Tag Archives: Rodan

GODZILLA FINAL WARS

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GODZILLA: FINAL WARS ~ 2004, Ryuhei Kitamura – Japan

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In 2004, Godzilla’s 50th anniversary, Toho released Godzilla: Final Wars. It was meant to be a finale of sorts, after which good old Godzilla would take some time to chill out. In an effort to celebrate the long running franchise, Final Wars works like a celebration of the entire cannon, and in a way, it’s almost a remake of every Godzilla movie simultaneously (mostly Destroy All Monsters), but it’s kind of a damn mess.

The plot is as follows: It is the future; blah blah blah who cares; the plot isn’t worth hashing out. Again, it’s that same old alien invasion story Toho has used over and over, but it’s really just a means to justify Godzilla fighting as many monsters as possible, and he really, really does. There are some dumb aliens in the mix, as well as a bunch of “mutants,” whom we’ll be talking about later.

It feels kinda disjointed and hurried. There is so much freaking homage in here that it almost just feels like watching a sitcom a clip show episode most of the time, which is not what you want from a glorious, 50th anniversary finale to your proudest franchise. The special effects suffer in the same way most modern Godzilla movies do- cheap, crappy CG and terrible composite effects, but the worst thing about the movie  is the emphasis on its human, and “mutant” characters. We spend a lot of time with them… And that time is a grab bag, sometimes its good, sometimes its really, really terrible.

Let’s look at the good; basically, aside from all the rad monster stuff, the coolest part of the movie is this guy:

gfw76Captain Gordon… He kinda looks like Stalin, mostly because they dress him exactly like Stalin for some reason… but he also kinda looks like Sgt. Slaughter, or a bad ass Mario, so that’s sort of a mixed message, but the fact remains that holy shit is he cool. Our lame ass mutant characters bust him out of military jail because they need his leadership to save the world. He’s really awesome, and he’s the captain of a sweet flying/submarine/drill type ship borrowed right out of Atragon, which is one of the better Showa era homages in the entire flick. That’s all good stuff…

…And then, on the other end of the spectrum, we have these guys….

gfw54…“Mutants.” they suck so bad. These guys are part of the Earth anti-monster defense initiative or something. I have no idea in what way they’re better than normal people, but they’re supposed to be vaguely super human somehow, while remaining incredibly cliche and disinteresting. They’re like some profoundly lame Matrix/Ultraman combo deal, and they take up far too much screen time. I hate them a lot, for real, I’d have taken the G-Graspers over these idiots.

Also worth a mention, the big, stupid, Roland Emmerich version of Godzilla pops up in this movie, too. It tromps around and is promptly murdered by the real Godzilla, which takes less than a minute, and is a great thing that we all know needed to happen. I didn’t expect any sort of closure on that one, so this feels like a nice treat. Of course, I could have done without the unlistenable Sum 41 song that plays over the scene, but we have mute buttons, so it’s still good.

So, is it a good movie? Kinda. It’s probably going to make most Godzilla enthusiasts happy. I found myself enjoying the effort taken to pay respects to Godzilla’s older films, and all the monster fighting sequences are well done and entertaining. Also great; after relentlessly flip flopping on the Nature of Godzilla, I feel like this movie finds a good balance by casting him as humanity’s last ditch guardian by default, a looming threat that we all dread, but which is at the same time, our only hope for survival. I think this is a logical extension of the metaphor, given that GZ was originally meant to symbolize the horrors of atomic warfare. It’s a safe assumption that, if facing alien invasion, we might come to feel the same way about nuclear weapons that we do about Big Green in this film, so it feels appropriate that he has again found himself as a stand in for the bomb. Godzilla: Final Wars does a good job with that idea.

….BUT it isn’t a classic. As a finale, it feels appropriately epic, but we’ve traded a lot of character development for more for slick action sequences this time, and I’m never in favor of that. It’s simply too cluttered, and too all over the place, but if what you’re looking for is giant monsters fighting and little else, this for sure will give you what you want. I just think it would be wise to expect more from Godzilla, because his potential is enormous.

