Alarm für Sperrzone 7

"The Monster That Challenged the World", in spite of its long winded title, is not a bad movie of its kind. The film was one of a series of "giant creature" movies popular in the fifties.

The monster of the title is a giant mollusk/snail type creature (that actually looks more like a caterpillar) that is awakened by an earthquake. It then sets about attacking people and laying eggs. Commander Tim Holt of the U.S. Naval Intelligence Service then sets about to destroy it. Assisting him are scientists Hans Conried (playing it straight for a change) and Casey Adams (aka Max Showalter) and sheriff Gordon Jones. Audrey Dalton is Holt's love interest. Veteran character actor Ralph Moody (a true what's his name?) plays one of the monster's victims.

Director Arthur Laven gives us a believable monster(s) for the 50s and builds the suspense by not showing it until well into the film. Some of the victims look like papier mache but all in all it makes for a pretty good monsters film with high production values on a modest budget.

Holt, who had left films when his excellent "B" western series ended in 1952, came out of retirement for this film, apparently as a favor to director Laven. After this, he made only one more film before forsaking Hollywood for good.

An earthquake out in the Salton Sea awakens the creeping dread, gigantic vampire water snails are on the loose and they are hungry for human fluid!.

Just about the right side of good, The Monster Who Challenge The World holds up well because of it's well constructed creatures and a bit of care and attention to the boffin discussions. Far too many 50s creature features just used a basic premise of creatures obliterating mankind because they were in an odd mood, but much like The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, this picture at least takes time to give us a bit of a nature heartbeat to help us understand the methods of a mollusc, and that alone should be applauded, learn while we have fun so to speak. The cast ooze B-movie standards, and that is in no way a bad thing here, whilst the Catalina Island locale sequences are pretty nifty to help salt the beef as it were!

Good honest fun that isn't short on creepiness, and top marks to the makers for introducing a very ingenious creature to a truly wonderful genre. 6/10

A small naval base by the Salton Sea is under attack from some ancient mollusks freed by an earthquake through the floor of the sea. The film starts out in typical 50's sci-fi manner, and the first encounter between one of these caterpillar-looking creatures and a couple of sailors is rather good. The creatures leave some gooey stuff, apparently saliva, by each victim. The head of the base, a Twillinger, begins to try and find out what killed his men with the aid of scientist Hans Conried. Tim Holt, the fella that played Curtain in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, plays Twillinger(Twill), a brusque, by the book, no nonsense guy. It wasn't till near the end of the picture I realized it was Holt(having missed opening credits) as he was like a balloon compared to his early western films. Nonetheless Holt effectively takes charge of this "sticky" situation. Hans Conried excels as the scientist. The film is not a great sci-fi film, but it is an exciting one with a good pace, good acting, and decent special effects.

This tidy little "B" thriller features all the usual elements common to genre films of the fifties; a lantern jawed hero determined to get to the bottom of all the trouble, the stern scientist who provides the rationale for the beastliness and the comely love interest who provides the distaff side of the equation. That "The monster that challenged the world" succeeds in delivering an at times genuinely frightening experience is due, I think,to a great script and film makers who treat the material with respect. To do any less is a betrayal of the audience,in my view. The film is peopled with understated performances, especially those of Hans Conreid in a rare dramatic role and Tim Holt,a stalwart of "B" westerns, as the no nonsense Commander Twillinger. The monster of the title may not be as menacing as, say, Alien, but it provides enough creepy moments to satisfy all but the most jaded film goers. Nice photography and crisp editing add to the overall effect. "The monster that challenged the world" made almost fifty years ago, remains a fresh and satisfying example of the genre. Recommended.

This rates up there as one of the better "giant monsters wreak havoc on mankind" movies that came out of the 1950s. The predators this time are overgrown snails/mollusks/caterpillar-like creatures that awaken from the pits of the Salton Sea after an earthquake shakes things up and charges them full of radiation. These monsters may appear of the dime store variety to those who aren't used to these "big bug" pictures, but actually they're pretty believable for a movie like this. Some of the assets setting this feature apart from its relatives would be the serious treatment of the story, some good acting and characters (it's fun watching Hans Conried as the knowledgeable scientist), and a few impressive pre-JAWS ocean scenes (one of the female victims meets a fateful watery demise, for example). Also adding to the effectiveness are some creepy ravaged corpses, the likes of which weren't usually this prominent back in the day. *** out of ****