When I wrote about “The Thing” I mentioned watching a scene, yet not knowing what the film was it came from, and how that terrified me when seeing it.

This was not an isolated incident though. Even earlier in my youth I caught the end of an old monster movie, and what I saw scared me.

A woman and a small girl were being menaced by a strange monster, despite it being black and white the monster was not some guy in a suit, making terrifying noises. Then for years I had no idea what film that was. It wasn’t talked about like “The Thing” was but I never gave up in my memory of it so one day I found out and watched it in full.

The Monster that Challenged the World is a black and white monster film from 1957 and, yeah the monster looks good, I had no idea what it was but I was scared of it. Turns out it’s some kind of giant Mollusc, like a snail but at times it’s on you don’t see that. Instead you see its long body, head and mouth.

The film starts with stock footage and narration, then to the Salton Sea in California. When looking to rescue a parachutist something emerges from the water and, in admittedly a bit of a silly expression, terrifies and presumably kills the rescuer.

Then we are introduced to our lead Lt. Cmdr. John Twillinger played by Tim Holt who is leading a new rescue party to find out what happened to the first. Our female lead Gail MacKenzie played by Audrey Dalton is a bit of a unique role as she’s recently widowed and has a daughter, not something you normally get in the lead female character of monster films back then.

Surprisingly we get a proper introduction to the monster relatively early on. and through a good poke in the eye they manage to kill it. But when they encountered the monster they found many eggs and now the race is on to stop these from fully running amok all over through the various water ways connected to the Salton Sea. This means the main action moments are at the end of the first act and at the end of the third. The rest is all the challenges of trying to hunt down the other monsters which could be used to build tension, but unlike THEM! we don’t get a nice break showing a moment where the monsters did get loose.

We do however have the fact they did capture one of the eggs before it hatched and the audience is told that as long as the temperature is kept low it won’t develop. This just means you know the small UNSUPERVISED child left to wander the army base is much like the kid in Night of the Lepus, going to mess everything up but sadly face no repercussions for their action rather than getting scared and nearly being killed by what they unleashed.

All that said, you are once again here for the monster and with its very different and frightening look, especially for 1957, it will leave an impression on you. Just it’s one of those films that can’t keep your interest when the monster isn’t on the screen.

Rating: 🎞️🎞️