In the 50+ years since my all-time favorite sci-fi movie was released, there have been numerous attempts to take its crown. As yet, these pretenders and would-be usurpers have yet to produce a legitimate heir apparent, despite many worthwhile efforts. This represents a remarkable achievement considering the film has sparse dialogue, no big box office stars, and certainly no scary aliens in the conventional sense — no belly busters, facesuckers, or spindly limbed eggheads. There is, however, an undoubtedly alien presence: A precision-engineered black monolith of indeterminate material.
