Billy Bob Thornton plays the gym teacher from hell who becomes engaged to the mother of a former student in Mr. Woodcock.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

Not everything was easy for Baby Boomers in the 1950s. People then worried about the effects of radiation from the atomic bomb tests as well as about invaders from other planets.

Hollywood took notice and exploited our fears. There were the radiation-born giant ants of Them! and the reawakened dinosaur of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. To feed our worries about terror from the skies, there were War of the Worlds, It Came from Outer Space and This Island Earth.

Two prime examples from that era were 1955’s giant octopus tale It Came From Beneath the Sea and 1956’s Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, both of which employed the stop-motion genius of Ray Harryhausen to bring their weird creatures to life. Both films have been given the deluxe treatment by Sony in two-disk sets that offer both the original black-and-white versions and a new colorized version (the octopus is now a slimy gray-green) that is much improved and far more lifelike than the original colorization process of 20 years ago.

Flying Saucers ($24.96) is the better film, with a more complex plot. Husband-and-wife scientists are abducted by a flying saucer whose occupants demand to meet with top government officials in order to negotiate. But they really want to kill our leaders and wage war on Earth. Their army, concealed in heavy metal suits that cover them completely, right down to their cone-shaped helmets, is creepy.

The film’s attack on Washington, D.C., is still spectacular, with a saucer slicing through the Washington Monument, blasting the Smithsonian Institution and crashing into the Capitol dome. Oddly, some of Harryhausen’s special effects look more realistic in the black-and-white version than they do in color.

It Came From Beneath the Sea ($24.96) is a straightforward tale: a nuclear sub captain discovers the giant octopus in the waters off California and joins a pair of scientists in trying to stop its attack on San Francisco. Scenes of its destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the havoc created near the waterfront when the octopus tries to pull itself ashore are impressive, although the story is slight.

Besides the colorized version, each two-disk set has many extras for film buffs. Harryhausen does audio commentary on both; each also has a featurette in which he reminisces about making each film (the giant octopus only had six arms because of budget restrictions). There’s a look at the advertising campaign for It Came From Beneath the Sea, including posters from several countries. Both films have digital comic book versions of the respective films and both have the same featurette about present-day stop-motion animation, which seems more primitive than what Harryhausen accomplished a half century ago.

Director Tim Burton, who has had his own stop-motion success with the films The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride, sits down with Harryhausen to discuss each film on their respective disks. Flying Saucers looks at the Hollywood Black List of the late 1940s and early ’50s, which barred writers and actors suspected of having Communist ties from working in the movies. One of them was Bernard Gordon, who co-wrote the script under an alias. On this disk, his name has been restored on the film’s credits.

Gym class blues

What if the sadistic gym teacher from years gone by were now planning to marry your mother? That’s the dilemma faced by Seann William Scott in Mr. Woodcock (New Line, $28.98). Scott plays a self-help author determined to break up the romance between his mom (Susan Sarandon) and his old gym teacher, Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton). The disk includes a making-of documentary, deleted scenes and a short feature on “Trauma Tales” from PE classes.

Also this week

Propose first … ask questions later in the comedy Wedding Daze (MGM, $26.98); lose at love again and again in Good Luck Chuck (Lionsgate, $29.95); raise the dead for a good cause in Raising Flagg (Cinema Libre, $24.95); uncover a crime in Murder in Mississippi (Warner, $14.97); teach a good class in The Marva Collins Story (Warner, $14.97); walk with a slightly mad accidental hero in He Was a Quiet Man (Anchor Bay, $29.97); go after revenge in Already Dead (Sony, $24.96; flee with Christian Slater and a pile of dirty money in Love Lies Bleeding (Sony, $24.96); give comfort to five Amish orphans in Saving Sarah Cain (Fox, $22.98); get haunted in The Attic (Allumination, $29.98); put a new spin on the Ten Commandments in The Ten (City Lights, $26.98); be a landlord to a houseful of misfits in Rising Damp: The Movie (Acorn, $19.99).

From TV

Take a second look at Alex Haley’s Queen (Warner, $24.98); Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Third Season (CBS/Paramount, $42.99); Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest (Fox, $22.98), a spoof of Star Wars; ER: The Complete Eighth Season (Warner, $49.98); The Rockford Files: Season Five (Universal, $39.98); Jane Austen’s Persuasion (BBC, $19.98); Extras Gift Set (includes the complete first and second seasons plus the never-before-released 90-minute series conclusion) (HBO, $49.99); The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Complete First Season (Warner, $29.98); The Girls Next Door: Season Three (Fox, $29.98); Melissa (Acorn, $29.99); The Kingdom: Series 2 (Koch Lorber, $26.98).

For children

Delight the little ones with Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown Deluxe Edition (with two extra episodes) (Warner, $19.98); Medabots: The Complete First Season (Shout! Factory, $34.99); Puppy Bowl III (Genius, $14.95); Dora the Explorer: Undercover Dora (Nick Jr./Paramount, $16.99); Storm Hawks — Hawks Rise Again and Storm Hawks — Tales from the Atmos (Sony, $16.97 each).

Documentaries

Get scared with the 1940s horror producer Val Lewton, who gave us I Walked With a Zombie and Cat People in Martin Scorsese Presents Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows, narrated by Scorsese himself (Warner, $19.97). It’s also available as part of a six-disk collection of Lewton’s films, including the above-mentioned films, The Body Snatcher, Curse of the Cat People, Bedlam and more.

Go back in time with: The Vietnam War DVD Set (The History Channel, $29.95); The Real West: Cowboys & Outlaws (The History Channel, $17.95); and The First Days of Christianity (The History Channel, $17.95).

Coming around again

Fall in love again with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the two-disk 50th-anniversary edition of An Affair to Remember (Fox, $19.98); fall in love again with When Harry Met Sally Collector’s Edition (MGM, $19.98); fall in love yet again with Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (MGM, $19.98).