The Magnetic Monster
“Terror swoops through the heart of a city in the dead of night!”
The Office of Scientific Investigations tracks down the source of increased magnetism and radioactivity in Los Angeles, and discovers that a man-made isotope is consuming available energy from nearby mass every few hours, doubling its size in the process. Although microscopic, it will soon become big enough to destroy Earth; and how to stop it is yet to be determined. The film's Deltatron special effects footage is taken from the 1934 German sci-fi film GOLD.
Details
Release Date: 2/18/1953
Runtime: 76 minutes
Languages: English
Directors: Curt Siodmak, Herbert L. Strock
00Production
Companies: Ivan Tors Productions
Countries: United States of America
Where to watch · US
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Reviews
CinemaSerf
Richard Carlson struggles to inject much life into this rather dry sci-fi adventure. He and his scientist colleague "Dan" (King Donovan) are called into investigate mysterious goings on in a small town where just about everything metallic appears to have become magnetised. Bizarre, eh? What's causing it? Well that might have something to do with poorly scientist "Denker" (Leonard Mudie) who is travelling on an aircraft with a briefcase containing an highly toxic, radioactive, element that absorbs energy from adjacent metallic objects allowing it to expand exponentially. It's soon down to our intrepid duo to come up with a way of destroying it before it becomes huge enough to destabilise the Earth's orbit. This has one big problem for me - it has no object or creature for me to focus on as the danger. The film consists of loads and loads of dialogue, a bit of romance from Carlson and his wife "Connie" (Jean Byron) but until the last ten minutes, nowhere near enough actual action to keep the momentum going for what seemed like an over-long seventy-five minutes of haring about and chatter.
