Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
Originally a 1958 movie that acted as something of a Distaff Counterpart to The Amazing Colossal Man. One of the classic B-Movies, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is well remembered for its rather silly premise, as well as being a rather large source of Fetish Fuel. The movie was also remade for HBO in 1993.
The basic plot is that Nancy Archer, a woman with a drinking problem and a cheating husband, has a close encounter out in the desert with aliens. In an attempt to convince her husband of what she saw, she takes him back out into the desert, where he abandons her when the aliens reappear. She's found later, and her husband plots to kill her, but she's grown giant in her sleep. She goes on a classic Kaiju rampage upon awakening, looking for her husband. During her rampage, she kills the other woman and kidnaps her husband King Kong style. She's killed by an exploding power line transformer, which kills off her husband in the process.
The remake, with Daryl Hannah, ramps the unsympathetic portrayal of her husband Up to Eleven, and has a much happier ending for Nancy. The remake has some markers of a Lifetime original movie, with every man being despicable or useless, and all the women, including her husband's mistress, getting sympathetic portrayals and happy endings.
- Auto Erotica/Terror at Make-Out Point: A young couple making out in their car are startled by the giant Nancy.
- Battle Butler: Jess, Nancy's butler since childhood, gets in a rumble with Harry when he tries to skip town.
- Clueless Deputy: Charlie, who also serves as the Plucky Comic Relief.
- Film Posters: One of the most iconic in cinema history, better known than the film itself.
- Herr Doktor: Dr. Heinrich von Loeb.
- Kent Brockman News: The newscaster openly mocks Nancy after she reports seeing the alien giant. It is implied that she is just imagining it.
- My Car Hates Me: Nancy's car won't start when she tries to get away from the alien giant.
- Prospector: one of the first to see the giant Nancy. In a modern twist, he's looking for uranium.
- Reactionary Fantasy: Of course an empowered, independent woman seeking to punish a man for his transgressions has to die at the end!
- Spheroid Dropship
- Stock Footage: The same scene of giant Nancy walking is used over and over.
- You Have to Believe Me
- You Keep Using That Word: Characters use the word "satellite" when refering to the spaceship.
- Your Size May Vary: Giant Nancy doesn't seem to stay the same size throughout.
- Apologizes a Lot: Nancy is set up as having no backbone before she grows.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Naturally.
- Beware the Nice Ones: As soon as she started to realize that she couldn't be pushed around at 50 feet tall, Nancy starts telling off her father for controlling her.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!
- Feminist Fantasy: This is a movie that ends with three giant women keeping their husbands/boyfriends in a jar as they all fly off in the spaceship.
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"Nancy, that's sick! What, do you want me to get a wetsuit and a flashlight?" |
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- Flying Saucer
- Foot Focus: This and the original since Nancy's clothes don't grown with her and she stomps around barefoot.
- Gender Flip: Dr. Cushing, who was male in the original, becomes Nancy's female therapist. Also done with the sheriff's deputy.
- Human Aliens: Maybe. In the end we see Nancy beamed onto a spaceship with two other giant women, but it's not clear whether they're the same as her or actual aliens.
- The Ingenue: Nancy falls way into this, being too naive and sweet to realize that she's used as a pawn by both her father and husband to get her money.
- Jerkass: Every male character.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Nancy's husband ends up trapped with two other men in an endless sensitivity training session controlled by giant women.
- Lifetime Movie of the Week: Men are abusive, sex-obsessed monsters? Check. Women are weak, spineless victims? Check. This thing could have been made by Lifetime.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Her husband's a philandering asshole and her father only cares because he needs her to sign papers so he can keep accessing her trust fund. Her only friend is her psychiatrist.
- The Mistress: One girl plays the mistress to both Nancy's husband and father. Surprisingly, she's played sympathetically, and Nancy gives her advice when when she catches her during the rampage instead of squishing her.
- Not Now, Kiddo: After she sees a UFO, her father tells her to stop embarrassing him. He uses this same line when asked to talk her down from her rampage...
- Touched by Vorlons
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue:Noticeably only for the female characters.
- Woman Scorned: She grows when she's scorned, too.
- Your Cheating Heart: The least of her husband's crimes.