The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
Year: 1953
Director: Eugene Lourie
Country: US
Language: English

By 1953, horror had shifted to the stuff of monsters, albeit in the form of alien invaders or proto-creature feature style leftovers from previous decades. Many cite The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms as being the cinematic A-bomb that awakened the giant monster on the big screen. It was a great fusion of imagination and blockbuster-style film-making that was fueled by atomic age paranoia. The story is so familiar to us now that this film may seem riddled with cliches, but back then it was all innovative. 

A ferocious dinosaur awakened by an Arctic atomic test terrorizes the North Atlantic and, ultimately, New York City. 

An early example of spectacle filmmaking, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a grand, pulpy popcorn film where the effects take the wheel. In a sense it's a spiritual successor to 1933's King Kong. Unlike the giant ape, this beast was the armic retribution for our nuclear sins, a notion that would be taken and expounded upon in its successor.In the shadow of Hiroshima, it aims to remind us of the horrors our our nuclear decisions. 

 Disaster films to come--be they from Irwin Allen to Roland Emmerich--probably owe at least a little debt to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which helped to define the formula of big and incredible sequences of stuff being destroyed and crowds of people running for their lives. Usually films that have style over substance don't get a great nod from me, but Ray Harryhausen’s landmark effects sequences remain awe-inspiring. Surely this film has great artistic merit.  

Better monster movies have been made (see Japan's Gojira in 1954) but that being said, this film isn't bad in any sense. It's a rather intelligent visual film which speaks greatly about the time and society of which it was made. The cold war has never been more chilling.