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

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

War of the Colossal Beast starts in Los Angeles as Joyce Mannning (Sally Fraser) hears about a strange incident in Mexico in which a man's truck mysterious disappears without leaving any tracks. The sister of 60 foot giant Col. Glenn Manning (Dean Parkin) who was apparently shot dead by the US military but whose body was never found Joyce suspects that her brother might be responsible for the vanishing truck & travels to Mexico to investigate, Major Mark Baird (Roger Pace) joins her & together they discover Glenn hiding in a mountain range & stealing trucks for food supplies. A trap is set & Glenn is rendered unconscious & flown to Los Angeles airport & chained to the floor of a huge hangar. More monster than man Glenn manages to escape & starts to terrorise Los Angeles, it's up to the authorities to try & prevent any harm coming to anyone & find a peaceful solution...Produced & directed by Mr. BIG himself Bert I. Gordon this direct sequel to his earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) was made only a couple of years later & having seen the original as recently as a couple of days ago I have to say while neither are exactly masterpieces I actually thought The War of the Colossal Beast was the slightly better film although most claim the opposite. The very questionable scientific nonsense from the original is absent here with no mention of Glenn's heart problems, at just under 70 minutes it moves along at a decent pace although the first twenty odd minutes is set-up as a mystery where we know what's happening to the missing truck's but it takes a while for the character's to catch up. The script is fairly basic, there's not a lot to the film & it's just a case of Manning being captured by the military, escaping, being captured again & escaping again although how he can just disappear is a mystery to me as a 60 foot tall giant isn't exactly inconspicuous is he? I mean he's hardly a set of car key's... The ending is a bit of a mystery too, after a unexpected twist in which Manning tries to commit suicide he just disappears into thin air which just looks totally bizarre & never explained. I also feel that the script does a better job of making you sympathise with Manning compared to the first which just paints him as an unlikable moaner although there is no mention of the plan to return Manning to his normal size that featured prominently in the original. The War of the Colossal Beast is a competently written & made low budget sci-fi horror that isn't brilliant but isn't that bad either, at only 70 odd minutes long at least it's short too.The film doesn't really live up to it's dramatic sounding title, I would hardly describe anything that happens as even approaching a War & gone is the description of a mere Colossal Man to be replaced with the more terrifying sounding Colossal Beast! You may, or indeed may not, know that the 'thrilling' climax of The War of the Colossal Beast was shot in colour, don't get your hopes up though as while the ending does change from black and white to colour the colour footage lasts for all of thirty seconds. There are numerous flashbacks to the original film where footage is edited into this which helps explain the origins of Manning if you haven't seen the original. The special effects are alright & a slight step-up from the original, the matte work isn't quite as bad & Manning interacts with his surrounds more although the model work isn't that convincing. Originally released as a double package with Mr BIG's Attack of the Puppet People (1958).Filmed in Los Angeles in California the production values are decent enough & it's competently made for what it is. The acting isn't great but it's not terrible, the original Colossal Man has been replaced with Dean Pickering who only gets to say one word throughout the entire film & has some fairly effective disfigured face make-up although his constant loud moaning type noises that makes irritated me.The War of the Colossal Beast is a pretty good late 50's sci-fi monster film, it's fairly basic & not that much happens but at only 70 odd minutes it's fun while it last's. Not too bad at all & I actually prefer it to the original.

The sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, which has never been on DVD due to rights issues. I saw that one on TNT's Monster Vision years ago. I think I may have seen this one, too. If not on TNT, I may have seen it on MST3K. I may have also seen Earth vs. the Spider and Village of the Giants on MST3K, too - they loved Bert I. Gordon. It's funny that all three of these films have such low ratings (none are above 3.0), because, while they aren't good films, they are nowhere near that bad. They're pretty typical B movies. War of the Colossal Beast actually has a pretty emotional core, and the film's final moments are quite touching. It also has a fantastic opening sequence (Gordon really seems to know how to open his movies - all three of these start off beautifully). We don't see the Colossal Beast, just a truck driver driving full speed, frequently looking behind him and screaming. Dean Parkin is quite good as the title character, who has become a near-mindless monster, half his face torn off, after being nearly killed and falling off Hoover Damn in the first film. Like most B movies, the plot is pretty lean, and there are long stretches when nothing's really happening. There's also a nearly ten minute stretch which I think is just footage from the previous film.

Crazed and disfigured giant Colonel Glenn Manning (brawny behemoth Dean Parkin sporting pretty grotesque make-up) terrorizes as a small town. Manning gets captured by the army, but manages to escape and embark on a rampage in Los Angeles. Director Bert I. Gordon, working from a compact script by George Worthing Yates, relates the engrossing story at a brisk pace, creates and sustains a pleasingly spooky and mysterious atmosphere for the opening third of the picture, maintains a serious tone throughout, and gives the movie an earnest quality that's both appealing and enjoyable in equal measure. The solid acting from a capable cast helps a lot, with especially stand-out contributions by Sally Fraser as Manning's concerned sister Joyce, Roger Page as the stalwart Major Mark Baird, Russ Bender as the dedicated Dr. Carmichael, and George Becwar as the hot-tempered John Swanson. The special effects ain't so hot, but they do nonetheless possess a certain endearingly hokey charm. The scenes with Manning running amok and wreaking havoc are quite lively and exciting. Moreover, the tormented Manning makes for a genuinely pitiable monster; the unavoidable sad and tragic ending is truly poignant and memorable. A fun flick.