C-

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Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II!!!!

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Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II ~ 1993, Takao Okawara – Japan

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Slumping in a mere 19 years after the original Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, to which this film is actually not a sequel, Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II is, more than anything else, a sad, sobering declaration to Kaiju fans everywhere that the Heisei series actually just isn’t going to recaprture that old Showa magic after all. At least, not on a regular basis. The best thing Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II has going for it is that it features popular characters, like Rodan and Mechagodzilla, but they aren’t necessarily handled that well by the film.

THE PLOT- Kazuma is just a good old fashioned guy who loves Pteredactyals and insubordination. He joins on with the United Nations new Anti-Godzilla task force, and imediatley disobeys pretty much every order he is ever given. As a result, he’s promoted about 50% of the time.

This new International Anti-Monster Defense League has a cool weapon they’re super proud of; Mechagodzilla, which in this continuity has been built out of pieces from the now apparently dead Mecha-Ghidorah, whom I hope you don’t remember from Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah, which was for sure the dumbest time travel movie I’ve ever seen. Anyway, after ripping the useful pieces off of Ghidorah’s worthless corpse and clumping them together, our guys were able to reverse engineer themselves a big, Godzilla shaped killing machine, and they aparently had enough left over to also build the Garuda, a little Snowspeeder type craft, to assist in monster blasting. The Garuda can also Voltron onto Mechagodzillas back, adding to it’s altready bountiful fire power. As for why it was important for this flying fortress/weapon of mass destruction be actually shaped like Godzilla, I couldn’t say.

So, while investigating a desolate island which had been ravaged by nuclear testing, a team of Japanese scientists discover a giant, still intact egg, alongside another already hatched egg, the occupant of which turns out to be Rodan, the awesome, giant, and horribly under-used pterosaur from numerous Showa films. Just when the gang is really getting freaked out by one giant monster, Godzilla shows up to beat the hell out of Rodan. “Oh, no, two?!” The team takes this opportunity to bounce, still intact egg in tow, and they return to Japan. Kazuma, himself a big pterosaur enthusiast (how is anyone a pterosaur enthusiast?) with no qualms about abandoning his post to go gawk at an egg, abandons his post to go gawk at the egg, where he meets the egg’s current steward, Asuza, a female scientist who would serve as Kazuma’s romantic interest throughout the rest of the film. (Fun fact; the romantic subplot in this movie sucks so hard.) When the egg hatches, they discover that instead of another pterosaur like Rodan, this hatchling appears to be a baby Godzillasaurus, whom they prompty name Baby. Baby also really sucks; he looks cartoonish and stupid.

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So, basically from here, it’s all about Baby. Baby sends some pshycic mindlink distress signals out to Papa G, and also Rodan, because aparently, since his egg spent some real quality nest time next to Rodan’s, Baby’s psychic mind link can also log onto Rodan’s brain/wifi network, or however that works.The two come running to the rescue, which means city stomping. Humans get pissed.

Speaking of psychic mumbo jumbo, Miki is back. I’ve really disregarded so far that she’s a reoccurring character throughout the Heisei series… And that’s because I don’t particularly like her. But, she is here.

Anyway. So, it’s Godzilla and Rodan versus Mechagodzilla and Garuda, and that’s about it. In reality, it feels a little lackluster. Most of the combat is laser based, and sometimes it’s quite extreme just how much blasting is going on.

The monsters look okay, but as with the last few Heisei films, they looks plastic, too hard and shiny, and their movements don’t look natural enough. Of all the monsters in this movie, however, Baby looks the worst, and that’s because Baby looks unforgivably bad.

For me, this one came in significantly short of what I would like to have seen. Thus far, Heisei isn’t really pulling it off.

C-

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SPACE AMOEBA!

