Shambling Towards Hiroshima

In this witty and touching paean to the glory days of horror movies, elderly former B-movie actor Syms Thorley looks back from 1984 to recall his involvement in the infamous Knickerbocker Project. Near the end of WWII, facing a shortage of plutonium, the U.S. government scrapped the atomic bomb and instead built giant monsters to ravage Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Alongside a group of genuine Hollywood bigwigs—including Willis O’Brien, James Whale and Brenda Weisberg—Thorley helps craft a realistic movie of the havoc-wreaking Gorgantis, hoping to terrify Japanese leaders into surrendering. The sheer insanity of the premise only makes the eventual payoff even more powerful, and though Morrow (The Last Witchfinder ) occasionally indulges in slapstick, he never loses sight of the need to make his characters fascinating and real. (Mar.)