Overrated

Amateur movie with Big budget

Absolutely brilliant

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

"The Monster That Challenged the World" is one of the best of the big bug films to come out of the '50s. Western star Tim Holt and voice-impresario Hans Conried represent the military and science respectively as they, and associated secondary characters, face off against enormous carnivorous molluscs that have arisen from the bottom of the Salton Sea. The killer snails are very well done, and unlike most of their ilk, are shown frequently and fully lighted (i.e. not half hidden in fog, shadow, smoke or dark). Once you accept the premise of massive malevolent mollusca, the script and the acting is reasonably realistic, giving the entire film a bit more sobriety than is usually associated with the genre. There may be a bit of sly self-referential humour in Conried's early comments that people jump to conclusions about radiation and that science fiction is not science fact (see quotes section for exact wording), ironic observations to include in a entry into the canon of radioactive-monster movies. All in all, an entertaining film from the golden age of giant bugs – too bad they couldn't have come up with a better title.

Middling, talk-filled giant monster movie in which US Naval officers are attacked and eaten by giant sea slugs that have evolved as a result of atomic testing (what else?). I'm sure even the most patient of movie-viewers will have a tough time sitting through this endless movie, in which the eighty minutes feel like double that. The main problem is that, while the monsters themselves are pretty darned cool, there's just so damned little of them in the movie that it makes you wonder why they bothered! I would estimate that the monsters appear for approximately 10% of the movie with the rest being packed with dialogue and slow investigation.Another of the problems is that the characters are so unlikeable, the typical stuffy military types who tend to display no personality at all in their actions. Tim Holt is the most characterised of the lot but even he comes across as a grumpy, occasionally stupid hero, definitely not someone to root for. The female characters are dated and subservient, either acting as love interests or victims in the movie. There's also an annoying little brat who deserves to get eaten but inevitably doesn't. The film does have some things to recommend it. These include the corpses which have hilarious rubber faces with ping pong eyes and a couple of quickly minor characters who are more interesting than the leads. One is a mortician who keeps his sandwiches in a morgue freezer, the other a local librarian who talks like Boris Karloff. Also keep an eye out for the first victim of the monster (which we see in shadow), and his incredible unbelievable wooden acting (he says - not screams - "ahh, ahh!" as the monster gets him!).The scenes with the giant sea slugs are generally a lot of fun, in that tacky '50s way. Although they can't move they are pretty well animated and look hilarious (and kind of cute - it's gruesome when one of them gets its eyeball popped out!). Some of the underwater scenes do develop a sense of tension with the hidden monsters but most are too murky to enjoy. The ending, with a giant slug loose in the laboratory, is however classic stuff and a riot (the hero uses a fire extinguisher to subdue it before the firing squad arrive!). There's also a presentation on snails which will tell you some interesting facts about our mollusc friends. Unfortunately, the major part of this film is all about wining and dining, official procedure, and boring people with their boring lives - definitely not a movie in which pacing is a strong point. Watchable but only as a last resort (i.e. there's nothing else on).

By the time 1957 rolled around, Hollywood was just plain running out of things that looked scary under a microscope that could be made into a monster if irradiated by Plot-onium. (you see what I did there?) Other people having used Ants, Spiders, Praying Mantises the only thing they really had left to go with were snails. Yup. Snails. But they avoid using the term snails because frankly, who can be afraid of something served at French Restaurants? SO they called them Mollusks instead.So the plot is that radiation has gotten into the Salton Sea, and made these snails into people eating giants. There is one particular scene where a snail kills a diver I remember from creature features back in the 1970's...But mostly, this follows the 1950's formula. Something is mysteriously killing people and the Military and Science have to team up to stop it, because this was back in the day when we still trusted the Military and Science implicitly.The problem is that this movie moves so slowly with the typical stock characters we've seen in other movies who have all the dimension of cardboard.

Arnold Laven directed this reasonably effective monster film that stars Tim Holt as Lt. Commander John Twillinger, a Naval officer who is forced to confront giant prehistoric mollusks that have been revived because of underwater earthquakes in the Salton Sea. After killing some navy parachutists and a scientist, they invade the canals of California and threaten to cause havoc. Meanwhile, an mollusk egg has been brought to a laboratory run by Dr. Rogers(played by Hans Conried) for study in a tank, but hatches because of a mistake made by a little girl, daughter of the base secretary(played by Audrey Dalton) that then tries to kill them... Not bad of its type, with good F/X and performances, even if the plot is quite familiar.