“If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed with just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn’t know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla.”

This quote by Ishiro Honda perfectly describes why the original Godzilla (1954) remains not only one of the most important monster movies ever made but also one of the most frightening. And it might not have been without the man seated in the director’s chair. During pre-production, it had already been decided Godzilla would be spawned by the H-bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean, but the staff hadn’t quite perfected the metaphor now associated with the character. Because — simply — they didn’t have the character down just yet. Original story author Shigeru Kayama depicted Godzilla as being motivated strictly by hunger: the behemoth came ashore to gorge on livestock, and much of its destruction stemmed from its efforts to feed and not from any malicious determination to wipe out the human race. When confronted by the military, the beast became irritated, content to wade back into the sea rather than put up a fight. Changing the monster into an unrelenting, emotionless doppelganger for the hydrogen bomb was one of many ingenious touches Honda brought to the project — one which paid off in spades.

In the finished film, Godzilla mercilessly destroys everything in sight. Buildings are ripped to pieces. Districts are set aflame. Fleeing civilians are vaporized by atomic fire. Newsmen scream in terror as the TV tower they are perched on is toppled over. Houses are crushed underfoot. The skyline becomes a blazing inferno. Children are left parentless or poisoned by radiation. Godzilla's only apparent motive for the immense carnage he causes is to cause pain and suffering. And when all’s said and done, just what was — is — the purpose of an atomic bomb? To cause pause and suffering. As one of the film’s characters so adamantly puts it, Godzilla is no different from the specter of the WWII bomb still haunting the Japanese people.

In addition to the metaphorical touches, Honda and special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya triumphed in making Godzilla scary through some clever filmmaking. All but two of the beast’s scenes are staged at night (which lends immeasurably to the atmosphere), and the monster’s almost consistently photographed from an extremely low angle to emphasize its size and weight. The first full-body vista of the monster — smashing through Tokyo’s harbor area with crowds of screaming people fleeing in the foreground — remains one of the most jaw-dropping and horrifying shots in the history of the Japanese monster movie genre.