Gamera The Super Monster!!!!

Gamera The Super Monster~  1980, Noriaki Yuasa, Japan

Gamera The Super Monster was released in 1980; a full five years after Terror of Mechagodzilla, the final Showa era Godzilla film Toho ever released. Let that sink in; by 1980, EVEN TOHO had given up. Godzilla, for years a big green cash cow, had stopped bringing in enough money to warrant the production of additional films. That’s a pretty clear sign that the kaiju genre needed some time off, and yet, here we are, five full years late to the party with Gamera Part Eight, and it is the single most critically underfunded Gamera outing ever.

“Spare some change?”

Gamera The Super Monster takes the now well worn Daiei tradition of recycling old footage and runs with it to an unforgivable extreme. There is almost no original monster content in the entire film, and no original monsters. It’s basically a clip show, they’ve cannibalized footage from previous Gamera adventures and cobbled together a cheapo monster montage, with some bizarre and crummy original footage sandwiched between sequences in an attempt to hold some kind of narrative together. The story they bring us concerns a little boy (surprise!) with a Gamera fixation (I”m sure the feeling is mutual)  who winds up in the middle of some sort of intergalactic turf war. Unable to combat the nefarious invaders on his own, our kiddo throws in with three alien ladies who occasionally wear spandex superhero outfits, complete with capes, and together they work to foil the attempted conquest of Earth by a hostile alien race, who fly around in a damn Star Destroyer. Yep. A Star Destroyer.

The original effects are worse than terrible, and even the classic monster footage had to have felt positively prehistoric to audiences in 1980. This is, in a lot of ways, the Godzilla’s Revenge of the Gamera franchise, a film which makes no claim to even trying to satisfy an adult audience, instead playing straight to children, and compensating for it’s flimsy narrative with wall to wall monster combat, mostly snatched from pre existing footage- however, where Godzilla’s Revenge was a midseries celebration of ongoing cannon meant to give kids what they really wanted, Gamera The Super Monster is a cut and dry cash in attempt by Daiei and financiers to milk what pennies still remained in Gamera’s dying husk once and for all. Gamera The Super Monster isn’t a sequel, it’s more like a liquidation sale.

That having been said, there are some important concessions that need to be made before tossing this stinker out with yesterday’s ham; we are NOT the target audience for Gamera The Super Monster. This is, first and foremost, a children’s film, and it was a children’s film made for kids who probably couldn’t have just streamed Gamera’s entire catalog off of youtube illegally anytime they wanted. It’s possible that for the children of 1980’s Japan, this movie freaking kicked ass. Gamera The Super Monster plays like a greatest hits album for kids who don’t have easy access to these films in their own right. It’s all the monsters you love, and only the good parts. Then, holding the whole thing together, you get space ladies in capes flying around. Honestly, you could do a lot worse! I actually think in some weird way Gamera The Super Monster is a better kid’s film than Godzilla’s Revenge, it’s so much less bleak and depressing, our lead kid is nowhere near as annoying, and the non-monster sequences are anything but drab. Putting yourself in the shoes of a kid who had little to no access to home video, but who loved Gamera, you can probably see how a matinee showing of Gamera The Super Monster could rock your socks off like a mutha fucker.

So, through the eyes of the adult, we have the most lamentable flop in Gamera’s tragic career. For children, we have a shitty story (But who cares?) a spaceship right out of Star Wars, the MOST monsters ever in a Gamera film, and Japanese space ladies, complete with special powers which require choreographed arm movements to activate, like all Japanese people love. I am bound by honor to grade this film academically, but it’s worth an asterisk in the record books that this piece of garbage might be a masterpiece if you’re under 11 years old.

D

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Gamera VS Zigra!!!!!

Gamera VS Zigra ~ 1971, Noriaki Yuasa, Japan

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Alright! Who’s ready for Gamera Part 7?! Nobody? Why are we even doing this anymore? C’mon you guys, look alive, we got two more Showa era giant turtle movies, and this one is actually pretty good… Sorta… Comparatively… You know what, just try to have a good attitude.

THE PLOT~ It’s been almost two years since a hostile alien race has attempted to invade the Earth, but worry not, because the sea dwelling people of the planet Zigra are here to pick up the slack, as well as to provide Gamera something he can horrendously maim the shit out of, as he is wont to do. It’s the circle of life. Anyway. The Zigra economy must be in trouble, because when their spaceship (Which looks like a crown full of jelly beans) finally lands on Earth, it’s got exactly two occupants, and one is just a brainwashed Earthling who has been made to do Zigra’s bidding. The other is a giant swordfish monster, which seems to be sleeping… This is not really much of an invasion, but hey, they’ve got an Earthquake machine, and they’re pretty good at hypnotizing people. You know what, they’re doing their best. Give them a break.

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Anyway… So, the Zigras show up and kidnap four humans, two of which are our token duo of ethnically diverse preteens, so you know we’ll be spending a lot of time with them later. Then the aliens blast Earth with some heavy duty Earthquakes that really spook everyone, but which don’t really appear to cause much damage. The reason for kidnapping four Earthlings? Well, after Earth gets its shit quaked, our kidnapees are asked verify to the rest of mankind that yes, aliens did this, and yes, they’ll do it again if we don’t cooperate. I guess they thought we’d only believe it if it came from one of our own? These aliens don’t seem to understand that all humans are liars, and this is common knowledge. Anyways, it doesn’t matter, because the kids foil the alien plan and escape just in time for Gamera to show up and destroy the hell out of the alien spaceship, because he knows his role, and he owns it. Without his ship to hide in, our alien swordfish monster is exposed to Earth’s atmosphere, which in turn causes him to grow into an even more giant, Gamera-sized, alien sword fish monster…  because of atmospheric pressure? The science is sound.

