Behemoth the Sea Monster aka The Giant Behemoth (1959)

(On Cable TV, February 2021) Not all monster movies are created equal, and it’s useful to keep Behemoth the Sea Monster in mind as a yardstick as to how… average this kind of film can be. To be fair, Behemoth belabours under a few significant limitations: it’s a low-budget, black-and-white effort propelled by an imitative impulse: it’s essentially a redo of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (also by director Eugène Lourié) with about a tenth of the wow factor. It’s also British, at a time when the British were not necessarily known for their horror/SF movies. (I’m sure it’s been done before, but I have a sketch in mind featuring stiff-lipped, cup-drinking Britons tut-tutting as a monster rampages through London during teatime.)  Perhaps worst of all is the somewhat limp execution that doesn’t do much while waiting for the late-coming special effects segments. The result is not particularly good — derivative, dull and forgettable, Behemoth the Sea Monster has the distinction of not being bad (a significant distinction when it comes to monster movies of the 1950s), but not being any good either.