The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American independent monster film directed by Eugène Lourié, with stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen. It is partly based on Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story of the same name, which was later reprinted as "The Fog Horn". The film's story concerns a fictional dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, which is released from its frozen hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle. The beast begins to wreak a path of destruction as it travels southward, eventually arriving at its ancient spawning grounds, which includes New York City.