tumblr_mj9ljmy4vv1qgckmbo3_1280Our two kaiju briefly throw down, and Gamera somehow winds up paralyzed, at which point he topples over into the ocean upside down like an idiot. REALLY feels familiar, doesn’t it? Probably because we’ve seen this a thousand times before. Gamera has a long legacy of getting his ass kicked early on, which leaves him out of commision for the entire second act of his fucking movies, only to then come back strong in the third act and save the day. Apparently, we must save Gamera before he can save us. Guess how we manage to pull that off this time? If you guessed “children in a submarine,”, then you’re right on the money. This submarine sequence is middle of the road, it’s more entertaining than the one from Gamera Vs. Viras, but less entertaining than the one from Gamera Vs. Jiger. The mini-sub we have winds up crapping out on us, stranding our would be junior heroes in the path of certain doom, but “children in peril” is all you had to say if you wanted to rouse a slumbering Gamera. As if motivated by instinct alone, Gams quickly springs to, and decides to mount a mission to rescue his rescuers, so he can then rescue them again. This part is actually kinda funny, but possibly on accident. Zigra is sleeping for some reason (Why are Daiei’s monsters always sleeping?!) and Gamera kinda sneaks up on him and throws a rock, to make sure his opponent isn’t about to wake up. He doesn’t. Coast is clear. Apparently comfortable with the situation, Gammy then slowly sneaks a little closer to the sub, and reaches for it, drawing back cautiously for fear of somehow waking up his slumbering fish-foe. This sort of feels like a Kaiju equivalent of Indiana Jones trying to swap the idol for a bag of sand in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I really like it. I love it, in fact. Weird shit like this is when Gamera really shines.

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So, Gambo manages to burgle the bathyscaph, and saves his human pals, but not without having to confront Zigra once more. There’s a pretty decent battle, during which Gamera winds up lodging a boulder on Zigra’s sword snout, thereby compromising his sense of balance and causing him to topple over, immobilized and helpless. This is where things get weird. Gamera hefts a boulder off of the beach and bashes it against Zigras spikes, In effect, playing his beaten foe like a damn xylophone. He apparently really enjoys this, as is evident by the subsequent joyful monster jig that he performs after he wails on Ziggy for a while. Yep! I sorta wonder if spending several hours unconscious with his head submerged in water changed Gamera in some way… I think maybe it’s sort of like what happened with Gary Busey. LIke, yeah… He’s back… But…

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But he’s not so different that he could possibly resist annihilating his foe in a gruesome display of monster violence. Gamera hosts Japan’s biggest ever fish fry and lets Zigra have it with some of his fiery turtle breath, which leaves him d-e-a-d dead. You know, as humble as these Daiei films are, they never let their focus on entertaining children distract them from whats really important; graphic depictions of monster violence. It’s actually one of the most awesome things about Gamera, these films simultaneously became more youth centric, and more gory. It’s clear that Daiei wasn’t afraid to traumatized youngsters, and in fact, likely saw the value in making sure kids weren’t coddled in a universe of puppy dogs and pillow forts. Occasionally, they need to see something they love get mutilated. It’s just good child rearing, and it’s missing from movies nowadays. We’re all weaker and more feeble minded for it.

gamerazigra12529Anyway, this one is actually pretty good, and thank goodness, because the next film in the Gamera franchise is widely known to be a stinker of the harshest, most regrettable magnitude. The preceding two or three films weren’t really home runs, either, so a halfway decent afternoon with Gamera really hits the spot right about now. Truthfully, this was a hard time for just about every film studio in Japan, and their creative output suffered across the board as a result. This movie is certainly a little more humble than what we saw Godzilla doing over in Toho Town around this time, but it isn’t really shittier. It feels like maybe this one last time, Daiei finally caught some traction. Some weird, crappy traction.

If you’re a fan of the Gamera franchise, then by this point you’re aware that kaiju cinema is all about rehashing cliches, and you’re either going to be okay with that, or you’re not. Gamera Vs. Zigra does nothing new, but it is fun, and Gamera’s crumminess remains as endearing as ever. It’s too bad this couldn’t have been his Showa swan song, but very few of us are privileged enough to go out on a high note.

C+

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Gamera Vs Jiger!

Gamera Vs. Jiger ~ 1970, Noriaki Yuasa, Japan

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Worry not, ravenous Kaiju philes, Japan’s second most popular gigantic reptilian monster hero is back after like, several months, with a brand new beast busting blockbuster! Yes, Gamera is back, but does he have moves like Jiger? The answer is no, no he does not- nobody does, because like all of Gamera’s foes, Jiger is nonsense incarnate. This is basically a win, though, because after studying how freaking bizarre Gamera’s rogue gallery has been up to this point, it would be truly jarring to see him on screen with anything that made sense.

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Pictured: Nonsense.

THE PLOT~ The people of Earth are throwing a World Expo (basically a mixture of the World’s Fair and Disney’s Epcot Center) in Japan to celebrate peace and unity for all of mankind. First on their list of preparations? Actively disgracing precious African cultural sites for their own amusement and giving zero fuck’s about it. Peace and unity for the win! You see, there’s this giant, ancient stone monolith embedded in the Earth somewhere in Africa called The Devil’s Whistle. This is one impressive whistle, so the world expo people are like “hey… We kinda want that. That thing is neat.” Next thing you know, they got a horrified African dignitary is in their offices, pleading with them to let the whistle stay where it is. He makes an impassioned, reasonable, case for the whistle staying put, and in actuality, he has basic human decency on his side, and Japan is in the wrong to remove the whistle, which is plain to see. Unfortunately, he’s also black, so Japan doesn’t fucking care. They take the whistle anyway, and wouldn’t you know it, that turns out to be a bad idea. You see, apparently the whistle wasn’t for decoration, it also functioned as a means of imprisoning Jiger, an ancient, weird dinosaur thing. Now that the whistle is gone, Jiger is fucking shit up, and things look bleak for humanity.

tumblr_nopo0kkkyv1qgckmbo1_500Until Gamera shows up. I shouldn’t really have to drag you through the plot here, if you’ve seen one, you’ve kinda seen ’em all, but I’ll sum up the particulars. Apparently, Jiger is vulnerable to sound, and is also a female, so that’s fun. She uses her weird rocket horns to lay her monster eggs inside Gamera’s freaking heart, which basically puts him into a near death, unresponsive state for a large chunk of the film. In hopes of rescuing everybody’s favorite whirling turtle beast, two young boys called Hiroshi and Tommy, hijack a submarine (this feels familiar) and pilot it into the open mouth of the now catatonic Gamera on a mission to reach his heart. When Hiroshi and Tommy discover a baby Jiger living tucked away inside Gamera’s freaking guts, they damn kill it, with a Walky talky. Now THAT is awesome. I wanted walky talkies super bad when I was a kid, and I was totally unaware that they could be used to murder monsters. Walky talkies just keep getting better and better! There’s also a point at which Gamera rams telephone poles into his ear canals to block out the noise of some Anti-Jiger Noise weapons the Japanese cooked up, and I greatly enjoy that, too.

