Lower Decks

This 1957 release is actually a pretty good movie. Admittedly, giant killer mollusks will never rank high on my list of terrifying movie monsters but they work well enough within the confines of The Monster that Challenged the World. Given that there were multiple “monsters” in the movie that challenged the world, I wonder why the title suggests there was one. Really, would making the title of the movie The Monsters that Challenged the World made much of a difference? It would have made more sense.

Anyway, Tim Holt does a fine job as protagonist John “Twill” Twillinger. Hans Conried works well as brainy scientist Dr. Jess Rogers. His lovely assistant, played by Audrey Dalton, provides the required love interest. The monsters themselves, with their big eyes and even bigger shells, aren’t particularly frightening but do appear well-constructed and manage to do a significant amount of relatively believable damage.

The plot wasn’t anything special, starting off as many such movies do with a few mysterious deaths. Twill begins to investigate and brings some tissue samples to Dr. Rogers for analysis. That’s where he meets Dalton’s character, Gail MacKenzie, and her cute daughter Sandy. An unfortunate young couple taking a leisurely swim are killed (take a look at Barbara Darrow in that fetching bathing suit) and before long Twill and Dr. Rogers meet one of the horrifying mollusks face to disgusting face.

An attempt to destroy the mollusks with undersea explosives is believed to be successful. But it wasn’t. There are still more mollusks roaming around killing. If just one survived, it could eventually destroy the world (after first challenging it, of course). So, a new plan is put into action. The mollusks will be tracked down and destroyed. Of course there’s plenty of time for Gail and Twill to have a nice romantic dinner. It’s not like people are dying and the hole world is being challenged or anything.

There are two climactic moments in The Monster that Challenged the World. The first sees Twill and another man attempting to once and for all destroy the mollusks with explosives. At first, things go smoothly. When one of the charges doesn’t activate correctly, however, the mollusks wake up and nearly kill both men. They get away just in time for Twill to rush back to the good doctor’s laboratory to save Gail and Sandy from one last mollusk.

Poor Sandy, worried about the bunnies in the lab, is the one who revives the mollusk. The poor bunnies don’t make it. Gail and Sandy take refuge in a closet and Gail tries to get Sandy out through a window before giving up and sobbing hysterically, telling Sandy to close her eyes. It’s a sad display but soon enough Twill arrives, grabs a fire extinguisher and kills the mollusk. There was an axe right behind him and it’s a mystery to me why he didn’t start hacking the beast rather than hoping to freeze it.

Within moments, the beast is killed in a hail of gunfire. Gail and Sandy are fine and dandy and the three walk off hand-in-hand, happily ever after.