It came from the 1950's!

Acually, they're Dolls, not Puppets. I suppose that Attack of the Doll People just didn't sound as scary(?).

This is not your typical low-budget 50's sci-fi thriller. The effects here, with the possible exception of the final scene, are stunning. This is global Armageddon with style! Nostalgic, but still technologically impressive.

For a Universal Studios B-picture, this one isn't bad. It's about a group of American soldiers in "Asia" (the sets look like a cross between India and Morocco) who sneak into a secret snake ritual. One of the soldiers attempts a little flash photography and the group barely escapes with their lives. Soon afterward, the men return to the states and, one by one, they meet their demise under strange circumstances.

*Note: Did anyone else notice the bizarre similarity between Cult of the Cobra (1955) and To Hell and Back (1955)? The two films have virtually the same cast (minus Audie Murphy of course). Marshall Thompson, Jack Kelly and David Janssen all play soldiers in both films. What an odd double feature this would be!

Ward Cleaver journeys to the center of the earth to do battle with a race of albinos living on mushrooms (I'm not kidding). This is science fiction at it's corny, campy best. I love this stuff (I'm not kidding).

*Kudos to the makeup and special effects artists at Universal Studios. Not once did I notice a single zipper.

Okay, what if everyone had this tiny little caterpillar thing that lived in the base of their spine? And what if, every time they got scared, this caterpillar thing started to grow? And what if the only way to stop the caterpillar thing from growing was to scream real loud? And what if a mad scientist decided that he could prove the existence of the caterpillar thing by finding a mute lady and scaring her to death? And what if his experiment worked and he surgically removed a really big caterpillar thing from the dead woman's body? And what if that caterpillar thing got loose and started to kill people? And what if it turned out that the whole thing was just a movie? And what if you watched that movie with some friends and lots and lots of beer?

For me, this is the quintessential sci-fi film, second only to 2001. It's got everything you'd ever want from a good science fiction classic. There is a menacing alien, ray guns, a space ship, the best robot ever to grace the silver screen (sorry C-3PO), and it's all set on a distant planet in a galaxy far, far away. Oh, and did I mention the beautiful damsel in distress (Anne Francis)? This is how William Shakespeare would do 'The Tempest', if he had grown up in the 50's reading Flash Gordon Comics and listening to 'Space Ranger' radio serials.

Never trust an octopus with less than eight tentacles.

A great watch, not so much for the story as for the fantastic animation compliments of legendary Ray Harryhausen.

Two and a half stars based entirely on it's sheer camp [kamp] factor. Cheesy fun that might scare the youngest among us. (Did I just say "youngest among us"?!)

Top notch science fiction with mind blowing special effects, especially when you consider that this film was released in 1957!

How does one rate a movie that is sooooo bad that it's good?

One of my all-time favorite sci-fi flicks. A classic!

Unintentionally funny. So good because it's oh so bad. All hail Ed Wood!

The discovery of a "prehistoric fish" in the waters off the coast of Madagascar proved to be enough fodder to inspire this obscure b-movie. Apparently, any contact with the fish's blood will force a creature to genetically alter itself back to it's evolutionary roots. A dog, for example, will revert back to a primitive wolf after ingesting the blood of the fish. A man, should he come in contact with prehistoric fish fluids, will transform into a murderous caveman who will kill attractive female lab assistants and hang them by their hair in trees because, as we all know, that's what cavemen do.