Behemoth the Sea Monster

Essentially a remake of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with the dinosaur emitting radiation instead of a deadly disease this is still a good film. Originally the monster was supposed to be invisible (hence the scene where it does not show up on radar) but the producers said that would never do and a monster must be seen by the audience! So Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson were brought in late in the game to do some effective stop motion effects. The low budget shows. Notice how the monster steps on the same car 3 times and seems to take forever to walk up a single street. When the Behemoth attacks the ferry watch carefully and you will see the wooden base the rubber head is attached to come out of the water! Other scenes are very good though, like the beast "attacking" the high tension wires and when he strolls by the houses of Parliament you almost cannot tell the old British landmark is just a blown up photograph! B-Western stalwart Gene Evans is pretty good as the hero and Andre Morrell, a one time Dr. Watson opposite Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes, is good too. Not much time is wasted on a romantic subplot . . .thank goodness! Allegedly when director Eugene Lourie's young daughter saw this film she chided her father "Daddy, you're bad! You killed the beastie." her comment stayed with Lourie and a few years later when he directed GORGO he . . .well . . .that's another story for another review. See you then.

Now, let me tell you I could be a little biased here with my scoring. For this film lit the light of remembrance and melancholy within me. As it took me back to my childhood. There was a time when the good old BBC would play these movies on a Saturday afternoon: On BBC2 while BBC1 had Grandstand. I remember watching these Sci-Fi monster flicks with my Nan on cold and wet winter days, usually in front of a warm gas fire. Those were good days. So, I thank the makers of the film for giving me this memory.

What you have is a pretty bog-standard tale of nuclear radiation mutation... as was par for the course in the fifties. Here though, not only does it mutate a creature to an enormous size, but apparently resurrects a long-dead dinosaur. This then goes on the rampage through London. Though what makes this a little better than the average film in this genre is the extra details. We don't start in London but in a little fishing village in Cornwall where strange things have been occurring; a man being burned with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, shoals of dead fish washing up on the beach, and strange lights under the surface of the sea. This pulls the viewer in with the mystery. There's also the brilliant usage of the radiation because if you get too close to the creature then you burn. When we arrive at the rampage, the director uses parts of London not fully rebuilt after the war to create an atmosphere that works well. Also, the large amount of extra's running from the monster is just right - not one or two people, but a hole streets worth of men and women.

The director is very good at his work. He sets the pace of this film perfectly. There's a small crescendo at the beginning when Marine Biologist Steve Karnes' is warning the government about the possible side effects of radiation on the oceans and their populace. Then drops to a steadier pace with the mysterious happenings. Building up slowly to the rampage at the climax. Spot on perfect.

The special effects, for their time, are not quite as good as others. However, they are passable. It's nice the puppeteer changed out to a fully automated Behemoth for the later scenes as the fixed mouth version that attacked the ferry looked a little silly. I have to admit I really loved the part where the Behemoth walks through the dockyards. The part where he wrecks one crane by tearing it apart with his teeth and the other by simply walking through it is one of the better stop animation sequences I've seen. I liked the fact the director filmed it from the position of the pavement, which had the effect of giving size to the creature.

This was a very enjoyable flick, to say the least. The story and the filming were solid as too was the acting. Everybody put their skills into making this a very watchable movie. Not remembering the movie fully, I thought that the two main characters in the fishing village section Jean (Madison) and John (Turner) would be in the whole show, their acting is that good. However, when we leave the village we never see them again.

If you've never caught a '50's sci-fi monster flick then this one would be a nice place to start. And if you are a fan of the genre, then find a copy and watch this once more, it's worth it.

Director Eugene (Gene) Lourie made three similarly-themed giant monster flicks, beginning with 1953's 'Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' to 1961's 'Gorgo', with 'Behemoth' sandwiched in between. The story line is much like a myriad of other films of the era (and very much like 'Beast...") but this one is a cut above. This time, the irradiated creature (weren't they all during the 50s?) turns up in British waters. Unlike 'Beast' and 'Gorgo' (as well as Godzilla and the others), this Behemoth not only was a huge creature, but also had the ability to project 'electrified fields of radiation', causing people to literally burn to death. Scenes with Behemoth climbing out of the Thames, destroying buildings and burning people to death (even kids aren't spared) is pretty exciting. While close-ups of Behemoth are not realistic (compared to Ray Harryhausen's work in 'Beast'), the full-body scenes done by Willis O'Brien are very effective. The acting, untypical of these films, is actually pretty well done. Character actor Gene Evans and Hammer Films regular Andre Morell do splendid jobs, and the supporting cast is fine too. One can quibble over which of these films is the best, but I agree with an observation made in Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film that The Giant Behemoth was "the scariest giant monster-on-the-loose film ever made." At least up to that point, anyway. Well worth having if you're a fan of old sci-fi & horror films.

This film was made before the days of cgi and therefore must seem painfully dated to younger viewers but to us who grew up in the atomic monster age it is both scary and charming. We do not look with judgment on the film but rather on the times in which it was produced. Fond memories of drive-in theaters and Saturday night scarfests with friends. Carefree times of youth and adolescence. That said "Behemoth" is ultimately more entertaining with it's challenging fx than many of our modern day films which completely lack any charm. Simply filling a film with eye catching Cgi does not a movie make. Willis O'Brian's painstaking stop-motion effects and Eugene Lourie's talent with a minuscule budget unite to make a scary premise very entertaining and certainly fondly remembered.

When it comes to this film, some people love it, while others despise it. There seems to be no middle ground. Actually, BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER (aka THE GIANT BEHEMOTH) is not a bad giant monster on the loose flick. I enjoyed it when was a kid and I have this film on video and I still enjoy viewing it today. The special effects are pretty good for a quickly made low budget picture, the cast including Gene Evans turn in solid performances and Eugene Lourie's direction is quite good. The radiation scarred victims of the behemoth's radioactive aura (?) shocked me as a kid.

However, the main problem with this film is that we have seen it all before. The film is almost a remake of Lourie's BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS. The original script for this film was about an invisible radioactive monster that dwelled in the ocean. The backers of this film turned the script down, saying they didn't like the idea of an invisible monster. So Lourie went with a radioactive dinosaur and simply rewrote BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS.

The special effects are pretty good. The stop motion effects by Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson look pretty good for a low budget picture. The main problem is that O'Brien and Peterson had done much more impressive work elsewhere. The effects are not bad, but the effects here are not up to the work O'Brien and Peterson did in KING KONG or even THE BLACK SCORPION. The mechanical and pyro-technical effects by Jack Rabin and Irving Block are pretty ambitious for a picture of this nature.

BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER is a decent late fifties monster on the loose picture. It is just that we have seen this before and the people who made this film had done better work elsewhere.