When I saw The Monster That Challenged the World (1957), directed by Arnold Laven, briefly featured in Joe Dante’s Piranha (1978), I decided to check it out. For late 50’s sci-fi, it is pretty good. The monster are actually monsters, slugs to be exact, in The Monster That Challenged the World. The movie comes on a double DVD with It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), directed by Edward L. Cahn. It! The Terror From Beyond Space was a massive influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). While Alien drew from a number of sources, like A. E. van Vogt’s The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950), It! The Terror From Beyond Space really is Alien, man in a rubber suit and all.