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It’s hard to say if Gamera Vs Jiger is an improvement over the big guy’s last few tumblr_nopsuxyr2n1qgckmbo1_400adventures or not. Gamera Vs. Guiron strayed a little far from the formula and felt scaled down from earlier outings, and Gamera Vs Viras upped the ante on how much it was willing to pander to children while also filling out it’s run time with an inexcusably generous use of recycled footage. Gamera Vs. Jiger doesn’t repeat any of those mistakes, except for some mild child pandering, and it feels much closer to Gamera Vs Gyaos than we’ve seen in some time, so that’s all good. It doesn’t stack up well against the second and third Gamera films when quality is concerned, though. By this point, Gamera felt cheap and uninspired. Gamera Vs Jiger is okay if you’re happy with more of the same, but just don’t expect it to knock your socks off. I hate to say it, but Gamera’s once promising uphill trend was a long forgotten thing by this point in his franchise. He’s just phoning it in.

Worth bringing up, Gamera is well known for his bizarre and suspiciously unconditional love of children…

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…But Tommy and Hiroshi are looking a little old in this one. They’re in the early stages of puberty, and these poor bastards have no idea that they’re just probably just one awkward year away from Gamera suddenly giving zero shits about them. Yeah, you just stole a mini-sub and sailed it into the tusked maw of a radioactive guardian monster to save his life, but he’s “friend to all children,” not “pal to all tweens.” Pretty soon, he’s just gonna stop taking your calls. Go ask Corey Feldman, he’s been there.

C+

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GAMERA VS. GUIRON!!!

Gamera Vs. Guiron – 1969, Noriaka Yuasa, Japan

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By its very nature, the Gamera franchise seems to invite a comparison to the work of his most noteworthy big, green rival, Godzilla. Gamera only exists as an attempt by Daiei to siphon off some of that big lizard money in the first place, and it would be nearly impossible not to at least think of the single most important, influential, and popular giant monster franchise of all time when evaluating a competing super beast, but then, Gamera continues to mirror Godzilla periodically throughout his adventures, as well. Or perhaps they’re both just responding to other ongoing cultural phenomena. Hard to say. In any case, this is Gamera’s fifth film… released in 1969, the same year All Monsters Attack came out, which sucked like crazy. So, damn,,, I guess in terms of 1969 kaiju films, Gamera is the reigning champ. At last!

THE PLOT~ Two mischievous boys (heard that one before) steal away on a mysterious UFO, which then flies them, autopilot style, to it’s mysterious and far away planet. Gamera spots the kids on the way out, and follows them, because little boys are apparently his number one priority. I hope no kids on Earth need Gamera’s help for the next day or two, because he’s way out of his jurisdiction this time, like when Joe Don Baker went to Malta in Final Justice. (Joe Don Baker reference- I can now die happy.)

Anyway, the planet they wind up on is all tubes and nonsense, it sort of looks like what you’d get if Chucky Cheese designed an alien planet. I would, in no way, be surprised if every hour on the hour Guiron wiggled out to play a pizza themed cover version of ‘Dancin’ in the Streets’, but I digress. This Dr. Suess land of moon craters and goof tubes is basically deserted due to an ecological disaster the aliens caused, which, in turn, created a race of Gyaos monsters, who annihilated all life and who still continue to tear shit up hard. Two (TWO) alien women somehow survived the subsequent mass extinction of their species, and they now control a giant monster called Guiron, which they use to protect their dome and tube style future city from the friggin’ Gyaoses. At first they act super cool to our wayward Earth boys, but we soon learn they plan to fucking eat their brains and then conquer Earth, for more delicious brains. Yep!

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So, anyhow, Gamera shows up, him and Guiron throw down, and the day is saved. Our alien chicks are killed, our humans boys are returned to Earth, and the sun sets on yet another monster filled day in 1960’s Japan.

It’s actually a lot better than the preceding Gamera film, but it’s not going to rival Gamera Vs Barugon, or Gamera Vs Gyaos, at this point the reining Gamera champs. Like Gamera Vs Viras, this film is without question very, very youth oriented, “friend to all children” being a title Gamera eagerly accepted years before Godzilla sort of reluctantly gave up his days of menacing and killing people to follow suit with categorically kid-friendly adventures exclusively. Gamera does rip of Big Bad GZ, but there are times when this imitation looks a little more mutual than people would like to admit.

We should also talk about Guiron. I like him… But… Well, there’s just no nice way to say this, his face is a damn sword. Straight up. That’s really the first and last page of the Book of Guiron, his damn face is a sword.

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Ol’ Sword Face, I call him.

Which is kind of cool. Gamera, being a turtle, is, essentially, a shield with limbs and a head, so just as he is inherently defense oriented, Guiron is a weapon with feet, making him outwardly offensive in nature. He also can fire shurikens out of the side of his head, and remains, without question, easily the least weird monster in the entire Daiei Gamera franchise. Also, when he kills things, he will often decapitate his enemies through the power of headbanging, which is extremely metal.

It’s actually quite likely that Guiron is the single most formidable foe Gamera has faced yet. Before this, it would be, without question, Gyaos, but as I mentioned earlier, Guiron kills like, four Gyaoses everyday, that’s like, his afternoon routine. He slices of their wings, crawls up to their imobilized, shgrieking bodies, and then headbangs his sword face into them, first decapitating, and then slicing the rest of the Gyaos into rounded sections like a giant sausage. In the end, Gamera DOES make sure Guiron is super, super dead, but he’s not able to do it on his own, he requires the aid of powerful, explosive rockets to really get the job done. In fact, in this entry, Gamera isn’t much of an able combatant at all, he’s much more adept at turtle gymnastics that the art of ferocious, monster combat. Perhaps this is a symptom of his evolution towards giant, smiling, tusk faced Happy-Meal Toy and away from nightmarish terror of Japan? Seems plausible.

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Pictured: Turtle Gymnastics.

