Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999 TV Movie) User Reviews

A monster mash up of the greatest creatures to ever grace the silver screen.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 10 March 2018]

A bunch of Saturday Night Live stars had already attempted to belittle the B movie with "It Came From Hollywood" in 1982. This starts with an obscure 1912 silent movie set in the Antarctic (with a huge ugly creature that comes out of a pit) and goes to the current day, focusing mainly on giant creatures like King Kong, Mothra, Godzilla (even fighting with King Kong himself in one of the funniest sequences) and various insects, lizards and mythical creatures that gave stomped, flown, dove or crushed their way over civilized society. It includes both mentions of feature films and television series, briefly showing footage from narrator Billy Mumy's hit cult series "Lost in Space". The documentary shows the growth of popularity of these kinds of films and how they advanced technically, how it became all too much, and how the genre was rescued. Detail on stop motion effects is given a detail, with the legendary Ray Harryhausen providing his own insight. Stills popular viewing to this day, with magazines devoted to the genre and various other memorabilia selling at high prices at film festivals where surviving actors sign autographs, answer questions and pose for photos, keeping them in the limelight even though their careers are long over, as popular as the monsters themselves.

Attack of the 50 Foot excellence...

[pinoyartist99 · 26 February 2003]

This documentary aired when Roger Corman hosted his `Phantom Eye' shorts in 1999 during Halloween. Out of nowhere this documentary came up and it kicked butt. All my B-Movie favorites were there from King Kong, Rhedosaurs, the Black Scorpion, the Tarantula, Gwangi, the Ymir, the 5 Armed Octopus in `IT came from Beneath the Sea,' and my most admired monster, the King of the Monsters himself.GODZILLA!!!! This show documented the works of stop motion specialists Ray Harryhausen and Willis O' Brien to suitmation expert Eiji Tsuburya, who not only did Godzilla, but the giant spandex hero, Ultraman. They also gave a good lesson on the history of `Monster on the Loose' movies from the 50s and its affect on today's standards. This is definitely something I want to keep on video. Unfortunately, you can only see it on AMC from time to time. However, the next time it shows on AMC, record it, you won't be disappointed.

Overall Grade: A+

PS: I only wish AMC would turn this into a series.