Director Bert I. Gordon's "War of the Colossal Beast" is a sequel to his 1957 opus "The Amazing Colossal Man." The original depicted the tragic circumstances surrounding the exposure of U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Glen Manning to plutonium radiation from a bomb blast. Manning experiences a growth spurt and towers 60 feet in height. Of course, growing so quickly takes a toll on his body and he goes insane. He stomps off for Las Vegas and winds up atop Hoover Dam where he falls apparently to his death."War of the Colossal Beast" picks up after Manning disappeared from his fall at Hoover Dam. Miraculously, although his body was never found, the eponymous monster survived the plunge and is alive and well in Mexico when the sequel starts! He is hiding in the mountains and he preys on vehicles delivering any kind of food. The film opens with a terrified youth, Miguel (Robert Hernandez of "Cavalcade of America"), careening hell-bent for leather to escape whatever he saw that has severely traumatized him. As a matter of fact, Miguel is fleeing from the "Colossal Man," but we aren't shown his foe. Gordon leaves it up to our imagination. John Swanson (George Becwar of "Bride of the Monster") owned the truck that Miguel was driving and he sets out to collect insurance on it. Unfortunately, he cannot find his truck. Eventually, he questions Sgt. Luis Murillo of local police and Murillo takes Swanson to the lad. Poor Miguel is supine in the hospital undergoing treatment for shock.A television station, WTLA broadcasts word of the accident and it arouses the suspicion of Manning's sister, Joyce (Sally Fraser of "Giant from the Unknown"), and she goes to Mexico to see if she can learn anything about her brother. This is odd and interesting because in "The Amazing Colossal Man" we were told that Manning had no relatives. U.S. Army officer Major Mark Baird (Roger Pace of "Jump into Hell") and scientist Dr. Carmichael (Russ Bender of "Maryjane")who heads up the military's "radiation exposure department," accompany Joyce. Twenty minutes into the action as the heroine and company discover a graveyard of abandoned trucks snatched by the titular character, "The Colossal Man" makes his appearance. Clearly, all Gordon did was mask off part of the screen conveniently using he contours of the mountain and rely on rear-screen projection so the big fellow can stride into view. Baird and Carmichael prepare the "Colossal Beast" loaves of bread spiked with enough Chloral hydrate to knock him out for eight hours. Talk about fast-acting stuff! Not long after the "Beast" gnaws the bread, he collapses. Baird loads Manning's tied down body aboard a military transport and flies him back to America. Initially, he cannot obtain clearance to land the "Beast," but his relentless harassment of Los Angeles' mayor gets him a reprieve to land his cargo plane and lock up Colonel Manning in a nearby hanger. Naturally, the "Beast" escapes from the hangar and stomps up to Griffith Park Observatory where he picks up a bus packed with junior high school students and hoists it over his head like a barbell. Joyce seizes a jeep and drives up to where her misshapen brother is and persuades him to put the bus down. A dejected Manning utters his one comprehensible word "Joyce" and then commits suicide by electrocuting himself on a power line.Movies like the two "Colossal" epics were standard fare during the paranoid 1950s when Hollywood loved to use atomic energy to mutate either man or beast or both for sensational consequences. Clearly, in one sense, these movie served as cautionary tales about the unknown dangers associated with nuclear power. One of the earliest examples of this genre was "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953) where an atomic bomb blast in the Arctic Circle melted the ice that had kept a million year old giant rhedosaurus confined. The following year saw the release of "Them!" (1954) about gargantuan ants irradiated by a nuclear explosion. "Tarantula" (1955) tweaked the narrative when researchers created chemical from atomic science to grow a gigantic spider. The Japanese appropriated only on the paranoia over nuclear energy but also the genre for more spectacular results with "Godzilla" (1956) and launched a franchise.Not long after the monster is brought back to the States, it relives the part of its life when he was stricken with radiation, so if you missed the first movie, you know what happened. There is an amusing scene after word of Manning's survival when a legislator is asked what part of the government will rule about the mutant. Everybody in Washington gives the press the bureaucratic run-a-round about jurisdiction in the case. Gordon made movies for American International Pictures. What is interesting about "War of the Colossal Beast" is its finale when the monster seizes the high power lines. Everything turns into full color. This movie is entertaining for a laugh and is representative of Hollywood's obsession with nuclear power during the 1950s. Clearly, the title is all hype because there isn't much of a war in this 69-minute film.