This shits goofy, no question, but Gamera has never managed to avoid being goofy, not in the Showa era, at least. If you like Gamera, you know this, and that shouldn’t slow you down. It’s also commendable (I guess) that Daiei has began to use extra terrestrials for it’s villains, just like Toho did with it’s Godzilla franchise, but has managed to come up with two different stories in order to accommodate them, a feat which Toho was never able to achieve after decades of just copying and pasting the same Alien Invasion script over and over and over.

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The Gamera franchise appears to have peaked with Gamera Vs Gyaos, and what we see with this film is a pretty shallow, straightforward, children’s science fiction movie, with a few giant monsters. These movies are fun enough, if that’s what you’re into, but our big, frumpy turtle guardian is straight up phoning it in about now.

C

 

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Gamera Vs Gyaos!!!

Gamera Vs Gyaos – 1967, Noriaki Yuasa, Japan

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Daiei continues the slow, lumbering turtle March into the realm of ever-improved sequels with Gamera’s third outing, the fun, yet two-thirds insane Gamera Vs Gyaos. At this stage in the game, Daiei had indeed succeeded in steadily improving their product and tightening the quality gap that separated their Brand X monsters from the “designer jeans” beasts of Toho’s Godzilla-Verse, but they’re also starting to out themselves as being batshit wacky in the process. I don’t really regard that as being a problem, but it’s for sure worth discussing.

THE PLOT~ Tension is high. The residents of a rural, Japanese mountain village have blocked the construction of a proposed super-highway that would lead right through the heart of the pristine forest they call home. The construction can’t continue until these people all agree to sell, so the big  muckymucks back in the city tell their head foreman to really put the pressure on these guys to force a deal, but nobody is budging. We come to learn that this is because a respected elder in the village has organized this standoff deliberately, not because these people want to stay in their village, but because they all see this as an opportunity to get super rich, and they believe that the longer they hold out, the more crazy yen they stand to receive from the increasingly desperate land developers. It’s funny how sometimes life can throw you curveballs… One day, you’re leading your friends and neighbors in a crusade to get rich quick, and the next, your Grandson is riding through the sky on the back of a giant turtle, and a three hundred foot tall vampire monster is barking death rays at fighter jets in your back yard. You just never know how life is going to play out, so it’s important to keep your shit straight while you can, I guess.
Anyway, that’s what happens, a volcanic eruption (that old chestnut) opens an ancient cavern in the side of the mountain, from whence Gyaos emerges, a huge, weirdly plane shaped bat type monster who eats humans and causes crazy damage. Luckily, by this point Gamera has apparently totally reformed and is now our big, green homie, so things sort of work out for the best in the end.

The film’s moral is all about greed- as in, don’t be greedy, dude, but it also views the natural world as a cut and dry commodity and states that the deliberate burning of old growth timber is an issue only because that wood is worth money, so Gamera Vs Gyaos isn’t really going to teach you too many lessons you actually want to learn. It’s mostly just fun because it’s full of big, stupid looking monsters who really fuck each other up.

It’s pretty good, though. If you’re into these films, this one is going to give you what you want and expect from the Gamera series, and in greater quantities than the prior two films (Although I did dig Barugon.) The budget also looks stepped up again, but the single biggest change you’ll feel with Gamera Vs Gyaos is how vivid the color pallete is. This movie is very artistic and playful with the colors used, the art department appears to have been tasked with producing props and set dressing which would jazz up the film’s visuals considerably, and they absolutely have; Gamera’s old rival Godzilla wouldn’t be featured in a film which got this ambitious with color until Godzilla Vs Megalon, and even then, the colors that movie used were more basic primaries and much less inventive or stylish. Honestly, there are frames of this film that look like a fucking Wes Anderson movie, and that’s a kaiju first.

Screen Shot 2015-02-23 at 1.59.43 PMIf Steve Zissou were piloting that, who would be surprised?

The topic I most feel needs to be addressed, however, is Gyaos; how weird he is, how everything about this whole series now seems very weird in retrospect, and how Daiei must be run by complete and utter madmen. Let’s sit down and talk about this.

So, it’s now painfully, glaringly obvious that Daiei fills their movies up with really, really weird monsters. I feel like I should have noticed this before. They seem to just invent new, bizarre, and totally unrelated abilities for their kaiju on a whim, and the results are really, really strange. Barugon was weird, I’m realizing. He had purple blood. He sprayed frosty gas out of a long tongue, blasted murder rainbows out of his back, and he dissolved in water… Gamera just straight up eats fire- that’s like a treat to him! Now, Gyaos pops in, and he’s plenty weird, too. Gyaos spits powerful death rays, drinks human blood, can regrow severed limbs like it’s no big thang, and sprays yellow powder out of his nipples, which extinguish flames instantly- yet he cannot rotate his head left or right, and is alergic to sunlight. Oh, yeah, and the reason he can’t turn his head is because he has two throats. Yeah, so Gyaos is a garbled Chimera of a creature worthy of Dr. Seues’ darkest nightmares, is pretty much what I’m getting at, and the same nonchalant insanity that created him rears it’s head over and over again throughout this film. At one point, the Japanese Powers-That-Be honestly think that the best plan they have for killing the Gyaos is by getting it really, really dizzy. They set up a fountain that dispenses artificial human blood on a rotating platform, crank up the juice, and prey like hell that he fucking dies somehow. It doesn’t work, of course, probably because that plan sounds like it was conceived by a nine year old, but they try, and we watch them do it. Of course, when they come up with an idea that actually does work, and it literally IS conceived by a nine year old, so I guess whatever. The point is that this movie is pretty much bonkers, and after seeing it, you start to realize just exactly how wacky this whole Gamera thing has been from day one. I now feel somehow uneasy about the time I have spent with Gamera… Like the sensation one must feel when they’ve just dropped off a hitchhiker with whom they’ve enjoyed a long chat, only to then turn on the radio and hear a news bulletin about a dangerous, escaped mental patient matching the hitchhikers description…

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I guess maybe there were a few warning signs…

Anyway… Moving on.

As I mentioned before, this movie also further establishes Gamera as a friendly guardian to all mankind, so it comes across as more kid friendly than it’s predecessors, but there’s actually sort of a lot of monster blood in this. None of it is red, though, which seems to mater. Gamera’s blood is green and Gyaos’ is purple, so maybe that didn’t seem like actual gore in the eyes of our distant ancestors, but there’s no buts about it, these monsters are gounging and tearing at each other pretty agressivley. Honestly, that’s not gonna hurt a kid, they need to be exposed to this sort of thing sooner or later. Let your kids watch turtles getting death ray blasted at home, or some other kid is just going to show them at school, and there it’ll be out of context.

