Tag Archives: 1968

Gamera VS. Space Monster Viras!!!!

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Gamera Vs Space Monster Viras (AKA Destroy All Planets) – 1968, Noriaki Yuasa

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GAMERA?! More like SCAMera!

Just when Daiei was doing so well with it’s Gamera franchise, it farts out this bellow average embarrassment, a lousy Gamera Part IV which relies heavily on recycled footage from previous Gamera films to fatten up it’s run-time. This is done so extensively that it’s really hard not to think of Gamera Vs Viras as a bit of a rip off, Which is a shame because he was just starting to win me over like only a mammoth, city demolishing turtle beast from Atlantis can. What am I supposed to do now?!

THE PLOT~ The movie opens with a super bizarre looking alien craft cruising up on Earth, looking to get in on some of that sweet, interplanetary-conquest action, but then the aliens see Gamera zooming around in space and completely freak the fuck out. Gamera kills them all, because apparently that’s his thing now, but not before the aliens manage send a distress signal back to planet dumb ass stressing the importance of Gamera awareness. Good looking out, you stupid, alien buttholes.

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Meanwhile, in Japan, we meet our main characters, Jim and Masao, two young boys who are members of the Japanese wing of the Boy Scouts… Did you even know they had friggin’ Boy Scouts in Japan? They totally do, and they seem to be way cooler than the American Boy Scouts, because they’ve got chicks, for one, and also they chill with Gamera and work to repel alien invasions, so you can take your Pinewood Derby and shove it up your ass, America. Japan does the Boyscouts right. Anyway, upon meeting our two mischievous preteens, they waste no time in getting into some seriously ridiculous hi-jinks; first, they sabotage a small submarine within ten minutes of their introduction. Next, they’re partying with Gamera less than thirty minutes into the picture, and finally, towards the end of the movie, they manage to sabotage` the alien spacecraft and save the day, which is a crucial moment in the defense of Earth. Long story short, Moonrise Kingdom has nothing on these intrepid junior outdoorsmen, they deserve hella merit badges for this shit.

But earlier in the movie, before Jim and Masao save the world, the alien conqueror people do indeed send a second spaceship to Earth after Gamera chows down on the first one. This time the galactic interlopers get right down to the task of figuring out just who this Gamera chap is, anyway, and after some investigation, they see what’s going on here; Gamera is mighty, but he does have one weakness; “his pronounced and unconditional love of children.” Naturally, they deploy Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC immediately.

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Hey, Gamera, why don’t you have a seat over there?

Also, though, they kidnap Jim and Masao, and keep them prisoner aboard their craft as a bargaining chip in case the United Nations thinks they can get away with nuking the weird series of striped orbs they dare to call a spaceship.

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Behold; a spacecraft which can share the frame with a gigantic, jet propelled turtle monster and still manage to be the most ridiculous thing visible.

Finally, just for good measure, they use their far out space Martian technology to brainwash Gamera and send him on a smashing spree. This chunk of the film is especially compromised by Daiei’s cheapskate-stock-footage recycling scheme, as we are made to trudge through a replay of the first three movies for what must be at least twenty minutes, and I would call that totally unacceptable. Some of this reused footage is BLACK AND FUCKING WHITE, because it comes from Gamera’s first movie, and that’s just embarrassing. Have you no shame, Daiei?!? What were you damn thinking!? It’s also badly distracting to see actor Kojiro Hongo, who in this movie plays a Scoutmaster to Jim and Masao, clearly visible playing different characters in this older footage, and I would say that this shameful fumble hurts the film nearly as badly as the sudden and unexplained disappearance of all color from the universe. Daiei- you suck for what you have done here.

In the end, the boy’s fuck up the surprisingly easy to sabotage spaceship and all the aliens reveal their true form- weird, pointy squid monsters, which is a lot better than the disguises they were using- human bodies with black smocks, grey chino pants, a beret, sneakers and one of those white collars they give you when you get a haircut. These aliens shop at Goodwill. Anyway, they look almost as ridiculous in their squid form, which is something like what you would get if a squid mated with a Leatherman Multi-Tool.

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The math is solid.

Regardless, these loser squid beasts from space all Voltron together into one giant stupid squid monster, and then proceed to battle and gruesomely impale poor Gamera, who somehow survives this seemingly mortal wound, and in return, murders them all. And that’s the movie.

