It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Expected more

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

It is amazing that you can make a movie with so little and the movie could turn up decent. The movie has no great budget but the idea behind it it's so great and simple. Meteors that crushed to earth and they threaten it! Rocks that broke in thousands of small parts and they multiply with water! The quit life of a small graphic town want be the same again. People's bodies turn into rock and the only ones who can help is the geologists. The biggest enemy now is rain! Rain that gives life, now threatens this little town. Rain will help the rocks to grow and everything around the rock will seize to exist. In general this is pretty much a typical scifi movie. We have the girl, the scientist, love, a big threat by a strange unknown enemy and we are waiting for science to find a solution and save the day. The acting is OK and the scenario is great! The movie it's really entertaining and for those of you who love science fiction, I think you will enjoy it too.

Here is a novel premise: the whole paranoia of "watching the skies" gets a unique sci-fi spins when meteorites, crashing into a mountainous desert outside a little township, whose ingredients consist primarily of silicate materials, grows when water is applied, enlarging at an alarming rate, towering to great heights, falling and breaking apart onto land, buildings, and anything else that they come in contact with. Humans who contact the meteorite pieces, when water is a major factor, start to stiffen into silicate themselves and it is a race against time to discover how to stop the meteorites from spreading, destroying everything in their path. I love these sci-fi B-movies from the 50s, particularly the ones released by Universal Studios. Shot in a serious manner, with a scientific approach applied to analyzing and conquering the threat, whether it be man-made or from space, movies like "The Monolith Monsters" are like rock candy to me…I have a sweet tooth for these sci-fi chillers/creature features, and especially fond of those movies shot in rural towns with small local farming communities or blue collar areas outside the big cities. This movie's threat is certainly unique—rocks as tall as skyscrapers falling, "Timber!", like trees cut by lumberjacks, with our heroes looking on from afar, is quite a visual, even if atypical of the genre. But that, I think, sets this apart from the usual fair…not a funny-looking monster made from scraps or rubber, or a giant creature of some sort, this movie has meteorites as a global threat against mankind, using water, of all things, as the source of their growth. As usual, there's a miracle cure for how to stop the meteorites (which have inherited plenty of mysteries from space during their travels to the earth's surface), and we get the big finale where a dam is exploded and a saline solution might be the key ingredient in how to trigger a reverse in the growing pattern. Seeing meteorites grow on spot when water hits them and the knowledge that large silicate rock formations are your threats to mankind might be a bit too silly for some viewers, but I had some fun with this regardless. It is cotton candy to me, really, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Sure, it might be a bit corny, but I always appreciate the earnestness of the performances regardless of what "monsters" might threaten their characters' local communities within the plots of these disregarded studio B-movie cheapies. I always credit the no-name casts of these movies during this era for providing credible portraits of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances, with the fate of mankind possibly in their hands.

The Monolith Monsters starts as a meteorite crash lands near the desert town of San Angelo & shatters sending shards of black rock everywhere, the next morning & geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey) pick a piece of it up & takes it back to his laboratory to examine it. Later that night the wind knocks over a beaker of water which lands on the fragment of rock which then starts to grow. Ben's partner Dave Miller (Grant Williams) finds the laboratory wrecked with pieces of the rock everywhere & Ben dead, stiff as a board. Trying to work out what killed Ben leads Dave to discover that the rock is activated by water & grows to enormous heights until it cannot support itself & falls over & shatters in a thousand pieces each of which then also grow in a never ending cycle, then suddenly Dave realises that it's raining outside & all the other pieces of the meteorite start to grow & advance towards the town crushing everything in their way...Directed by John Sherwood this was yet another Universal monster film from the 50's that they churned out, to be fair to Universal they usually produced decent films & The Monolith Monsters is no exception thanks to a unique alien threat even if the basic story doesn't deviate too much from the stand small town comes under attack from some sort of alien or monster scenario. I must admit that I love the concept of the alien rock that simply grows like a skyscraper until it topples over & shatters in hundreds of shards each of which then goes through the same process as the alien rock just multiplies & engulfs anything that gets in it's way. It's a great idea, sure there's still some subplot about how it causes people to turn to stone by sucking the silicone out of them but otherwise The Monolith Monsters avoids the usual men in rubber monster suits & dopey science although some of the dialogue between Miller & the Professor is a bit dry & doesn't entirely convince. Once again The Monolith Monsters is a real product of it's time, it's amazing how polite & helpful everyone is here with a real post war community spirit where all the young kids in town decide to help out by delivering warning posters, the army, politicians, Doctor's & scientists all work together seamlessly without any arguments & even the local reporter decides not to cash-in on the story & keep it under wraps to avoid a panic. It feels a little naive when seen today but it's not a huge problem. At a brisk 77 minutes the plot takes no longer than it needs to & it moves along at a decent pace, the climax is a little rushed & everything works a little too well but the ending still works.With no aliens or monsters the special effects people had to somehow create huge rock formations that grow, fall over & shatter & start all over again & they do a fine job with some good model work & effects. The iconic scene of the huge monolith crashing to the ground & destroying the farm is still quite an impressive special effect. Less effective is the dam being blown up & the subsequent stock footage of gushing water. Apparently originally released by Universal as a double feature with Love Slaves of the Amazons (1957), the footage of the meteorite crashing during the opening sequence was taken from It Came from Outer Space (1953) which Universal made four years earlier.Probably shot on a low budget the makers did the best they could with decent production values & surprisingly good model effects work. Mainly shot on the back-lot at Universal studios like most of these sorts of films were. The acting is alright, it always seems a little wooden to me in these quick & cheap 50's sci-fi films but no-one really embarrasses themselves.The Monolith Monsters is an enjoyable slice of 50's sci-fi horror with a great central concept & some impressive effects work, for the time anyway. You could do a lot worse than spend an hour & a quarter watching this.

Since its initial release to theaters, "The Monolith Monsters" has drifted somewhat towards obscurity, despite being made by a major Hollywood studio. That's too bad, because this is a pretty fun little "giant monster" movie, in part because there are some elements here that seem fresh compared to other '50s giant monster movies. The threat isn't something with intelligence (animal or otherwise), so there is a feeling that the characters are really dealing with something unknown and unheard of before. The idea of humanity being threatened with rocks is also an original one. The script is fairly intelligent, with enough science to feel smart yet not alienate any members of the audience. And the tone is serious, not campy in any way. The only objections I found were that it's never shown just exactly how the giant rocks feed off their human victims, and that it takes a bit longer than usual for a feeling of panic and urgency to build up. But those are minor quibbles; as I said earlier, this is a fun movie.