Anyway. This is another good one, and so far, these movies are getting better and better,

B+

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Gamera VS Barugon!

Gamera Vs Barugon – 1966, Shigeo Tanaka, Japan

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I love this big, lumpy, turtle shaped idiot.

Gamera’s big debut was a little rough. It was enjoyable, yes, but in today’s world, Gamera The Giant Monster just isn’t a movie that anyone needs to see unless they’re already way into kaiju cinema. It fell a little flat, and for the most part, looked more at home amongst American B-movies of the 1960’s than alongside the higher quality Japanese monster movies it wanted to imitate. All that shit is over now, though, because Gamera Vs Barugon is the huge, lumbering bumble forward in quality we want it to be. This freakin’ movie is absolutely worthy competition for Toho, and in fact, it leaves some of their lesser “name brand” Kaiju in the dust. (Suck it, Varan!)

THE PLOT- After an adventure to smuggle a priceless Opal out of the jungles of New Guinea backfires, Barugon, who is in no way a rip off of Toho monsters Anguirus or Baragon (he totally is) is unleashed on Japan, and he’s eager to hit them with a blast of irrational, crazed lizard fury the likes of which they’ve not known for several weeks. And he might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling Gamera, who is back on Earth after our efforts to kill/launch him into space proved to be a failure. The two big bad beasties slug it out, in keeping with tradition, and in the end, it’s giant reptile VS giant reptile in a heated, knock down, drag out lizard war for the ages. Why don’t people just move away from Japan at this point? No excuse is a good enough reason to stay put with this crap going on.

The first thing you need to know about Gamera Vs Barugon is that Gamera is barely even in it. Actually, that’s the movie’s greatest flaw, no where near enough screen time for the headlining act; our gluttonous tortoise beast shows up, is prompty frozen solid by Barugon’s icey gas spray (quit laughing), and then he’s out of the picture for 90% of the runtime. It’s just Japan versus Barugon until the eleventh hour, when a freshly thawed Gamera whirls into frame to beat Barugon’s ass, and then the credits roll. This is not an ideal situation given that this is Gamera’s sophomore outing, but since the burden of carrying this picture is all on Barugon, we should probably talk about him a little bit.

Firstly, I want to address the elephant in the room; This dopey ass lizard creature is undeniably a straight up rip off. The whole “BARAGON/BARUGON” thing is, for sure, pretty dammed hard to dispute.

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This is BarUgon (Daiei).

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And this is BarAgon (Toho).

BarAgon, who, as you can see, looks quite a lot like our boy BarUgon, made his debut appearance in Toho’s Frankenstein Conquers the World one year prior to the release of this film, so trying to argue that there wasn’t any sort of plagiarism here would be a lot like when Vanilla Ice tried to say he didn’t rip off Under Pressure. That argument would just be embarrassing, and Daiei would be better off just admitting to the theft and taking their lumps. The weird thing is, however, that aside from the name, Barugon actually has more in common with Anguirus, than he does with Baragon. Check out the facts; Anguirus is, yet again, another four legged, gigantic lizard monster who had a horn on his Schnozz and spikes on his back. In addition, Anguirus and Barugon both first appear in the second installment of their respective franchises (Barugon here in Gamera Vs Barugon and Anguirus in Godzilla Raids Again, Toho’s second Godzilla film), and both films feature dramatic monster battles that take place in Osaka, Japan, right outside the famous Osaka Castle. I even think Barugon looks a bit more like Anguirus, right down to a mutual lack of floppy ears. Have a look:

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They could be brothers.

In summation, yeah, Barugon is a damn rip off.

All that being said, I hated this freakin’ guy before I even started watching this movie. How could I not, given that he was little more than a shameful xerox of Baragon, who had long since warmed my heart with his floppy ears and hilarious antics. I knew from photographs I had seen that Barugon didn’t even have ears, so he was indeed on my shit list right out of the gate; but imagine my surprise when he won me over more or less immediately! Barugon is actually a really well done monster, the suit looks like garbage, of course, but Daiei managed to squeeze more personality into him than Toho did with either of Anguirus or Baragon in their respective debut films. This big, scaly dofus does some really great stuff that I’ve never seen a giant monster do before; firstly, he’s the only Kaiju I’ve ever seen sit down in the middle of a decimated city and take a nap. Barugon totally does that. After smashing up Osaka, he thinks “That was good. This place is mine now. Think I’ll take a snooze.” Awesome. Then, when Gamera shows up, our boy Barry hunkers down behinds some trees with just his eyes poking up, as if to get a feel for the situation before figuring out how he wants to react to the appearance of this potential foe. The decision he reaches is that it’s time to throw down, and so after a brief confrontation, Barugon blasts Gamera with his ice spray and freezes him solid, at which point he prods Gamera’s big, frozen head with his horn, as if to make sure his opponent is really down for the count. These are all small things, but they make an amazing difference in selling this ludicrous looking puppet as a living creature, and I came out of this fairly impressed by the attention Daiei put into the subtleties of Barugon’s personality. That, more than anything else, excuses his plagiarized monster lineage, and so B-Boy get’s a pass from me, ultimately.

There are also other ways in which Gamera Vs Barugon succeeds where many films in this sub-genre continue to fail. The best thing the movie does is that it gives us interesting human characters and a story which would still be fun, even if it didn’t have a single giant monster in it. That’s huge. The bungled Opal smuggling sequence is great, it’s fun and exciting, and combines elements of gangster cinema and jungle adventure films, which is an odd mix, but which pays off in spades. Our two most important humans in the picture are, Onodera, who is a ridiculously over the top douche bag and also our villain, and Keisuke, who is our protagonist. This whole “Retrieve a giant opal” thing is clearly a shady, under the table type of operation, and actually I’m not sure why that is. It seems like you should be legally allowed to be a treasure hunter and bring a rad ass opal back from the jungle if you want to, but we get the message that this was evidently a very illegal thing that they are doing, and that actually works to the films advantage in a very clear and tangible way. Keisuke inherits a sort of ambiguous morality through his association with these shady dealings, and that makes him a more interesting character than we’re used to seeing in this films. It also gives us Onodera, who again, he’s a fucker. Let’s talk about him.

