Crack in the World could have been born from a discussion question in your fifth-grade science textbook: “What do you think would happen if scientists broke through the center of the earth with a nuclear warhead? Explain.” Heck, Crack in the World even uses the requisite 10 words from that chapter’s vocabulary list.

Underneath Africa, in a lab not unlike TV’s soon-to-debut Batcave, Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews, The Crowded Sky) runs Project Inner Space, which aims to harness the magma at our planet’s core as a “limitless” energy source. Rather than put a baby in his pregnancy-craving wife, Maggie (Janette Scott, 1963’s The Day of the Triffids), Stephen is obsessed with penetrating the final layer of crust to reach said magma.

His proposed solution — a 10-megaton thermonuclear device — sounds alarms in Maggie’s ex, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore, Arabesque), who warns the explosion would cause massive fissures, tidal waves and other stuff that disaster-movie dreams are made of. Secretly terminally ill and thereby obsessed with his legacy, Stephen proceeds anyway.

The mission is a success! If the mission were to hella fuck some shit up ’round the globe. The titular crack in the world forms and begins circumnavigating; if not stopped, Earth will split in two, ending life as we know it. In what amounts to a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, Ted suggests fixing Stephen’s blunder by dropping a hydrogen bomb to effectively cut the crack off at the pass. (Trust me: It makes enough sense within the movie.)

As enjoyable as Crack in the World is, which is close to immensely, I can’t help but think what Irwin Allen would have done with it in his prime — likely something as cataclysmic as the poster depicts. In the hands of one Andrew Marton, then on the verge of becoming Ivan Tors’ go-to director, nothing remotely like that occurs, although he does take out a (model) train of evacuating villagers. Prepare not for an effects spectacle, but for a more sober, science-minded clarion call with a coda that leans hard into biblical overtones. After the near-miss of the Cuban missile crisis, it was just the type of Technicolor reminder the Western world needed. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

When treasure hunters disturb Babylonian ruins not to be disturbed, lest ye wish to unleash a demon, a reptilian beast appears to prove the prophecy true. Bearing vampiric features and the power of flight, the demon Daimon (Chikara Hashimoto, the Daimajin himself) possesses bodies à la The Hidden by biting people’s necks, starting with the local magistrate and staff.

When a nearby kappa, witnesses one of these mystical swaps, the flat-headed water imp who looks like a mod Donald Duck, calls upon his fellow yokai for help. These supernatural creatures include a one-eyed umbrella with a tongue like rolled-out red carpet, a woman with a rubbery expand-o-neck, a squatty rock in a hula skirt, a walking turd, a giant rodent whose belly expands to project need-to-know footage — basically, the Justice League of Everything You Thought Lived Under Your Childhood Bed.

For Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, the middle of Japan’s mad-matinee trilogy, Yoshiyuki Kuroda (The Invisible Swordsman) takes over for Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters director Kimiyoshi Yasuda. You wouldn’t know it, as this immediate sequel retains the look of the original. Then again, the Daiei Film fantasies of the era seemed to be painted in the same color palette and shot on the same studio sets — none of that is a knock.

Kuroda smartly narrows the lineup to give this imaginative, colorful fantasy a sharper focus. For a kids’ film, Spook Warfare racks up an admirable body count as if it were unafraid to offend — because it’s not. Whatever the story calls for — from sword-skewering a dog to showcasing a husky kid’s butt crack — so be it! —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.