Monster from the Ocean Floor is vintage Roger Corman monster flick from the very earliest days of the atomic monsters which roamed the landscape of the 50's. It's Roger Corman's first movie as a producer and it's actually pretty darn good for what it is. As stated by one reviewer it's "low-budget" not "no-budget" and the difference between those is all the world. It's the movie which made such a nifty profit that Corman knew what his life's work must be.
The story is dang simple. A brave young woman learns that according to the locals a monster lurks beneath the cover in which she herself has swum. She is fascinated and she investigates meeting a marine biologist almost immediately who makes her heart go pitty-pat, but who poo-poos the notion of a monster. She doesn't give in and that's the difference in this 1954 flick, the girl is the hero, not the damsel in distress, though distress there is.
Even when her new crush heads to other regions to pursue his work, she keeps investigating and even survives attempts by the locals to use her as a sacrifice to ward off the threat. Finally she finds the evidence to convince her boyfriend and he rushes to her side as the one-eyed monster beneath the waves attacks in full force.
I get it. A stalwart young woman battles a one-eyed monster alone and survives to the tell the tale. It's metaphor at its snappiest and I'm not certain the creators know what they did, but perhaps. This young lady was the Ripley of her day and she faces the alien threat in her world with just as much panache.
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