The Monolith Monsters (1957)

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Another 1950's "B" movie half-of-a-double-feature 'monster' movie. But different. The writing and acting isn't any better. The pseudo-scientific technobabble is even self-mocking - maybe an inside joke by a bored writer...One thing that makes this stand out is that the monster isn't some horrible creature, it is just a rock, a chemical-geologic process. Which not only means no bad make-up or guy in a rubber costume or clumsy stop-motion or composite photography that tended to be distractingly-bad in their day and just-plain-laughable by the late 1960's, but also that the 'monster' is a chemical process, mindless and relentless like a flood. It's scarier when you aren't laughing at the bad guy.Instead, we get some very-decent miniatures and effects (obvious, but they LOOK great), clear lighting and good cinematography. The "science" is of course pure claptrap, but it doesn't SOUND as ridiculous as the silly gobbledygook that's supposed to explain giant insects and green zombies from mars.Definitely one of the outstanding "B"-movies of its time. The producers appear to have gotten their money's worth in what was probably a low but well-managed budget.

John Sherwood directs this sometimes forgotten classic. It was the mid 50's and things were mostly blamed on radiation or...something from outer space. Grant Williams plays scientist Dave Miller, who is prominent in the investigation and research of what follows after a meteor crashes into the desert. The meteor breaks into pieces and the many fragments start growing extremely large when they are exposed to water. Soon these "Monolith Monsters" begin sucking the moisture out of humans, thus in turn human life becomes petrified versions of itself. Can this phenomenal situation be reversed?Other players: Lola Albright, Trevor Bardette, Les Tremayne, William Flaherty, Phil Harvey and William Schallert.

It is amazing that you can make a movie with so little and the movie could turn up decent. The movie has no great budget but the idea behind it it's so great and simple. Meteors that crushed to earth and they threaten it! Rocks that broke in thousands of small parts and they multiply with water! The quit life of a small graphic town want be the same again. People's bodies turn into rock and the only ones who can help is the geologists. The biggest enemy now is rain! Rain that gives life, now threatens this little town. Rain will help the rocks to grow and everything around the rock will seize to exist. In general this is pretty much a typical scifi movie. We have the girl, the scientist, love, a big threat by a strange unknown enemy and we are waiting for science to find a solution and save the day. The acting is OK and the scenario is great! The movie it's really entertaining and for those of you who love science fiction, I think you will enjoy it too.

Here is a novel premise: the whole paranoia of "watching the skies" gets a unique sci-fi spins when meteorites, crashing into a mountainous desert outside a little township, whose ingredients consist primarily of silicate materials, grows when water is applied, enlarging at an alarming rate, towering to great heights, falling and breaking apart onto land, buildings, and anything else that they come in contact with. Humans who contact the meteorite pieces, when water is a major factor, start to stiffen into silicate themselves and it is a race against time to discover how to stop the meteorites from spreading, destroying everything in their path. I love these sci-fi B-movies from the 50s, particularly the ones released by Universal Studios. Shot in a serious manner, with a scientific approach applied to analyzing and conquering the threat, whether it be man-made or from space, movies like "The Monolith Monsters" are like rock candy to me…I have a sweet tooth for these sci-fi chillers/creature features, and especially fond of those movies shot in rural towns with small local farming communities or blue collar areas outside the big cities. This movie's threat is certainly unique—rocks as tall as skyscrapers falling, "Timber!", like trees cut by lumberjacks, with our heroes looking on from afar, is quite a visual, even if atypical of the genre. But that, I think, sets this apart from the usual fair…not a funny-looking monster made from scraps or rubber, or a giant creature of some sort, this movie has meteorites as a global threat against mankind, using water, of all things, as the source of their growth. As usual, there's a miracle cure for how to stop the meteorites (which have inherited plenty of mysteries from space during their travels to the earth's surface), and we get the big finale where a dam is exploded and a saline solution might be the key ingredient in how to trigger a reverse in the growing pattern. Seeing meteorites grow on spot when water hits them and the knowledge that large silicate rock formations are your threats to mankind might be a bit too silly for some viewers, but I had some fun with this regardless. It is cotton candy to me, really, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Sure, it might be a bit corny, but I always appreciate the earnestness of the performances regardless of what "monsters" might threaten their characters' local communities within the plots of these disregarded studio B-movie cheapies. I always credit the no-name casts of these movies during this era for providing credible portraits of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances, with the fate of mankind possibly in their hands.