If you love The Incredible Shrinking Man or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, you need to pay your respects to the granddaddy of them all. Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, the same absolute legend who gave us King Kong, this movie is a landmark for a massive reason: it is the very first American horror film shot in glorious, full three-strip Technicolor.

Before this, we had two-color freakouts like Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum, but Dr. Cyclops brings the vivid, saturated, comic-book-pulp look right into your eyeballs.

We head deep into the Peruvian jungle, where Albert Dekker plays Dr. Alexander Thorkel, a bald, nearsighted mad scientist rocking some seriously thick glasses (hence the “Cyclops” nickname). Thorkel has discovered a rich uranium ore deposit and figured out a way to use cosmic radiation to shrink living things. Why? Because he wants to shrink all of humanity to reduce our carbon footprint! Is he really the hero?

Because his eyesight is shot, he invites a team of American biologists down to Peru just to look at a microscope slide for him. They point out some iron crystal contamination. He says, “Cool, thanks, now get out,” and tries to pack them home. Naturally, the biologists are pissed that they traveled thousands of miles to be the Geek Squad for a five-minute tech support gig, so they camp out to spy on him. Big mistake. Thorkel lures them into his radiation chamber and zaps ’em down to a mere twelve inches tall!

What follows is a wild jungle-survival game where our tiny heroes have to fight off giant house cats, hide in specimen boxes and plot to murder their giant tormentor by smashing his glasses and rigging his own shotgun against him.

Variety hated it at the time, calling it dull, but honestly? They missed the fun. It’s got that beautiful, dreamlike, pale Technicolor look that makes it feel like an ancient fairy tale come to life. It’s so gorgeous! Plus, looking back with 21st-century eyes, the movie is weirdly prophetic. Thorkel is mining uranium to power a weapon of mass alteration, and with his shaved head and thick glasses, he accidentally predated the wartime imagery of the era. 

You can watch it on Cultpix.