With the demise of horror films in the late 40s (thank you, Universal), Hollywood had to find a new genre to get those crazy hot-rodding kids in to the theaters and so, with the advent of nuclear technology came a whole new concept: atomic mutations.

Thanks to mankind’s reckless experimenting with H-Bombs, a giant octopus with six-tentacles has been unleashed in the vast depths of the sea. Due to his radiated personality, his potential meals are afforded the luxury of knowing full well when he is coming, so he has to seek food elsewhere. When the octopus attacks an atomic submarine (ahhh, The Beatles: "We all live in an atomic submarine, atomic submarine, atomic submarine."), sub commander Pete Matthews (the great Kenneth Tobey) pulls a nice big chunk of seafood from one of the blades from his vessel. Instead of slicing it up and putting in on the grill, he takes it to marine biologists Lesley Joyce and John Carter (Faith Domergue and Donald Curtis, respectively).

Things take a turn for the worse when the giant octopus takes out a ship, attacks a beach and emerges in San Francisco to do a little clubbin’ on the Golden Gate Bridge (a highlight).

True to 50s fashion, our hero is a rugged chain-smoking, chiseled man who loves red meat and relies on his brain rather than his fists, the heroine is capable of holding her own (so long as she doesn’t let her silly woman emotions interfere, that is) and there’s also the required love triangle between the two male leads and the chick. While the film can be a bit talky at times (this was back in the day when filmmakers actually took time to introduce their characters after all), the stop-motion animation from Ray Harryhausen brings down the house each and every time.

The 50s spawned some absolutely wonderful Sci/Fi films and It Came From Beneath The Sea is no exception. My only problem is the fact that the loser of the love triangle seems perfectly content with having lost out on such a prize as Faith Domergue and just gives the new couple his blessings. Things have certainly changed there over the years: these days, the odd-man out will drive around your block at all hours of the night, put a rattlesnake in your mailbox, slash your tires and hang your beloved pet from the lamppost outside. Gimme the 50s version any day.

Presentation
Originally part of the Ray Harryhausen Signature Collection released in 2003, Sony has re-released It Came From Beneath The Sea as an all-new 2-Disc Special Edition with an improved widescreen transfer (most of the grain and dirt from the old issue is gone) and a newly created 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. Also on hand are 2-Channel stereo tracks in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Extras
For those of you that like colorization (and I hate you), you have the option of toggling back and forth between the original black and white presentation and a new colorized version via ChromaChoice (a fancy way of saying Multiple Angles). I have never been a big fan of this thought-to-be-deceased trend, but I do admit that some of the movie looks halfway decent with artificial color (particularly the monster footage). As always though, everyone looks like they’re suffering from hypercarotenemia and the water appears to have an abundance of Calgon in it.

Disc One features an Audio Commentary for the Feature Presentation with Ray Harryhausen himself along with producer Arnold Kunert and Hollywood FX artists Randall William Cook & John Bruno. The commentary is a joy to listen to and the four participants get along very well. There are also some slightly out-of-place trailers for Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: Ultimate Edition and Dragon Wars.

Disc Two contains the featurette "Remembering It Came From Beneath The Sea" (21:43) in which Mr. Harryhausen (it’s "Octopi," Ray… "Octopi!") discusses the making of the film along with tidbits from FX Artist John Bruno, filmmaker John Canemaker and the film itself (the colorized footage is used). Next are a couple of Galleries: Ad Art Photos (4:43), Production Photos (9:31), and Ray Harryhausen’s Artwork Photos (15:30) followed by a glimpse at Blue Water Productions’ It Came From Beneath The Sea… Again! Comic Book. A Present-Day Look At Stop-Motion (11:35) takes you on a step-by-step journey into DIY stop-motion and is hosted by a young NYC student (Kyle Anderson) who has never taken a speech class (poor bastard looks like he’s scared shitless and high). Two Masters of Bad Hair have a wonderful conversation with one another in Tim Burton Sits Down With Ray Harryhausen* (27:08) - They go over several films together and, for once, Tim is probably the happiest he has looked on-film ever (new meds, Tim?). It’s very nice to listen to them compare two different filmmaking generations. Movie Memorabilia nuts like myself will get a thrill out of producer Arnold Kunert showing us some Original Ad Artwork* (17:50), giving us a look at an original Pressbook and explaining what many of the now obsolete items were and how they were used (at one point, he mentions a Three Sheet, but an Australian Daybill is shown… yes, I’m nitpicking). Finally, there’s soundtrack producer David Schecter On Film Music‘s Unsung Hero* (22:32), a long, long overdue tip of the hat towards film composer Mischa Bakaleinikoff.