Robot Monster

Robot Monster (1953)

Moon monsters launch attack against Earth! How can science meet the menace of astral assassins? New Science Fiction Thrills!

Ro-Man, an alien robot who greatly resembles a gorilla in a diving helmet, is sent to earth to destroy all human life. Ro-Man falls in love with one of the last six remaining humans, and struggles to understand how his programming can instruct him to kill her while his heart demands that he can't.

Date of release
1953-06-24
TMDB
4.5 / 10 (107)
Runtime
1h 6m
Genres
Science Fiction, Horror
Director
Phil Tucker

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $16K

Robot Monster is a 1953 American independent 3D science-fiction horror film produced and directed by Phil Tucker, and starring George Nader, Claudia Barrett, and George Barrows. The film follows an alien robot who, while on a mission to destroy Earth and humanity, betrays the orders of his master, the Great Guidance, by protecting a woman he was tasked to murder.

Production

25-year-old writer/director Tucker made Robot Monster in four days for an estimated $16,000 (equivalent to $190,000 in 2025), although film journals from the time reported that it cost $50,000. Except for a few scenes at a house in Los Angeles and a building site near Dodger Stadium, most footage was filmed outdoors in Bronson Canyon, the site of innumerable motion pictures and TV settings.

Robot Monster's very low budget did not allow for a robot costume as first intended, so Tucker hired his friend George Barrows, who had made his own gorilla suit, to play Ro-Man; Tucker then added a space helmet similar to those used in Republic serials such as Radar Men from the Moon.

Robot Monster is similar in its plot to Invaders from Mars, released a month earlier by 20th Century Fox. Both films contain a young boy, stumbling upon an alien invasion, who is captured as he struggles to save his family and himself. As the alien commences the final destruction of Earth, the boy awakens to find it was all a dream.

In Robot Monster's opening credits, "N. A. Fischer Chemical Products" is given prominent credit for the "Billion Bubble Machine", used as part of Ro-Man's communication device for reporting to his superior, the Great Guidance.

The film was preceded in theatres by Stardust in Your Eyes, a one-reel 3D monologue by comic/impressionist Trustin Howard, performing under his stage name "Slick Slavin."

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