Blood Capsule #280

THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)

I wasn't going to review this flick.  It was supposed to be a time waster, something to cool the sodden ducts of my brain after a hard day of...um, eating street tacos and listening to black metal.  Hey, I needed a break.  But as I watched The Monster That Challenged the World, I realized that it was playing chess where other b-pictures from the 50's would play checkers.  As far as metaphors go, that was pretty lousy, but I'm sticking with it.  Simply put, this seaside creature feature brings the heat.  Plus, I can technically file it under "aquatic horror," so you can add gratuity to the bill.  The plot is standard.  After an earthquake tears a fissure in the ocean floor, an aggressive, atomically-charged strain of mollusks seeps through the vents, attacking Navy parachute jumpers and lovebird night swimmers alike.  I can hear you now.  "A mollusk?"  Yes, they could be called distant cousins to the snail (or the suburban couch dad).  Off the top of my head, I can't name any other mollusk mutants.  Can you?

We're dealing with a plurality of monsters, but we only see them one at a time.  And they are fantastic.  They challenge the world alright, but what gives the screenplay a dash of zest is a pronounced sense of humor and a collection of folks you are conditioned to care about.  You can tell that writers Pat Fielder and David Duncan actually liked the characters they created.  As much as I value a corpse that has been drained of all fluids, I became attached to the leads myself.  This film is not without blemish.  You could probably trim ten minutes from the running time, which isn't particularly long to begin with.  I'm picking at nits.  The Monster That Challenged the World is available to stream on Amazon Prime.  Do it.  At this point, Amazon should just pay me to write these capsules.  I've always wanted an opportunity to sell out and litigate my integrity.  Why, I could challenge the world!