War of the Colossal Beast (1958)

Overrated

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I have seen snippets of the original film, The Amazing Colossal Man, and I have known of this film. My viewing of this film came from an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 whom also did the first film too. Not sure why they released the sequel episode before the original though. Suffice to say, the film was a bit of a letdown. The effect of Glenn's face having the skin off one side revealing a skeleton was actually pretty good. The problem with the film is that this colossal beast does not really get to terrorize much at all in this one and there is not much of a war going on as about the only action the military does is drive vehicles into position. The finale is as weak as they come with nothing really happening, poor colossal beast does not even get to throw one thing or trash a building. The premise is pretty good, but there just is not a lot going on here, unfortunately. Just scenes of speculation and then the colossal beast appears and gets captured and spends most of the film on his back. Even with the riffing from the gang from the satellite of love it was kind of dull.The story has strange occurrences happening in Mexico as trucks are disappearing. Glenn's sister immediately suspects her brother is the cause despite him taking a mortar round to the face and seemingly plummeting to his doom from the dam. Well, she is able to investigate and sure enough Glenn is alive, although he is not doing to good as he seems more animal now than human, pilfering from trucks to find food to survive. The army is able to capture him alive and plan to fly him to an island where he can live out his days in peace; unfortunately, he has other plans as he escapes his binds and begins to cause a panic within the city! This made for a rather bland episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Just seems a film about a giant going on the rampage would pack more riffs within it than this film ended up doing. The short with Mr. B that preceded the film had more good riffs than this one. It was still an okay episode though and still a lot better than the weakest episode of Mystery Science Theater, the Hamlet episode, but just not their strongest movie. Curious to see if the Amazing Colossal Man is better, as I find that when they riff a sequel to a film they have already done, the first film usually has the better riffing. Happened with the Master Ninja films and that Japanese film featuring the star wolves.So, the film had some potential for both being a pretty good 50's science fiction movie and episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and it kind of misses the mark on both counts. Had rather good make up design and seeing Glenn the first time is a bit jarring, but a lot of the film just kind of whiffs after that and it also seemed Glenn was not a consistent size because at some points he looks like he towers over all and in other scenes he looks like he is no taller than an average size tree. It also seems they could have added more action, but instead added padding especially at the end with the mom and the coat. As a Mystery Science Theater episode, it may be sequel fatigue that caused them not to be as sharp as usual. Still, not a horrible movie, just a film that had a pretty good idea, but just did not add enough too it to back up that good idea.

Bert I. Gordon was known to milk a successful formula dry, but his efforts perhaps never felt more mercenary than here – for he not only revived the unfortunate protagonist of THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN but, to show his degeneration to an essentially subhuman level, he was given the chief attribute (an annoyingly loud growl) of THE CYCLOPS (both these films emanated from the previous year)! A sure sign of the quick cash-in status of this one is the fact that the film-makers did not even bother to re-read the original's script, where it is mentioned that Glenn Langan had no surviving relatives…but a sister somehow pops up here!; incidentally, one cannot blame the actor for presumably declining to reprise his by-now unenviable role, but neither were any of the other characters retained (which is odd, to say the least)! While the lack of heartburn this time around can be explained by the scientists in the first film having succeeded in stalling his growth, he acquires a physical and almost skeletal makeover – which, along with the title (despite its obvious exaggeration, since his acts of aggression basically revolve around pillaging food-trucks for sustenance and, at the climax, threatening to throw a school-bus filled with children at the inquisitive crowds and assorted military figures below!) and a surprising switch to colour for the monster's literally electrifying come-uppance, virtually constitute its sole points of interest.

War of the Colossal Beast (1958) On the heels of the previous years "The Amazing Colossal Man", War" continues the destructive exploits of Col. Glenn Manning who was exposed to radiation and mutated into a 60 foot behemoth. Found terrorizing locals in Mexico the colossal beast is drugged and brought to the US where he runs amok in Los Angeles. This ridiculously hack sequel was clearly just thrown together due to the success of the original. Heck during one scene involving a large, over-sized hypodermic needle if you look at the creatures face you'll notice a shot where the "beast" has none of its skull makeup on with both eyes clearly shown. It's laughable but not in a good way. (Dir...Bert I. Gordon) (VHS) (1/5)

**SPOILERS** After being hit by a number of bazooka shells and falling some 700 feet from the top of the Hoover Dam 60 foot Glenn Manning, Duncan Parkin, somehow survived and ended up, flowing downstream, in Mexico. It's there that Manning, the survivor of a plutonium blast, started raiding grocery trucks to fill his enormous stomach and keep from starving to death.It's when American gun club owner John Swason's, George Becwar, grocery truck was snatched by Manning with his young Mexican driver Miguel, Robert Hernandez, losing his mind in the process that the truth came out that the big guy was still around and causing trouble. It's Manning's sister Joyce, Sally Fraser, who by watching a news report on the incident suspected that her "Big" brother had survived in his battle with the US Army as was now determined to find him. The final evidence that Manning was in fact alive is when Swanson's dismantled truck was found with a giant fingerprint indented in it that matched the so-called deceased Manning that was proof positive that he in fact was alive. The problem now is how to apprehend him and bring Manning back to the US for farther study! In how plutonium rays effects the growth process in both man and animal!Manning is fit to be tied, and is, as he's brought back to the US, after being captured in the wilds of Mexico, in a giant US Army cargo military plane to L.A. Despite all the precautions to keep Manning, who lost an eye and half of his brain in his battle with the US Army, "tied up" he escapes, twice not once, from his confinement as he causes havoc all throughout the L.A district. ***SPOILERS**** In the end Manning just got sick and tired tearing the city apart and seeing that there's no future in him being the biggest guy in the neighborhood he did the only thing left for him to do. With him destined to go through life wearing a giant makeshift diaper, since there's no clothes that can possible fit him, Manning put an end to it all by electrocuting himself, by grabbing a live 50 foot power line, and did it in living color!The most unusual thing about the movie "War of the Colossal Beast" is that its star Duncan Parkin as Glenn Manning was overshadowed by actor Glenn Langan who played Glenn Manning in the previous movie that the film was based on "The Amazing Colossal Man"! In fact it was Langan, in a number of long flashbacks, that had more screen time as far more lines in the film that Parkin did! There's also in the movie George Becwar as gun club and truck owner John Swanson who three years earlier became immortalizes, in bad movie lovers circles, as the overstuffed and arrogant Prof. Valadimir Strowski in the Ed Wood bad movie classic "Bride of the Monster". It was Prof. Strowski who ended up being a victim of what the films star Bela Lugosi, as Dr. Eric Vornoff, called the "product of my genius" the alleged "Monster of Lake Marsh". Which in fact was a rubber motorized octopus with its motor conked out!