The Worst Film Ever

recommended

Am I Missing Something?

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

An interesting but rather odd and contrived story. Yes it's nice to see a serious attempt at authentic science. But it really fails rather badly at that -- even though it has the aura of authenticity.Why did the writers of the movie feel it was necessary to go to Canada? Did audiences of the time accept the oddly dressed workers as Canadians? They were, of course, Germans acting in a movie from 1934. As I write this in 2018, I wonder if other new viewers had the same thought as me -- they are going 1700 feet underground along the coast of Nova Scotia? My God -- it's Oak Island!!

MM is a lesser movie, and not nearly on par with the best the 50s had to offer by way of American scifi flicks. It pales in comparison to movies like Them, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, The Monolith Monsters, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Forbidden Planet, It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, The Mole People, and others. Not all of these are superb movies, but all of them are far more entertaining than The Magnetic Monster.MM suffers from the same problems as a good many scifi films from that era. Unlike any of the above listed examples, MM is filmed in a documentary style, which also characterized some of the lesser film noir of the same time period. Exposition is handled mainly through very boring voice-over narration. In this way, instead of conveying information and through interesting character interactions or suspenseful plot reveals (watch The Thing for a perfect example of how it should be done), we have to listen to the protagonist drone on and on in sci-babble through his voice-overs. In addition, the movie makes liberal use of Air Force stock footage leading up to the climax. The climax itself consists largely of re-used footage from what I believe is the 1935 scifi movie, Trans-Atlantic Tunnel (worth a look, BTW). All of the above alludes to the main problem with MM: a bland, uninteresting script which never draws the viewer in after the fashion of the better scifi movies from that era. Most of the movies I listed above make a sincere attempt to present entertaining dialogue, and those with less complex scripts still create suspense through competent pacing and editing. Some of them, such as Them and The Thing, inject some humor into the script, thus investing the movie with another level of entertainment, while also fleshing out the characters a bit more. MM possesses none of these attributes, which is somewhat surprising, given Curt Siodmak's involvement with the film. He was both a competent writer and a reasonably talented director (perhaps not coincidentally, he conceived the story for Trans-Atlantic Tunnel).Anyway, Magnetic Monster is worth a look, I guess, if you are a connoisseur of 50s American scifi; but I suggest you go in with low expectations.

It's April, 2013, an age of scientific advance Mr. Carlson surely would have loved to have seen, and TCM just had a Richard Carlson tribute evening. All his best. These movies have lost nothing of their fascination from the time I first watched them as a young child through now as I'm just a tinch shy of my "golden years". Those of us who fall into this age category have the wonderful advantage of having seen science fiction be translated into science fact. We were the dreamers who saw the beginnings of the space age through these incredible films of the 50's of which Richard Carlson's were among the best. This movie, along with Riders to the Stars, were his first attempts to try to provide more science "fact" than "fiction" and they still to this day provide excellent film watching. They also are from a period where films still relied mainly on actually telling a story, as opposed to whip fast computer generated graphics to provide all the entertainment. The Magnetic Monster delves into the relatively unknown to the average person, but terrifying world of nuclear material, and a batch of it that seems to actually be alive and with a voracious appetite. I found it more like watching a documentary than a film and this one stuck with me, even after all these years. It's well worth a watch and if you have young children, especially age 8-11, try to get them to take a watch with you. I'm sure many a scientist today got their initial thirst for science from some of Carlson's wonderful films. ENJOY!!

What a nice walk down memory lane! No saggy drawers or F bombs. If you like your sci-fi a little cheesy with some belly laughs, this film is perfect! The only thing that comes to mind that would have made this better would have been a cameo by Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi! This is NOT Oscar stuff here but it is enjoyable!!! There's lots of lightning and scientific jargon that makes you go Huh????? You also have the pretty young lady and all the crazy Doc Brown like scientists running around. This almost has a Frankenstein feeling to it. I watched this on TCM. It's nice there are still opportunities to see these movies made during the atomic/radiation scare days of the 50's. Pop the popcorn and sit back and relax and enjoy the corny special effects!