The onset of the atomic age had a number of immediate effects besides school age children being subjected to ludicrous “duck and cover” vignettes and households building bomb shelters in their back yards or basements. That zeitgeist also fed into a new genre for movie production houses to explore. Japan, the first victim of atomic bombs understandbly reponded with Godzilla as a warning against the use of nuclear weapons, but it was Hollywood who pounced on the idea of gargantuan animals and insects to fill the silver screens and coffers alike. The craze produced a number of genuinely entertaining features such as the formic foes in Them!, the arachnid menace in Tarantula! (inexplicably, adding an exclamation mark to the title seems to have resulted in better films) ,or the more loosely defined monster in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. But the onslaught of these fissionable freaks also produced some less than supreme B movies for Drive-in patrons to enjoy. For every commendable cinematic mutation there were a dozen Z grade groaners such as Tor Johnson parading as The Beast of Yucca Flats or Roger Corman’s Day the World Ended.
Now with such a lame title I would think that The Monster That Challenged the World would fall into the latter category. I mean, what kind of terror could a mere ‘Challenge’ present? The world is not threatened to be ‘Destroyed’ or ‘Decimated’, just … challenged. And by a generic Monster at that.
As it turns out, this aquatic threat (which is a creature subgenre in its own) is not even a singular ‘monster’ at all but an entire colony of now exposed and released subterranean caterpillar-mollusk hybrids. Do I even need to tick off the plot points? OK, let’s go.
Shortly after an earthquake a duo of parachutists in training go missing at their drop points in California’s Salton Sea. The authorities investigate and along with a puddle of sticky white ooze they recover a body which has been drained of all fluids. They soon find the radiating mutant, caterpillar-looking culprits and even collect one of the eggs (always a bad move). Just when they believe they have exterminated the threat the aforementioned egg hatches and puts the requisite damsel in distress.
You’ve got atomic blasts, Geiger counters, military rank and file (along with the secrecy and deception they bring), one befuddled doctor, bespectacled scientists, a lab with flasks and test tubes, actors filmed “underwater” behind an aquarium, a beautiful girl with a sob story and various forms of creatures. One surprise in this film was seeing actor Hans Conried (the doctor) playing a serious role which he would relinquish after this movie to become a successful comedy ‘character’ actor thereafter for years to come.
Sure this isn’t anywhere near the quality of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but for a cheesy afternoon flic you could do certainly worse.