This volume is part of a series intended as a salute to the pioneering work of science fiction film makers from the ‘golden age’ of science fiction films of the 1950s. 

The films in this volume feature monsters that stand as metaphors for the fears of the time when people had genuine concerns about atomic power and the atom bomb’s potential for the first time in human history to bring about the end of human civilisation. For instance, in the case of Godzilla (1954) the film is an allegory for the destruction and devastation unleashed on Japan by the atomic bomb, with the 400-foot-tall mutant dinosaur Gojira, serving as the visual metaphor. Such monsters represent forces of nature awakened by human science that once brought into being cannot be controlled.