Rating: 4/5
Hooptober 4.0 | 13/31 | Before 1970 1/6
To god, there is no zero. To god, I still exist.
Scott and Louise lay in his brother Charlie’s boat, enjoying the sun. They joke together, still in love after six years of marriage. She goes inside to fetch a beer for Scott. A strange mist erupts over the horizon, taking over the ship and covering Scott. After it passes, Louise comes out to help him dry off, confused by what happened.
Six months later, Louise leaves a bowl of milk out for Butch, the cat. She grabs a couple of ice-cold glasses of orange juice for dinner. Scott is getting dressed upstairs. But something is wrong — did Louise grab the wrong pants from the cleaner? The pants are loose and the cuffs dragging on the floor. Louise ascribes it to weight loss. However, his shirt is oversized.
Scott goes to the doctor. Five foot eleven. Except Scott has been six foot one since he was 17. “People don’t get shorter,” says the doctor.
One week later, he’s lost four pounds. Louise kisses him. She doesn’t have to get on her toes to do it anymore.
He visits the doctor for an X-ray. They confirm it — Scott is shrinking. The doctor recommends Scott to a medical research institute. They find a chemical in his blood that doesn’t belong. The cells in his body are restructuring themselves.
Scott tells Louise she is free to leave him. Louise loves him, though, and promises to stick by him as long as he has his wedding ring on. As she says it, the ring slips from his finger.
The film follows Scott’s transformation and how it changes his life. The world around him changes along with him — the innocuous becomes dangerous. Will the doctors be able to stop or reverse the shrinking before it’s too late?
This script is one of Richard Matheson’s earliest screenplays based on his novel. Though the conceit controls the story, the story cares about Scott and the personal repercussions of his change.
Notably, no morals about technology or society are present.
The special effects are simple but effective. They build scale sets for his different sizes and use force perspective when possible. They use rear projection or black velvet for the shots where that isn’t possible. The cat scenes were probably the most difficult, considering how they had to stage the action. They always use real cats in the scenes, which makes them way better.
This movie may have killed Jack Arnold’s career. His films before, including The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Tarantula, were pretty good. This is likely his peak. After this, the studios wanted similar movies. Hence, we get the catastrophic The Amazing Colossal Man. He ended up going to England to make films.
Overall, this movie is incredibly my shit. It’s not perfect — I could have done without the narration — but it’s 80 minutes and still looks great.
The big match is cool as shit.