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Space Amoeba (AKA: Yog: Monster From Space, AKA Gezora, Ganime, Kameba: Kessen! Nankai no daikaijû) 1970, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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In the annals of Kaiju cinema, no one director can claim to have contributed quite as much as Ishiro Honda, the director of like, friggin’ everything. Well, not everything, but he directed a lot. Most of Toho’s real, certifiable kaiju classics come from his body of work, Honda was in the director’s chair for Gojira, Mothra, Rodan, the list goes on and on. However, he also brought us Space Amoeba, which is more or less totally forgettable, so I guess not everything King Midas touches turns to gold.

THE PLOT~ After some alien space glitter hijacks a satellite and crashes it in the ocean, islanders (And some Japanese folks who have come to our island for one reason or another) find themselves terrorized by a series of giant, goofy monsters, which include a squid, two weird crab things, and a spikey turtle. I’m pretty sure the original idea for this story is credited to a five year old kid playing with some toys in the bathtub.

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Although these enormous beasts are indeed a serious threat to our stable of who-cares-characters, we are delighted to learn that each one possesses it’s own unique weakness- for instance, Gezora, the squid type dude, is vulnerable to fire, and Ganime, the crab guy, is vulnerable to having both of it’s eyeballs shot off and then being thrown off of a cliff onto sharp, jagged rocks before suffering horrible injuries brought on by explosive blasts. That’s a good one to remember. We also learn that all the monsters, and indeed, the aliens who control them, are vulnerable to high frequency sounds, so our humans cook up a plan to save the world that mostly hinges on pissing off all of the island’s sleeping fruit bats- but hold up! Someone has been sneaking around and killing all of the bats somehow! Yes, apparently there is a traitor in our midst- Obata, who was kind of already the bad guy since we learned earlier that his entire purpose for tagging along on this island adventure was one of industrial espionage, has apparently been possessed by space glitter also, thereby making him double the traitor. And to think I thought he was just your typical sneaky dude in a flashy white suit with a super dope Satan goatee.

Anyway. The movie ends, as every movie should, with a giant crab wrestling a giant turtle until they both topple over into an active volcano, leaving our cast of good guys to instantly be rescued by a Japanese fishing boat, roll credits.

It’s not amazing. It’s fine, and it’s entertaining enough, but a classic this is not. I’ve read that apparently lots of Westerners have a warm place in their hearts for this film after seeing it in drive-ins or on TV under the name YOG: The Monster From Space, but without the aid of nostalgia to warm your heart, Space Amoeba isn’t going to rise above the rabble. There’s also not much to it, thematically; there’s some stuff in here about respecting indigenous cultures and the exploitation of humans and resources, but as usual, it’s a mixed message, and they sort of touch on the idea of combatting your inner-demons, but for the most part, this is just a straight up B-movie that offers little for your mind to digest beyond giant monsters and a tropical settling.

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The monsters aren’t too bad, though, I especially enjoy seeing Gezora lumbering about on land, for some reason, although Ganimes and Kamoebas (the turtle dude) could have been cooler. The legacy of Space Amoeba isn’t a proud one, these monsters didn’t really go anywhere after this. Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure I killed Gezora about a million times on the Godzilla Nintendo game, and Kamoebas has a cameo in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, but he’s a corpse already when he shows up, so all in all the class of Space Amoeba remains under-utilized and relatively forgotten by today’s movie buff. It’s also not easy to get a copy on home video, so that doesn’t help.

piccit_space_amoeba_1971_2043x2909_1446595838 Space Amoeba feels a little cheap, too, almost like they had a few extra reels of film and a bunch of unused monster suits so they decided to squeeze out one more movie before going back to the producers for more funds. I think this one might be for completest only, it’s too difficult to obtain to warrant a viewing for casual Zilla fans.

C

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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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WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS!

