The Monolith Monsters (1957)

1950s American science fiction cinema gave us giant killer ants, giant killer spiders and other assorted giant killer critters. The Monolith Monsters, released by Universal in 1957, is the killer rocks movie. Killer rocks from outer space, to be precise.

A meteor comes down in the desert. The area is littered with strange black rocks. They’re interesting rocks and several people pick them up and take them home. Those people die horribly - turned into stone! One of them is a geologist from the US Department of the Interior who takes one of the rocks back to his office in a sleepy little desert town. His buddy and fellow geologist Dave (Grant Williams) wants to find out the answer to the mystery and his girlfriend, schoolteacher Cathy Barrett (Lola Albright), has a personal interest. One of the little kids, Ginny, she teaches looks like being the next victim of the killer rocks.

Dave enlists the help of his old professor. They must race against time to unravel the secret of the rocks if they’re going to save little Ginny. In fact it’s not just a matter of saving one little girl - these rocks grow and multiply and they’re a threat to Civilisation As We Know It.

The rocks grow into gigantic monoliths capable of crushing anything that gets in their way.

In a movie of this type there naturally has to be some simple and yet unlikely answer to the problem of stopping the monsters. That aspect is handled well, with lots of frustrating setbacks while the time just keeps ticking away. And those rocks just keep growing and going. And advancing. It seems that the entire town will be destroyed and the rocks won’t stop there. If they get to the other side of the mountains they’ll destroy everything in their path.

Not only do Dave and the professor need to find something that will stop the small rocks from growing in a laboratory - they need to find a way to destroy mountainous rock monoliths. The answer has to be something that will work on a really really large scale, and work quickly.

And Dr Hendricks, the specialist in Los Angeles treating little Ginny, has to find a way to cure the people who have have already been affected by the rocks and have already started turning into stone.

The premise is of course rather goofy. Although perhaps not really all that much goofier than the average monster movie. The idea of a meteor strike is at least plausible. What matters is that however silly the idea might be it’s extremely well executed. This is actually a rather well-made little film. It’s as if the people making it decided to try to make it into a good movie, and because they made a bit of an effort they largely succeeded.

It also works partly because it’s so bizarre. These rocks grow and multiply. They do stuff that rocks are just not supposed to do. And when something acts totally contrary to its nature in a way that is baffling and seemingly impossible you have an inherently creepy idea. And the very impersonality of the threat makes it scary. If you’re faced with a spider the size of a house you can at least look him in the eyes and hurl defiance at him. That’s an enemy you can face. You can’t do that with a rock. You just feel powerless. You can’t negotiate with this type of inanimate enemy or threaten it.

And these are rocks. You can’t shoot them. You can’t even get the army to bomb them or blow them up. When the rock monoliths break up they just produce more and more monoliths.

The acting is quite competent. The special effects are good and the miniatures work is excellent. It certainly doesn’t look like a Z-grade movie. John Sherwood only directed a handful of films which is a pity. He manages to make The Monolith Monsters suspenseful and fairly exciting, and it’s briskly paced as well. There’s even a genuine sense of menace.

Universal's Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection offers five films on DVD including this one. The black-and-white transfer is excellent.

The Monolith Monsters could have been dull and silly but in practice it’s a considerably better film than it has any right to be. In fact it’s a rather good little movie. It’s a bit offbeat, in some ways more like a disaster movie than a monster movie. It’s also much more of an actual science fiction movie than the average 50s monster movie. Some thought has actually been put into creating an original and interesting threat from outer space. Highly recommended.