A good half-century before M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening revealed that the mass suicides threatening to wipe out the Earth’s population weren’t the result of biological warfare or extra-terrestrial invasion, but simply some mightily peeved conifers, Hollywood witnessed a bizarre boom for similarly ridiculous B-movies about killer trees.
Celebrating its 60th anniversary today, The Navy vs. the Night Monsters was one of the last to plant itself in theaters, arriving long after the likes of The Day of the Triffids, From Hell It Came, and Womaneater had made Mother Nature the boogeyman. And yet thanks to its illogical narrative leaps, dollar store special effects, and on-the-nose dialogue (“That’s the heartbeat of a man in mortal terror!”), not to mention that the most convincing performance emerges from an adorable canine, it feels more like a leftover from ‘50s Ed Wood.
