"The Giant Behemoth" covers much the same ground as 1953's "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" but with considerably less success. There are a few good moments of stop-action monster rampage, reflecting Willis O'Brien's participation but most of the movie is stock footage or shots of people yelling and pointing (but few good shots of what they are yelling about or pointing at). In addition to being some kind of pointy-toothed apatosaur, the titular beast seems to be able to radiate lethal radioactivity at will (perhaps a sign of contemporaneous atomic paranoia). At one point this pulsing death ray incinerates a group of soldiers in a clumsily done transition from live actors to what appears to be a charcoal drawing of corpses. The radiation also seems to be able to buffet a submarine, which makes even less sense. The movie plods along the usual trajectory from disbelief to realization to determining the obligatory Achilles heel (like "Reptilicus", the Behemoth is protected from simply being bombed to hell and back by a convenient plot device (the aforementioned 'radiation')). Watchable by the monster-movie fraternity but far from one of the better examples of the canon.
Review of The Giant Behemoth
