’s not bad, or anything, but the more and more I see these types of movies, the more I lose interest in them.

Some of them, of course, do have something special – The Giant Claw had a lot of science going on, Earth vs the Spider has been a mild favorite for a while, and Attack of the Giant leeches has hokey charm – but I’m widely disinterested in this particular portion of the genre. Giant monsters causing havoc just isn’t my thing.

Taking place around the Salton Sea in southern California (which I never heard of before this movie), we have a mollusk-like thing that entertains some people, and by ‘entertain,’ I mean suck their blood out entirely and kill them. Of course, it’s not just one – the thing laid eggs, so there’s a potential of hundreds, though we only see three or so others, and as the film focuses around a Navy Base, I can’t say there was much character in the characters we got.

Tim Holt plays a generic, gruff military guy. Because a monster movie isn’t complete without romance, Audrey Dalton (Mr. Sardonicus) plays a young woman who falls head over heels for him, and he saves her from the monster at the end, and I don’t have the words to describe how uninterested I was in their romance. Hans Conried didn’t really do that much, but he did later voice the Grinch in Halloween is Grinch Night, so that’s something.

Honestly, I don’t know what more to say. The special effects were iffy, the finale somewhat underwhelming, the monsters were monstering. I don’t know – these types of movies just often don’t interest me, but they can work for others, so if this sounds like your type of thing, give it a watch. I just may not be the exact audience to enjoy it.

6/10