Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely the worst movie.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Making a movie about killing stones is a hard one. Don't slate me for this because I'm between a rock and hard place with this film. It's somewhat good, but not really. If the movie was boulder with its horror, maybe it would be more well-known. It was weird that this movie was released to theater as a double feature with the movie 'Love Slaves of the Amazons'. These two, have nothing to do with each other. Sadly, this movie didn't rock my world, too much. I did find it funny that the title of the film is 'The Monolith Monsters' because there's no actual monster, in the film. Even the DVD cover is misleading as it has a Frankenstein like creature on the cover. No, the Monoliths are just a bunch of big stones that has destructive like power. Given the Cold War hysteria of the 1950's, Monoliths was a stand-in for the perceived threat of nuclear war. The monoliths act like sponges that suck up any silicon based life form around them turning those objects into stone figures similar to what a nuclear blast might do. The monoliths then reproduce by growing a certain height, and then falling over, shattering so each piece becomes a new creature. Ready to threaten to swallow the whole North America continent if somebody stop them. It seem to be a symbol for the spread of communism at the time. Another big fear of the time was the unknown of space itself. The space age hasn't yet embark so many people dreamt up stories and rumors of what space might be like. The fear by the general audience of the unknown space was key to the large amounts of sci-fiction movies and books being produce at the time. Nearly nobody at the time, knew much about space, or in this case, meteors to the point that the writers of this film, Robert Fresco and Norman Jelly capitalize on that fear of an unknown extraterrestrial source entering Earth that might pose harm. To give you an example of what the monoliths look like, if you haven't saw this film. The Monolith Monsters extraterrestrial meteorite fragments served as the basis for what would become Tiberium in the Command & Conquer video game series and works the same way. They also remind me of kryptonite crystal from the Superman comic book. Instead of it, only hurting superman, it's killing everything in sight. The mineral turning into people into stone rather sucking them dry is a bit outlandish, but in the 1950's era, there was a limited on how gory you can have in your horror movies. It was a safe way to keep the movie from being banned. Too bad, most of the stone turning kills happen off camera, so we don't see them turning to stone, just the aftermath. I thought that was a downer. I wanted to see how this was able to happen. There was a few plot-hole about that, as it is established that contact with water "activates" the monolith rocks, and that contact with the rocks, results in turning the victims to stone. But it is never explained why everyone else who handles them afterward is unaffected by the results. It's like the mineral choose who to inflect and who not to. The movie was directed by John Sherwood, a veteran with over 50 films with his name. The movie plot seems unique and interesting, but can't help it wasn't scary or suspense enough. The only person that would probably be scare of this movie, would be people with silicone breast implants. This movie gives a new meaning to getting stoned. There isn't much to be afraid of a stone-faced rock. The acting in the film was pretty alright. Everybody fit in the roles that they were given. Grant Williams as Dave Miller was a pretty convincing geologist and Lola Albright works well as the female lead, Dave's girlfriend, teacher Cathy Barrett. The effects were pretty good for the time with the use of paint backgrounds, and mini-models. Great use of optical illusion composite shots forced perspective to make the monoliths look huge. There were a lot of recycle stock footage that I didn't like. It felt weird that they use the footage from 1953's 'They came from Outer space' for the meteor crashing on earth shot. The locations used was great and make sense to the plot as there isn't supposed to be that much rain fall. If the town looks familiar to you, it's should. It was reused for 1950's Hill Valley in Back to the future films. One thing that bugs me is the ending, without spoiling it too much. When you think about the solution, they come up with to stop these things, when you think hard about it, you notice that the 'solution' only neutralized their grown. Therefore, once it rains again the rocks will again begin to grow and spread. So it a bittersweet ending when you think about it. For 77 minutes, it's pretty good. Some things, I didn't like, the music can be a bit overbearing, and the science is a bit out there. Overall, it's worth checking out, if you like 1950's Sci Fiction movies.

