Movie: The Incredible Shrinking Man
Actors: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent
This movie really justifies being a classic as the story and effects are significantly ahead of their time.
The movie was released in 1957, a time when there was a great fear of the unknown stemming primarily from wars and new nuclear instruments being introduced. People were unaware of the full affects of all these new inventions, which lead to a lot of creativity in the horror movie genres of the time.
Throughout the movie you really feel for Williams as he struggles with the knowledge of his rapid decreasing size. He is an amiable character who you truly feel sorrow for and genuine concern and fear as he is unable to determine the cause and eventual result of his condition (and the doctors are no help either).
What I found to be particularly fascinating was the effects used throughout the movie. They started more subtly with making his clothes bigger to give the illusion of his shrinking size. But soon they toy with the whole room making the furniture appear larger and even his telephone. He often has dialogues with his wife where she appears to be truly larger than him despite the limitations of the effects during this era.
Rarely do I find myself wondering how they did a certain effect in these older movies, but the question crossed my mind multiple times during this film.
Eventually Williams must face many dangers that an extremely small being would, like how to accomplish the impossible task of getting up one step in a series of mountain like stairs.
This movie was truly amazing and far ahead of its time with both effects and storytelling, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in engaging science fiction movies that successfully create a true image of fear and sublimity.
