Review of War of the Colossal Beast

Introduction

If you are old enough to remember B movies that thrilled and frightened you then this is for you. One of a series of The Arkoff Collection with such glorious titles as `The Spider`, `The Brain Eaters` and `The Day the World Ended`.
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Starring nobody you will ever have heard of, this one was produced in 1958.
This is a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man` in which a man has been affected by being exposed to an atomic explosion. He starts to grow and keeps growing until he is 60 feet tall. Apparently dead after being attacked by the army in the first film, in this one he is found in Mexico and brought back to the city.

The plot has echoes of King Kong. The woman in this case is his sister who tries desperately to get through to him. Unfortunately the attacks have left him hideously scarred and hopelessly insane.

Video

Some work must have been done on this film, as it is reasonably clean being almost brown and white. Unfortunately there are no details on the pack about this. Many of these films were released on video a few years ago so the work may have been done then. There is even some colour at the end, possibly by colourising. The trailers are quite badly marked but marvellous fun.

Audio

With a suitably dramatic B movie soundtrack the music lurches up and down.
Some of the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious. However it is clear if not classic.

Features

The most fascinating extra I`ve heard for some time is the Audio of the Guardian Lecture by Samuel Z. Arkoff. He vividly recreates what it was like in filmmaking in the 1950s and how he tried to change it by using young unknowns in his cheaply made films that he hoped would appeal to the teenagers who had the leisure and the money. Any of this sound familiar?
Arkoff was in film-making for fifty years and many of today`s greats worked with him at some point. He produced Roger Corman`s Edgar Allen Poe movies in the 1960`s and went on to some bigger budgets in the 1990`s.
As there are related discs issued with this one I have a feeling that this interview is duplicated on each one so if you are buying the set not much of an extra for your money.

Also featured are the original theatrical trailers for the series of films. Whilst searching for more details about these films I found a DVD that features trailers for films like these. Somebody out there must like them. These films and their trailers were the bread and butter of the cinemas in the 1950`s. Note the poor state of the trailer and you can see a good job of preservation has been done on the film itself.

I must also mention the postcard collection that accompanies this film. They show all the other `classics` available. So high-quality, my husband wants to frame them-always a good idea to scare off potential guests!

Conclusion

They started with the title and sold the movie on that basis. They were made with the minimum of funds and the special effects are laughable. Don`t expect great dialogue but do expect to have a great time watching this kind of potboiler. It doesn`t pretend to be great art but it kept people entertained when you got more for your money that twenty minutes of adverts sponsored by the mobile phone industry.

From more innocent time and not supposed to be a deep reflection of the problems of mankind it does nevertheless address the predicament of the atomic age, the cold war and just what people become in this frightening modern era. It was a scary time even in the film industry when you might not work if you happened to have socialist sympathies. Not just a film but also a historical document that may well form part of a University course.

It`s disappointing that the interview with Arkoff doesn`t feature this film more specifically but all of these films were made so quickly I doubt very much whether he would have specifically remembered it if asked. As it was the interview was recorded in 1991 about the time when the VHS versions were being issued and with Arkoff making B features in the sky it is too late to add to it.

Ok so not a classic then but there are buyers for this-you know who you are!