[The_Return]

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Wow...brilliant movie.

I've been looking forward to this one for ages, but never got aqround to it - now that I've finally watched it, it didn't disappoint. Some of the most innovative special effects I've ever seen, anchored by a powerful performance by Grant Williams and a near-perfect script by Richard Matheson really make this one of the all-time greats.

And what an amazing closing monologue! Has to be one of the greatest endings in horror history (*Spoilers Below*):



"I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close - the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet - like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist! "