Onodera has a rap sheet longer than Barugon’s retractable lizard tongue. It’s freaking crazy how much of a dick head this guy is. Firstly, he allows one of his gem heist conspirators to suffer a fatal scorpion sting, so as to ensure that Onodera receives a bigger cut of the take. Then, when his Keisuke fails to die from natural Jungle related risks, Onodera grenades the cave shut in an attempt to rub him out, too. The final conspirator is Keisuke’s disabled brother, who hid the opal in that scorpion infested cave during the war in the first place. Onodera pays a visit to this disabled war veteran and kicks the hell out of him and his wife, before leaving them both trapped in a house directly in the path of Barugon’s incoming stomp fest. They both die. The real coup de gras comes later, though, at the end of Act II. At that point, every single attempt to lay the smack down upon Barugon had been an abject failure, and things look grim. A new plan is formulated, which, at this point, looks to be literally the only chance mankind has at defeating Barugon and saving Japan. This last ditch plan involves the use of a giant, fantastically valuable diamond, which must be loaded into a cool light projector thing, and used to lure Barugon into the water, which he is allergic to, if I didn’t mention that before. “Diamond, you say?!” Says Onodera, who immediately jumps into action, zooms up alongside the vessel carrying a small number of brave men literally in the process of attempting to save the world, only to open fire on them and steal this diamond, which, one final time I want to stress this; is, as far as anyone knows, the only thing that can save the entire human race. Where does he think he’s going to spend the money when the entire planet is destroyed?! Also I want to remind you that Barugon only exists because Onodera is a douche bag in the first place. It takes an extreme, flamboyant kind of shit head to rob people who are actively working to save the world from a cataclysm that was your own doing to begin with, but Onodera is that flamboyant shit head, and they really don’t get any shittier. It’s impressive.

If we’re talking about what’s wrong with Gamera Vs Barugon, again I would call out it’s shocking lack of Gamera to be it’s most damaging fault. For most of the picture, he’s frozen, face down, in Osaka. If he’s not frozen, he’s either on screen fighting Barugon (this happens twice, the first time leading up to his freezing, and the second time resulting in Barugon’s demise,) or he’s off attacking Hydroelectric dams and other such installations so that he can gobble up all the delicious energy they produce in order to satiate his gluttonous Turtle hunger, and that’s almost all off camera. Anyway you slice it, Gam-Gams needs more screen time, and Daei should have known that.

But that is the worst thing about this movie. It certainly looks lower budget than Toho’s pictures, but that’s pretty much not a problem. As I’ve said in my review of Gamera’s first movie, his frumpy inadequacies are more endearing than anything else, since the very act of watching a Gamera movie is tantamount to rooting for the underdog anyhow. In no small way I would say that Gamera Vs Barugon is a classic of 1960’s Kaiju that doesn’t need to feel all that inferior to what Godzilla was up to at that time.

B+

 

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MDS00223

GAMERA!

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Gamera  (AKA Daikaijû Gamera, Gammera the Invincible) -1965, Noriaki Yuasa

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Gamera is the monster for people who like ugly Christmas trees.

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Seriously, look at him. He’s freaking ridiculous.

Conceived at a time when giant monsters were all the rage, Gamera was Japanese film studio Daiei’s cunning imitation of that other popular, giant, Japanese reptile you may have heard of, and while he was never really able to escape the stigma of being an off-brand imitation of the true monster king, he did enjoy a long career in cinema, and earn many fans in his own right. Today we see Gamera not as a heated rival to Godzilla, but more as a lovable, frumpy underdog, humble, and charmingly inferior.

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I’m sure you can see what I mean.

His undeniable shittiness is, unquestionably, part of Gamera’s lasting appeal. I’ve been a Gamera fan since childhood, and there’s just something so gloriously “underground,” or “alternative” about him. While his movies share many qualities with Toho’s monster films, there’s something else at play here here, and you can feel that there’s a different hand behind the design of the Daiei universe, which gives it this exciting “other” feel. This bizarre, equally fun world is absolutely ripe for exploration for anyone who loves the Toho Godzilla movies, and Gamera, eternal hardworking underdog of the giant monster lexicon, is charming, in part because of his numerous flaws. Honestly, it’s true, Gamera looks like garbage in the most endearing  way possible, he’s like a big, loveable piece of trash. His torso is two thousand feet wide and six inches deep, and his belly is crosshatched in perfect squares giving him the appearance of a bunch of garbage smooshing out from between two giant, green Eggo waffles. That’s his look; the “Garbage sandwich on Green Eggo Bread.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Gamera, also called Gammera The Invincible, is the 1965 debut of this fire eating, shell-clad super beast, and while it’s a far cry from the legitimate artistic slam dunk that was Gojira in 1954, it’s a pretty enjoyable monster movie all the same.

gammeraTHE PLOT- When a long-range bomber carrying nuclear warheads is shot down over the Arctic, the ensuing explosion frees Gamera, a giant, prehistoric turtle monster, from his ancient state of hibernation beneath the ice.

There is some confusion over exactly how malicious Gamera is. He’s certainly destructive, but is this because he is genuinley an asshole, or is it just really hard not to smash buildings when you’re two hundred feet tall? I’m under six feet, and I totally break stuff sometimes, accidents do happen, friends. In this film, Gamera doesn’t even really seem to want to attack people, so much as their structures, which he might not even understand aren’t meant for smashing. His main interest seems to be food, which is nothing new from the animal kingdom, but Gamera eats energy, be it in the form of electricity, radiation, or even just plain old fire. This has him attacking various power plants in this movie, but can we really fault him for that? That’s like the damn Food Court for Gamera, and anyway, he’s been frozen for like, a million years, that’s a real long time to be hungry. If you hadn’t eaten in millions of years you’d probably act like a serious dick too. I get grumpy around eleven and stay that way till after lunch, so I’m not about to judge Gams.