It’s okay at best. Kinda fun, but the radically pronounced kid-centric vibe isn’t doing the MV5BMTM5NjkyNzYyMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTYyMzAyMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR5,0,214,317_AL_
movie any favors, and the excessive use of stock footage alone disqualifies it from anything above a ‘C’ grade. Gamera VS. Space Monster Viras is something Daiei should have been ashamed of, especially given the gradual upward climb good ol’ Gamera had been experiencing before this dud. To be frank, I’m angry about it. He deserved better, and it’s crazy to think that the same studio that gave us Daimaijin is even capable of stooping to this shameful low.

If we wanted to defend Gamera Vs Viras, it might be worth mentioning that this could, MAYBE, be Daiei’s answer to Godzilla’s Revenge, a Toho produced movie that was also much more kid friendly, and which also made extensive use of stock footage… but let’s be honest, that feels more like a cop-out than a justification. Godzilla’s Revenge was more forthcoming about it’s previously seen footage, and since we don’t even know if those monsters are “real” within that film’s individual universe, the dreams sequences in which they are seen could all just be cobbled together memories of past Toho films the main character enjoyed. More importantly, they don’t interrupt color footage with black and white footage and then try to sell it to you as a new event, so Gamera Vs. Viras is a shame any way you slice it.

C-

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YOKAI MONSTERS: 100 GHOSTS!

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Yokai Monsters: 100 Ghosts ~ 1968, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Japan

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100 Ghosts is the strongest film in what is already a remarkably strong franchise, the Yokai Monsters series, three rad movies which were produced by Japan’s Daiei Studios in the late 1960’s. 100 Ghosts feels like a Japanese book of scary stories masquerading as a costume drama, but each of the individual tales are well integrated into the plot, so in the end it feels like a single, concise narrative, rather than an anthology film, like Creepshow, or Two Evil Eyes. Unlike Spook Warfare, 100 Ghosts keeps its narrative focused on the mortal plane, and dishes out the yokai in more modest doses. This time, the Yokai don’t really feel like characters, and they have no evident personalities. Instead, we see them more as supernatural agents of cosmic retribution; delivering justice to those who break society’s moral code, and this makes them infinitely more frightening than the squabbling, almost humorous depiction we got in Spook Warfare. Really, this movie actually gets pretty damn spooky toward the end, and much like Daimaijin, another Daiei studios film which is thematically similar to 100 Ghosts (And also shares much of the same cast), 100 Ghosts takes it’s time setting the scene before it hits us with a heavy dose of monster. The pay off in this film’s third act is well worth the wait.

THE PLOT~  When a group of thugs rides into a small village in rural Japan and commences to destroy the local shrine, the villagers find themselves understandably confused and distressed. It’s about to get worse, though, because this is just stage one of their shitty plan; and stage two is to follow up the besmirching of this religious site with the abrupt destruction of the local tenement house, a structure which much of our central cast calls home. Apparently his is all legal, too, due to a shady alliance between a local businessman and a super corrupt Lord, who is basically a damn gangster. Once everything is torn down and smashed, the bad guys are going to open up a cheap brothel and basically ruin everybody’s lives, so naturally our main characters wanna put the kybosh on this evil scheme like, ASAP. Along with the help of a wandering samurai, the villagers hatch a plot to save the day.

I know what you’re thinking… When you look at it, this sounds like the plot to the most generic 80’s teen movie of all time. It’s basically Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, only in Japan, with monsters. “Hey, gang, we gotta stop the evil billionaire from tearing down our rec-center and opening a strip mall! Let’s organize a concert to raise community awareness!” Yeah, pretty much that’s the exact plot of 100 Ghosts, but you don’t really  notice that when you watch it, because this movie is awesome as hell, and also a lot of people die. Plus, in 100 Ghosts, our human characters aren’t even able to pull it off anyway, and the real solution ends up having nothing to do with them. Instead, it’s the yokai that save the day. Allow me to explain:

Having smashed the shrine to smithereens, our two bad guys decide to prematurely celebrate how awesome it is to be a big shit head with a night of recreational ghoul summoning. Sounds reasonable. They do so in the format of a rad party game called ‘The 100 Spirits ritual,’ which seems to be something like a group-friendly version of “Bloody Mary.” In order to conduct the 100 Spirits ritual, you must first gather a group of your friends and neighbors around a story teller, who then recites a series of cautionary ghost stories, which have all been handed down over the course of many centuries, or maybe just made up on the spot, depending on the credibility of the dude you hire. At the end of each story, a candle is lit (Or put out, I can’t remember. Don’t conduct this ritual at home.) Once all of the night’s stories have been told, and all the candles are lit, it is crucial that the storyteller conduct a “Curse elimination ritual“, because apparently just hearing these forbidden tales is enough to curse the shit out of you. Sounds like a pretty important part of the exchange to me, I would definitely want to take the extra time for the Curse Elimination Ritual, but our bad guys opt out. Having just sat through, like, 100 cautionary tales, they immediately prove that no amount of second-hand information is enough to teach them anything. Instead, they kick the story teller out, telling him not to let their sliding, paper door thing smack him in the side of the ass on the way out, and go on to chuckle turdishly about how ghosts are for losers and how neither of them are about to die terribly. Predictably, after this, the bad guys get the hell haunted out of them something fierce, which is super great to watch.

