The year 2022 has been a particularly good year for campy creature features, with movies like Crabs! And Wolfkin offering up the same sort of schlocky fun one associates with creature features of the 1950s.
However, though it is easy to look down on them or to laugh at them for their melodrama and their camp, the truth is that many of these movies can, when looked at in a certain light, be quite scary. This is particularly true of those that tapped into the anxiety surrounding a feared nuclear apocalypse, one of the most potent worries of the postwar years.
Them! (1954)
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At first glance, it might not seem like a movie about giant, mutated ants would be that scary, but that is to fundamentally misunderstand Them! In the movie, a colony of ants grows to giant proportions as a result of being exposed to atomic radiation, which then go on to kill many people.
The special effects are surprisingly sophisticated for a movie of this type, and the specter of nuclear annihilation helps to give its narrative a powerful bite that endures, particularly given the extent to which such fears have resurfaced during the 21st century.
Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)
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Few horror movies have exerted quite as strong of a hold on the public imagination as Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is arguably one of the best horror movies ever made. It is also one of the most frightening, particularly since the creature in question is so menacing in appearance.
What’s more, the movie manages to capture just the right level of sinister atmosphere. Even now, it manages to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat as they, along with the characters, wait to see just what the creature will do next.
It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)
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Ray Harryhausen is renowned for his ability to create truly unsettling creatures in stop-motion, and this is evident in many of his movies from the 1950s. In It Came from Beneath the Sea, for example, features a giant octopus that has, unsurprisingly, been transformed by exposure to a hydrogen bomb.
Though the creature is obviously a major reason that the movie manages to frighten, it is also its rather documentarian tone. This gives it a feeling of immediacy and reality that makes the viewer almost forget that they are watching a piece of fiction rather than a slice of reality.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)
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Many great horror movies emerged out of the 1950s, but few were as adept at capturing the fears of the period like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As its title suggests, it focuses on a small town that is invaded by an alien race determined on replicating their human hosts and taking over the planet.
It remains a frightening movie for many reasons, not the least of which is the skill with which it articulates the fear of conformity that was rampant in American culture at the time. The movie’s relatively simple cinematography and its film noir aesthetic undergird its somber look at 1950s America.
The Blob (1958)
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There have been many movies made about alien invasions, but The Blob deserves to be seen as among the best of them. Focusing on an amoeba-like alien creature which begins to devour people after it lands on Earth, it’s a movie that is very much in the B-movie aesthetic that was very common in the 1950s.
However, this doesn’t mean that it’s not still a very scary offering, and the creature’s ability to consume almost anything and anyone is one that still has the ability to send a chill down the spine of even the most cynical movie-goer.
The Fly (1958)
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The 1950s was a decade characterized by enormous strides in science, with many discoveries which would go on to reshape American life. However, many of these involved exploring the unknown, with all the peril that entails.
The Fly is a great example of a creature feature that articulates the fears of science, and its story about a man who becomes a terrible hybrid of fly and human after an experiment goes wrong is one that still has the ability to shock. It is, to be sure, a shocking and frightening movie and the special effects are better than one might expect.
The Thing From Another World (1951)
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The postwar decades were characterized by a certain level of paranoia, which helps to explain why so many movies of the period, particularly creature features, dealt with beings from outer space. The Thing from Another World focuses on a plant-like alien that, after being defrosted, terrorizes a group of scientists in the Arctic.
It is a movie that maintains its power to terrify, particularly since the creature in question is only rarely seen in a full shot. As a result, it stands in the movie as a source of menace and terror.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
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As with so many of the movies of the 1950s that were creature features, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms involves nuclear testing, which in this case awakens a dinosaur from slumber. The beast then wreaks havoc on the surface. It features the great special effects of Ray Harryhausen and the creature itself is one of his best early works.
In fact, it is precisely this menacing creature that gives the movie its power to terrify a modern viewer, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a salutary reminder of the perils of nuclear technology.
20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)
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Ray Harryhausen had a particularly great decade in the 1950s, and his creatures would become a steady part of the b-movie circuit. They are very much in evidence in 20 Million Miles to Earth, which tells the story of a creature brought back to Earth by an American space crew.
The creature itself is one of Harryhausen’s best, both very frightening to behold and yet oddly sympathetic, as it tries to figure out what it is doing on this strange planet while everyone tries to destroy it.
The Mummy (1959)
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Few movie monsters have become quite as prominent as the Mummy, which has appeared in a number of creature features. This movie is not only quite chilling–the title creature maintains its power to terrify–but also quite well-executed. It’s clear that the movie had a substantial budget, which gives it a level of gravitas that is sometimes lacking in creature features of this particular variety.
As a result, the movie manages to capture the chilling idea of a creature coming back from the dead to frighten and kill the living.