Early in the movie we meet a young boy named Toshio, a reclusive, antisocial little kid who doesn’t hang out with other children because he’s too interested in chilling with his pet turtle, Peewee. Fearing that Toshio may wind up with underdeveloped social skills, his father does what any loving parent would do, and that is to demand that Toshio discard the one and only thing in the entire world that he truly loves, and that he do it immediately, without taking the time to mentally prepare for the emotional trauma that this might cause. Toshio is given no choice in the matter, and so he reluctantly trudges out into the darkness to set Peewee free, but it is here, against the backdrop of the night sky, that he encounters friggin’ Gamera, who is just chillin’ along the shore. The townsfolk panic and things get a little rocky for a minute or two, but in all the commotion Toshio is actually saved from what would have been a fatal fall by the jagged claw of this mighty creature, much to his delight. Given that Toshio already had an unhealthy fixation with turtles before this happened, this was about the last experience in the world you would ever want him to have, because following this incident he loses his mind completely, and becomes convinced that Peewee has actually transformed into Gamera. This is the genesis of what would later on in the series become a Hallmark of Gamera’s legacy; his suspicious connection to children.

So, Toshio is henceforth convinced that Gamera is just a big ol’ scaley sweetheart, but his vouching for the big guy’s character doesn’t seem to do much in the way of preventing all world governments from collaborating with one another on numerous strategies to kill or otherwise dispose of this towering Tortuga. These plans include, nuclear weapons (aborted, thank goodness), frying him with a high voltage wires, freezing him, and finally launching him into space. Damn. This is actually one of the more optimistic messages in Gamera, he sort of steps in and gives humanity something to unite against, so in a way, in the Daiei universe, Gamera helps to heal the divide caused by the cold war. Too bad Earth wasn’t menaced by a giant turtle in real life, because this shit drug out for another few decades in our tragically Gamera-less reality.

Gamera is head and sholders above the average 1960’s Science Fiction B-movie, but that’s more of a critique of how terrible the average 1960’s B-movie really was than anything else. It’s still miles behind the pack when compared to Toho’s Godzilla output, particularly in the mid sixties when Toho had already had over a decade to refine their techniques. Gamera wouldn’t really hit his stride and start putting out real classics until a litte later, and this is certainly not his best adventure. Even so, it’s a humble beginning for a creature generally loved for having humble beginnings, so the shabbiness doesn’t much hurt the film, and by and large, Kaiju fans will like it one way or the other. Those who aren’t quite sold on the genre yet should hold off on this one, however.

C

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MDS00223

THE GREAT YOKAI WAR!

The Great Yokai War– 2005, Takashi Miike, Japan

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And so it came to this…

In 2005, Daiei’s phenomenal Yokai franchise from the 1960’s enjoyed a brief, regrettable resurgence when famed director Takashi Miike decided to bless the Earth with The Great Yokai War. This unfortunate semi-sequel really only checks off on about half of the things that SHOULD be on the checklist for any Yokai film, and instead injects it with more Miike-isms than were desirable, or appropriate. I’m pretty hot and cold on Miike as a director to begin with, but in the case of The Great Yokai War, I’m straight up irritated.

Worth mentioning; this shit is a kid’s movie, but Miike isn’t the sort of bro you let babysit. The Great Yokai War is way, way scarier than your average children’s film, and periodically, it’s more sexually suggestive, as well. For the adults in the audience, I guess this is SORT OF a win, but it doesn’t really go far enough with the spooks or the sex to satisfy the shameful smut-hounds inside all of us, and I’m damn sure not going to let my kids watch this thing; so in the end we have a movie which lingers pointlessly between two polar opposite demographics. Honestly, that’s Miike to a T.

THE PLOT~ When an evil, ancient sorcerer type dude who dresses really nice decides that he wants revenge against both humans, AND the yokai, he does some stupid bullshit that’s super uninteresting and lame. Then, later on, some little kid finds himself wrapped up in a grand, cookie-cutter fantasy adventure, which forces him to battle alongside the Yokai and save the world. Holy shit, man it’s JUST that boring and generic.

UGH.

So… What, if anything, is GOOD in The Great Yokai War…?

Well, it’s does have a ton of monsters in it, which is definitely a non-negotiable requirement for this franchise. Not providing this most bare-bones of requirements would be nothing less than inexcusable, and while Miike is ordinarily quick to disappoint/and/or blatantly defy expectations, I am happy to report that in this case, he does indeed bring the thunder, monster style. Thank heavens.

The monsters also LOOK pretty darn good… Well, the Yokai do, at least. They’re mostly live action, and that’s a straight up blessing. The film also has “bad-guy” monsters in it, which are all CG… They fucking suck so bad, but we’ll cover them in greater detail later.

The Great Yokai War also succeeds pretty admirably at replicating the fun vibe seen in Spook Warfare, we get a real feel of urgency, and the human and yokai worlds are intermixed in a way that feels very similar to what the earlier Daiei films did so well. I’d say Miike passes with flying colors in this arena (imagine that!). He also nails the characterization of most of the central cast (with the exception of the bad guys- again, more to come on this), who feel like real, fully developed personalities, full of flaws and peculiar traits which make them feel relatable. Some of the jokes are even funny, the Yokai are all pokey and selfish, unmotivated to do anything even when oblivion is starring them in the face, and the only way to successfully get them to march off to battle is by misleading them into thinking they’ve been invited to a party. It’s weird, but I almost want to throw Miike a thumbs up in regards to how well this is done… But then I remember Ichi The Killer, and I get pissed off again.

Possibly the best thing the movie does, though, is that it actually has a fairly intelectual thesis statement, which is most unexpected in a shabby-ass kid’s fantasy adventure film. At the heart of it, The Great Yokai War is all about the transition from youth to adulthood, the moment when abandon our naïve, youthful perspective, and instead adopt of a more complex understanding of morality, and our roles in society. This is illustrated adequately in the personal journey of our central character, some Japanese Kid, and also mirrored more casually in the journey society has undertaken as it slowly forgets about the traditions of yesteryear, and becomes more preoccupied with the Internet and getting to work on time. As much as this movie full-on pisses me off, The Great Yokai War is ABOUT something, and credit where credit is due, that’s worth pointing out in any fair critique.

Not that that’s out of the way…

What DOESN’T work….?

The first (and worst) mistake Miike makes is that he takes the film out of the period setting seen in the old Daiei movies, and plops it down shittily into modern times. Damn, that sucks. This change allows Miike to flood our screen with his desired bad guys, who, again, are exempt from every single compliment I’ve paid to this film thus far, and it also sets up the comparison between the evolution of Japanese culture, and the journey to adulthood seen in our central character (some Japanese Kid), but it sucks like nobody’s business and isn’t worth it. It’s lame, lame as hell, this film would immediately jump up a full letter grade AT LEAST if it were set in Japan’s feudal era. It’s just so much more interesting.