Like all of the Yokai movies, 100 Ghosts features a vast menagerie of ethereal Japanese bozo monsters, but none of them particularly hog the spotlight, except, of course, for the Umbrella Monster, which, just the very name of this thing is enough to raise an eyebrow. In all fairness, according to Yokai Attack; a nifty little book written by Hiroko Yoda (presumably of no relation to Jedi Master Yoda) and Matt Alt, the Umbrella Monster’s true name is Kara-Kasa, but holy shit, dude, who cares? Check this friggin’ thing out:

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‘What’ indeed!

Pretty much, this particular monster doesn’t do a whole hell of a lot. It likes to sneak up and lick people, and it looks like the deranged little brother of that sexy lamp from A Christmas Story.

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See the resemblance? Yokai are weird sometimes… Usually, even.

Like all of the Yokai films, even for the lousy ass one that Takashi Miike made in 2005, the greatest strength of 100 Ghosts is in just how many awesome, and unique, Japanese bogey men and women are crammed into the film’s brisk 90 minute run time, as well as the impeccable work by the art department in putting all of them together. Besides all the wonderful monsters, the set and costume design throughout the picture are also impeccable, and I’d say that 100 Ghosts really is Daiei at it’s best. All three Yokai films are legit gems, which remain puzzlingly under-appreciated stateside, and 100 Ghosts is easily the raddest of the batch. Go seek it out!

A+

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YOKAI MONSTERS: SPOOK WARFARE!!!

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Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (AKA Big Monster War)- 1968, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Japan

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Possibly the coolest thing Daiei studios ever did was it’s Yokai Monsters trilogy, three impeccably awesome monster flicks which highlighted a group of wildly diverse and creative Japanese folks spirits, from within the format of a period costume drama. These films are satisfying, fun, effective, and they feature peerless Showa era art direction, as well as Suitomation work which far exceeded the craftsmanship seen in better known Daiei franchises, such as the Gamera or Daimajin films. Seriously, these movies are inexcusably under-appreciated outside of Japan, and if I do one thing in my life which is both effective AND NOT blatantly immoral, let it be that I spread awareness of rad shit to people who don’t care. Yokai Monsters– if you’re reading this, it’s too late, I have already won.

“But just what in the hell is a yokai?” You ask, your Caucasian features twisted into a confused, pained mask of fair skinned befuddlement. Well, good friends, don’t be embarrassed, it’s not out of line for we non-Japanese folks to have no clue just what in the fuck a Yokai is, but there’s good news: I’m here to help you.

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You see, ‘Yokai’ is, from what I can tell, sort of an umbrella term, under which a general class of Japanese spirits, ghosts, and bogeymen are grouped. They’re similar to the Western concept of a ghost in its quasi intangible, immortal nature, but yokai aren’t necessarily the spirits of deceased human beings. There’s an incredible amount of diversity in the yokai community, one of these dudes appears to be nothing more than a long strip of sentient paper which flys around through the air. Another is an umbrella with one eye that likes to lick people. It’s kinda just a big, spooky, ghoul grab bag that contains an endless aray of total weirdos, but as freaky as these critters are, they’re also damn neat, and an absolute motion picture gold mine. All three of the Yokai films feature a wide range of these spirits, and that alone makes them a must-see  for fans of Japanese horror cinema.

THE PLOT~ When a terrible, Ancient, Babylonian Demon called ‘Daimon’ is accidently freed by foolish grave robbers, it flies across the globe and settles in Fuedal Japan, for no reason. Daimon, eager to get back into the swing of evil bullshit, kills and impersonates a local Lord, and in so doing, evicts Kappa, a water dwelling Yokai which had lived on the Lord’s property, presumably forever. Kappa is pissed, and he goes to tell all the other Yokai that some big, gnarly, foreign spirit is busting up shit in Japan, and he needs their help to make it right. Initially, all the other Apparations call bullshit on Kappa’s story, because he’s sort of like the Dave Chappelle of the Yokai kingdom, but they eventually come around and agree to help him. In the end, all the yokai are gathered for a massive conflict between the indigenous spirits of Japan, and this monstrous intruder, who just can’t play nice.

yokai06Also, sometimes the Yokai use profanity, and we all know that’s awesome.