Yes, it's another sci-fi flick from the '50s. "The Monolith Monsters" is about a meteor that crashes in the California desert, and pieces of it get exposed to water and grow to the size of buildings, threatening a nearby town. The characters in "2001: A Space Odyssey" never had to deal with these sorts of monoliths!* As is pretty much always the case with '50s sci-fi flicks, the whole thing is very enjoyable, although I did occasionally take the time to throw out the kinds of comments that the characters on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" make. An interesting thing about this movie is that there's a family named Simpson, and a character named Flanders.Anyway, good times.*Once while taking a course about Stanley Kubrick's movies, I thought of something: the word monolith in Greek means "one stone", which is also what Einstein means.

The Monolith Monsters starts as a meteorite crash lands near the desert town of San Angelo & shatters sending shards of black rock everywhere, the next morning & geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey) pick a piece of it up & takes it back to his laboratory to examine it. Later that night the wind knocks over a beaker of water which lands on the fragment of rock which then starts to grow. Ben's partner Dave Miller (Grant Williams) finds the laboratory wrecked with pieces of the rock everywhere & Ben dead, stiff as a board. Trying to work out what killed Ben leads Dave to discover that the rock is activated by water & grows to enormous heights until it cannot support itself & falls over & shatters in a thousand pieces each of which then also grow in a never ending cycle, then suddenly Dave realises that it's raining outside & all the other pieces of the meteorite start to grow & advance towards the town crushing everything in their way...Directed by John Sherwood this was yet another Universal monster film from the 50's that they churned out, to be fair to Universal they usually produced decent films & The Monolith Monsters is no exception thanks to a unique alien threat even if the basic story doesn't deviate too much from the stand small town comes under attack from some sort of alien or monster scenario. I must admit that I love the concept of the alien rock that simply grows like a skyscraper until it topples over & shatters in hundreds of shards each of which then goes through the same process as the alien rock just multiplies & engulfs anything that gets in it's way. It's a great idea, sure there's still some subplot about how it causes people to turn to stone by sucking the silicone out of them but otherwise The Monolith Monsters avoids the usual men in rubber monster suits & dopey science although some of the dialogue between Miller & the Professor is a bit dry & doesn't entirely convince. Once again The Monolith Monsters is a real product of it's time, it's amazing how polite & helpful everyone is here with a real post war community spirit where all the young kids in town decide to help out by delivering warning posters, the army, politicians, Doctor's & scientists all work together seamlessly without any arguments & even the local reporter decides not to cash-in on the story & keep it under wraps to avoid a panic. It feels a little naive when seen today but it's not a huge problem. At a brisk 77 minutes the plot takes no longer than it needs to & it moves along at a decent pace, the climax is a little rushed & everything works a little too well but the ending still works.With no aliens or monsters the special effects people had to somehow create huge rock formations that grow, fall over & shatter & start all over again & they do a fine job with some good model work & effects. The iconic scene of the huge monolith crashing to the ground & destroying the farm is still quite an impressive special effect. Less effective is the dam being blown up & the subsequent stock footage of gushing water. Apparently originally released by Universal as a double feature with Love Slaves of the Amazons (1957), the footage of the meteorite crashing during the opening sequence was taken from It Came from Outer Space (1953) which Universal made four years earlier.Probably shot on a low budget the makers did the best they could with decent production values & surprisingly good model effects work. Mainly shot on the back-lot at Universal studios like most of these sorts of films were. The acting is alright, it always seems a little wooden to me in these quick & cheap 50's sci-fi films but no-one really embarrasses themselves.The Monolith Monsters is an enjoyable slice of 50's sci-fi horror with a great central concept & some impressive effects work, for the time anyway. You could do a lot worse than spend an hour & a quarter watching this.

Since its initial release to theaters, "The Monolith Monsters" has drifted somewhat towards obscurity, despite being made by a major Hollywood studio. That's too bad, because this is a pretty fun little "giant monster" movie, in part because there are some elements here that seem fresh compared to other '50s giant monster movies. The threat isn't something with intelligence (animal or otherwise), so there is a feeling that the characters are really dealing with something unknown and unheard of before. The idea of humanity being threatened with rocks is also an original one. The script is fairly intelligent, with enough science to feel smart yet not alienate any members of the audience. And the tone is serious, not campy in any way. The only objections I found were that it's never shown just exactly how the giant rocks feed off their human victims, and that it takes a bit longer than usual for a feeling of panic and urgency to build up. But those are minor quibbles; as I said earlier, this is a fun movie.