Second inexcusable flaw: The CG. ALL of the CG in this film is fucking horrible. It’s just appaling, and really, this is a very common complaint for most any Japanese film in this day and age. It’s actually impossible to look at these characters and not feel a profound distatisfaction with how freaking shitty they all look. It would be enough to ruin the film, if there was even a decent film to ruin, and so I propose a new rule; If you can’t accocmplish your end goal with digital effects that are at least passable, then tough cookies, dude, change your goals. Do NOT launch a project that you can’t realistically pull off and then chuck the dog shit results out into the cinematic community, expecting a pardon. The CG in The Great Yokai War is a hole that would sink any boat; Miike, may God have mercy on your soul, you should have done anything other than this.

THIRD INEXCUSABLE FLAW: The Bad Guys. All of the bad guys in this movie are completely terrible. Firstly, the evil sorcerer dude: his plan is to capture all of the yokai, round them up, and toss them into this miasmic flame he’s got in a furnace (this is actually a yokai as well, oddly enough. It looks like slimy, pink fire.). After that, he tosses garbage in with them, and let’s it all mix together, thereby transforming the yokai into stupid looking steampunk robots that carry out his evil bidding. Re-read that, basically, this guy’s evil scheme is exactly the same thing Dr. Robotnik did back in the Sonic The Hedgehog video games, Sega Genesis era. To be clear, I think that shit was more believable when it was 16 Bit. Also, it had better graphics.

Shitty robots aside, the bad guys are also saddled with those familiar and all too unwelcome anime tropes, which have slowly wormed their way into Japanese live action cinema, and which really are just the worst things ever. His main henchman is easily the most aggravatingly lame character in the entire film, she’s some turncoat Yokai, played by the often obnoxious Chiaki Kuriyama. Sorry, Chiaki, if I hated you in Kill Bill, I’ll probably hate you forever.

If you were wondering who the second lamest character in the film is, it’s probably Sunekosuri, a little fury creature who forms a special friendship with our lead kid early on. Sunekosuri is basically just a B-squad Mogwai that pees a lot. It sucks.

FORTH INEXCUSABLE FLAW: HOLY SHIT, THIS MOVIE IS GENERIC: It doesn’t help that Miike took these neat little movies that were essentially brilliant live action interpetations of Japan’s rich folk lore, and then made a sequel which mashed them into the most generic fantasy storyline ever. The Great Yokai War really feels like it’s less concerned with exploring folklore, and more concerned with being the Japanese Neverending Story. Really, It’s more like The Neverending Story part 5. Probably. I never saw Part 5, but if it exists, I’m sure it sucks, just like The Great Yokai War does.

The last two things I have to say:

1) One of these yokai looks like what you’d get if Mickey Rourke got wasted in a Hawaiin Punch bottling plant and lept into one of the vats.

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2) This kid’s shirt says something about midget racing, I shit you not. What in the hell is going on in Japan!??!

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C-

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YOKAI MONSTERS: ALONG WITH GHOSTS!

Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts (AKA Journey With Ghost Along Yokaido Road) ~ 1969, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Japan

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The third entry in Daiei’s fantastically groovy Yokai trilogy rests on the far end of the spectrum from Spook Warfare; this time around we are given practically no insight into the yokai as individual personalities at all, and our narrative remains grounded solidly in the human realm, with our monsters popping in far less frequently than in the previous two films. Oddly enough, that means that we have the best story and the most engrossing characters of the entire trilogy, yet somehow, the movie still hits the finish line dead last insofar as entertainment value is concerned, because, really, Yokai is all about monsters per capita. Seems hardly fair, but thems the breaks, baby.

THE PLOT~ When some shady, gangster samurai intercept the delivery of some incriminating evidence, murder style, they also manage to inadvertently choose sacred ground as their primo ambush spot, thereby agitating the local yokai. The hoary old shrine keeper pleads with them to take the bloodshed elsewhere, but, predictably, he is ignored/murdered. Everything looks good for our samurai douchebags, until, that is, the yokai intervene, and place the evidence in the hands of the shrine keepers adorable grand-daughter. With Granddad dead and gangsters on her tail, our little heroine departs on a life and death quest to reach a nearby town where her deadbeat dad has been hiding out since her friggin’ birth, all the while deftly evading her murderous pursuers. But she is not alone; early in her quest, she meets a kindly young samurai who takes it upon himself to defend her, but of course , that’s easier said than done. Before the shows over, we have a few remarkably spooky altercations with the titular Yokai, as they deliver their traditional apparition-administered vigilante justice all up in the bad guy’s grills. It’s freaking rad, is what I’m saying.

Like all the Yokai films (100 Ghosts especially,) as well as Daiei’s also rad Daimajin, Along With Ghosts is, in fact, a samurai film with a strong paranormal element, but in this particular entry, the dial is cranked much further in the samurai direction than ever before. The spooky bits spice up the picture significantly, but they’re almost an afterthought, with minimal rewrites the movie could be told as a straight samurai flick without any ghost business at all. It also does a lot less filming on sound stages, instead many of our exterior shots have been moved to actual villages, open, sweeping fields, and other natural landscapes. There’s lot more moving camera now, due to our newfound wide-open space, and the end result is a more visually dynamic film. Additionally, the ghosts are no longer the least bit wacky, we don’t see a trace of our jive talkin’ Kappa or goofy Umbrella Ghost, and their replacements are pretty friggin’ terrifying. These hideous spooks are designed and implemented for horror, and horror alone. I do think the film could have benefitted from more time with them, but they’re sure effective as fuck when the picture does roll them out.

As I said before, despite the fact that from an academic perspective this film is actually much better than it’s predecessors, it’s still the least likable entry in the Yokai series, because the strength of these films lie almost exclusively in it’s many diverse monsters. In the case of Yokai, sacrificing a well executed narrative for a couple more ghosts is actually the way to go, as counter-intuitive as that may look on paper. Still, it’s no crisis, being the worst entry in the yokai trilogy remains nothing to sneeze at. All of these movies are rock solid. Along With Ghosts just happens to be the weakest in the bunch.

Or, at least, it was… Until 2005…

A-

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