Skip to content

THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)

Written By:

Luke Spafford
beast fathoms

Take a look through the credits of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and you come across the rather splendid ‘Suggested by the sensational Saturday Evening Post’. True, newspapers birthing films based on articles is nothing new. Heck, The New York Times drops a sprog every couple of weeks it seems. In this case, it was a short fiction story that gave inspiration to the movie’s script writers, which again, is nothing new. What’s odd about this is that the newspaper gets a credit before the stories’ writer, a one Mr Ray Bradbury. Further down those credits is another Ray, perhaps now even more synonymous with the genre, a one Mr Ray Harryhausen.

Rudely awoken from blissful slumber by bomb testing in the Arctic Circle, a giant Rhedosaurus (not a real dinosaur, FYI) takes a gentle amble down south casually destroying everything in his or her path. Which, let’s face it, is how we all feel when the alarm goes off on Monday morning.

Plot-wise, this is where Bradbury’s genius leaves us and passes the baton on to Harryhausen to make the damn thing work.

It’s fair to place Harryhausen front and centre of the piece as, let’s face it, no one watches this particular arm of cinema with a hard eye on the script or even the direction. The cast are serviceable but ultimately forgettable, serving up trite dialogue that forms more of a narration on the creatures’ whereabouts than anything. A strange sort of Michael Palin travelogue, if you will, just with more destruction and a lot less affability. The direction sits in that odd middling area of ‘just graduated from B-movie directors school’, but keeps the plot plodding along at a pace mirroring its star. Its star being the thing we are all here to see and what a beautifully ugly thing of wonder it is.

There are endless books and documentaries on the subject of Harryhausen’s work for this writer to spend too much time waxing lyrical about his genius, but it needs to be said that without him, this film would have been consigned to the mists of time and unlike our Rhedosaur friend, never to awake. There is an almost loving amount of detail in the monster, all of which pops in this new transfer to Blu-ray. Harryhausen’s signature stop-motion effects imbue the monster with a realism that Godzilla’s man in a suit never could. It’s reputed that this was the inspiration for that granddaddy of monster flicks, but given that Godzilla arrived only 16 months later, this seems unlikely.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms provides an ample, if not slightly stodgy, slice of B-movie pie that’s improved by the sprinkling of Harryhausen’s cream on top. A forerunner to Godzilla it may be, but there’s a reason only one of the two spawned what seems like a thousand sequels. Perhaps Rhedosaurus should’ve just hit the snooze button instead.

THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)  / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: EUGÈNE LOURIÉ / SCREENPLAY: LOU MORHEIM, FRED FREIBERGER / STARRING: PAUL HUBSCHMID, PAULA RAYMOND, CECIL KELLAWAY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (HMV EXCLUSIVE)

Luke Spafford

You May Also Like...

Skulls : Dawn of War and Dark Heresy Delights Warhammer Fans

Warhammer’s annual video game announcement event, Skulls, has just finished, and it looks like 2025 is a bumper year for fans of video game RPGs, sequels and remasters. The show
Read More
street fighter video game still

Jason Momoa And More Circling STREET FIGHTER

Jason Momoa, Andrew Koji, Noah Centineo, and WWE star Roman Reigns are in early talks to star in Street Fighter for Legendary Entertainment, per Deadline. Though the cast hasn’t been announced yet, it is understood
Read More
austin butler in caught stealing trailer

Things Are Heating Up In Aronofsky’s CAUGHT STEALING Trailer

Things are heating up for Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz in the trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, Caught Stealing. Sony Pictures is set to release the feature in cinemas on August 29th. Also starring
Read More
elle fanning in the trailer for predator: badlands

Elle Fanning Is Effie Trinket In SUNRISE ON THE REAPING

Hide the mahogany, Elle Fanning is joining the cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping as Effie Trinket. THR broke the news. In the story, Effie serves as
Read More
carey mulligan with bradley cooper in maestro

Carey Mulligan Joins Greta Gerwig’s NARNIA

Carey Mulligan is in negotiations for a key role in Narnia, Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia fantasy novels, THR breaks. Casting is still underway, but Mulligan will be joining Emma Mackey,
Read More
jurassic world rebirth second trailer still

JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH Trailer 2 Will Get Fans Amped

The very worst, most dangerous dinosaurs are those doing the attacking in Jurassic World Rebirth. The second trailer for this seventh instalment in the Jurassic franchise releases on July 2nd,
Read More