In the 1950s, when nuclear tensions were at an all-time high, the hands of the Doomsday Clock moved to 11:58 p.m., as close to midnight as they\u2019ve ever been. The world had a brand-new obsession\u2014how to live with the threat of the bomb. Hollywood responded by introducing moviegoers to a cast of misfit monsters released from polar ice and submarine canyons, and coolheaded scientists whose weapons were knowledge and reason. Today, with the threat of nuclear war only slightly reduced, Godzilla\u2014the king of sea monsters and a metaphor for nuclear war\u2014is making a comeback to star in his first animated film. It\u2019s an apt time to remember five classics that sparked the sea monster subgenre.<\/p>\n
What does it take to free a dinosaur from polar ice after 100 million years? The heat of hydrogen bomb testing did the trick in this film inspired by Ray Bradbury\u2019s short story \u201cThe Fog Horn.\u201d Free at last, the \u201cRhedosaurus\u201d wreaks havoc along the east coast of North America. Scientists, at first fascinated and protective of the Paleolithic survivor\u2014even though it\u2019s radioactive, filled with the plague, and on a tear\u2014ultimately shoot it full of radioactive isotopes to kill it from within.<\/p>\n