The subtext should be pretty clear; this is a Nationalist, Japanese, knee-jerk reaction against foriegners, the outside world, and Western Influence. It’s also very possible that it’s specifically a religious statement, that is to say, Spook Warfare could be read as a Shinto-Centric denouncement of Christianity, an imported religion which had begun to gain popularity throughout Japan. Daimon is a Babylonian demon, but we may have just swapped one Middle-Eastern faith for another, making him a thinly veiled stand-in for Christianity all the same. His behavior and characteristics are also very much in line with the traditional European vampire, and at the end of the film, he is chased off by figures which are forever associated with an indigenous religion of Japan, so the argument that this is a big “You’re not welcome” sign pointed right in the face of people who straight up dig Jesus feels pretty sound. At one point, Daimon even goes after the children, and that’s when the Yokai REALLY get pissed. This is essentially the Yokai film equivalent of finding out that a missionary gave a pocket Bible to your ten year old, so now you’re losing your shit because Richard Dawkins is your god and you don’t want any of that stuff in your house.

That having been said, it’s not really as over the top as it sounds, and it’s hardly just cause for rounding up the neighbors and burning copies of Spook Warfare in the center of your cul-de-sac. This is just a little bit of Nihonen Xenophobia, and that’s a perfectly natural reaction for a culture to have when it perceives its natural identity to be challenged. Cut Japan a break on this one, and hopefully, they’d do the same for you. You’d be missing out on a great film otherwise.

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare is great. All three of these films really straddle the line between monster movie and ghost story, they’re fun, imaginative, and feature some of the best costume, set, and prop design ever to come out of the Showa era. I couldn’t recommend them more.

A

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Destroy All Monsters!!!

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Destroy All Monsters~ 1968, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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In 1968 Toho released their THIRD Ishiro Honda directed Godzilla film wherein a race of extra-terrestrials take control of Earth’s monsters in an attempt to force a surrender and usher in alien occupation of the planet. Each of these films feature Ghidorah as the ultimate monster challenge posed to Godzilla and co., and in each film, mankind discovers a way to release their monsters from the alien’s control at the eleventh hour and saves the day. To rephrase that, between 1964 and 1968, Toho released five Godzilla films, and three of them had essentially the same story. I’m not saying I dislike this run of films, but how can anyone argue that things were getting alarmingly “been there done that” by this point? This is the Super Street Fighter II of Godzilla films (Making Final Wars the Super Street Fighter II Turbo of the franchise.)

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THE PLOT- Mankind is really kicking ass these days. We’ve managed to put together a pretty sweet international space program, complete with moon bases, and Earth’s monsters are all contained for observation on a tricked out island somewhere in the Pacific. Advanced science has been developed to prevent each of the monsters from ever escaping, and simultaneously we’ve designed a self sufficient Eco-system which can feed the creatures indefinitely while we study them from ultra safe bunkers deep beneath the surface of the island. Yes sir, nothing can go wrong now. Oh, wouldn’t you know it, aliens show up and want to conquer our sweet planet, and they have somehow managed to take control of all of our monsters. Really, really sucks how often this happens.

Long story short, there is some space warfare stuff that goes down, and in the end we manage to free our monsters from alien control and defeat the interloping space people once again. Sound familiar? This also won’t be the last time Toho does this in a movie.

It’s not so bad, though. It’s still a pretty good effort, and the alien/outer space stuff is actually done pretty well, much better than in Invasion Of Astro Monster. The daring human assault on the alien moon bases is an especially exciting and well done sequence for it’s lack of giant monsters, and the film does a good job upping the ante and making this movie feel more global and epic in scope. It does really feel like the very survival of mankind is on the line, and really, that’s the mark of a successful alien invasion film, so kudos on that, Ishiro.

There are also lots, and lots of monsters, and they look good. The big battle at the end where Godzilla leads a monster army against Ghidorah and the alien invaders is pretty cool, and it’s satisfying to see Ghidorah get his ass beat so, so hard by Papa G’s Kaiju Posse.

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Overall, Destroy All Monsters does it right, but the problem is that we’ve just tread this ground so many times already. Had it not been diluted by the foul backwash of repetition, this movie would really shine. As it is, it’s still pretty good.

B-

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