Review of It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) by Henrik S — 02 May 2012

A solid giant monster movie that is suffering from the limitation due to the choice of the giant adversary of mankind. Yes, Harryhausen did his best to animate the giant octopus and hell, it looks good as usual, but there is only so much you can do with a giant beast living in the water. Once it took on a ship and a bridge, that's about it, which is plenty but not enough to make this a masterpiece because there is essentially no showdown between the heroes and the monsters as they cannot come face to face. Also, the Octopus is kind of less menacing than it could be, because it's motivation is kind of innocent and feral instead of vile (like a giant spider or shark), so I kind of feel bad for it. All in all, you will enjoy this if you are a fan of b-movies, Harryhausen, science mumbo jumbo and cheesy acting. Kenneth Tobey is actually quite good but there is not much material to work with here. The forced 'love interest' is going nowhere. I am not sure if the director tried to create something edgy but the bizarre love-triangle thing really puzzled me, but it does not matter, because it feels out of place in the first place anyway.

Good for genre enthusiasts and Harryhausen fans.