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War of the Garganutas – 1966, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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War of the Gargantuas is a half-hearted sequel to Toho’s wacky ass Giant Frankenstein movie Frankenstein Conquers the World. We pick up where we left off for War of the Garganutas, but we also go ahead and rewrite the past more than a little, because, as you should know by now, sometimes Toho likes to turn it’s baseball cap around, light up a cigarette, and flash a big ol’ “F You” middle finger to continuity. This is one of those times.

THE PLOT ~ When a large, scaly, blue-greenish, humanoid sea monkey with a flat top who is not at all similar to Frankenstein in any way apart from the aforementioned Flat top begins to terrorize Japan, the press is quick to lay blame on Frankenstein, the famous European monster which had been imported, and then enlarged to traditional Japanese monster scale some years back. However, the scientists responsible for the creation of this recent Frankenstein balk at this suggestion, on the grounds that A) Franky don’t live under water and B) Franky don’t live at all, he is dead, dead as hell. At this point I’ll go ahead and point out that despite what you may have seen in the previous film, from within the confines of War Of The Gargantuas, this “Frankenstein” was born a strange, ape like creature, for absolutely no reason, and his creation now seems to have been achieved through genetic experimentation, rather than through the much more simple act of a child eating a radioactive monster heart. So, now you’re up to speed.

Soon, this alleged “Frankenstein” from under the sea begins to attack more frequently, and even wades up onto shore to gobble down some screaming humans, which, obviously, can’t be allowed to happen very often. It is confirmed through science that this is, in fact, a damn Frankenstein, despite his newfound love for livin’ la vida agua, as well as his now much more aggressive and violent temperament. “How can this be,” our scientists wonder, “he used to be such a nice monkey franken-creature.” Well, turns out, this is a new, different Frankenstein monster altogether. In fact, the creature that our scientists created is also still alive, and he remains a largely a docile and good natured monster, which has been living in the inaccessible reaches of a Japanese Mountain Range far from human eyes. He’s brown and shaggy, rather than blue and scaly, like his deep sea sibling, but he also is in absolutely no way a “Frankenstein” monster. He’s a giant troll type creature, basically. BUT ANYWAY.

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From here things play out like you always knew they would; it’s scientists versus military, one side wants to spare the lives of these two massive monsters, the other side knows in it’s heart that the only good Gargantua is a dead Gargantua. Eventually the two behemoth monkey monsters wind up battling one another, despite Brown Mountain Franky’s hesitancy to use violence against his Blue Brother, and the two wind up dead via the power of Japanese Nonsense; in this case; a volcano spontaneously sprouts out of the ocean right next to them mid-fray and fries them both. That can totally happen, right? No, Toho, it can’t, dammit, go read a science book.

The movie’s principle theme is compassion versus fear. This is played out in the conflict between the scientists, who want to spare these creatures both for study, and out of pity, and Japan’s military brass, themselves focused only on the preservation of human life; no matter the cost. We see the theme again illustrated with the Gargantuas themselves; Brownie doesn’t want to hurt anyone, not even his Malicious Mer-Monkey twin, but Greenie is all too eager to mash and smash, and in the end, tragically, compassion doesn’t have it’s day. This same idea is a common one in these Kaiju films, we can see it especially pronounced in Rodan, among other Ishiro Honda films, but War of the Gargantuas is not a slave to it’s super-motif, this movie has it’s priorities aligned with the presentation of big, hairy monsters being shot at, and clobbering one another, first and foremost. For this reason, it feels like a pretty solid, but also desperately typical kaiju outing from Toho. It’s has just enough heart and just enough muscle to make it memorable and fun, but beyond some pretty top notch photography I would suggest that there isn’t really anything in War of the Gargantuas that is excellent. It feels pretty middle of the road, to me. Not too many highs, but also, not too many lows. I think the decision to shed some of the craziness of Frankenstein Conquers the World was a poor one; that film absolutely stands out because of it’s generous helping of “WTF.” Without all that crazy, War of the Gargantuas crosses the finish line as a reliable, but not altogether remarkable, monster flick.

C

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INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER!

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Invasion of Astro-Monster ~ 1965, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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Rocky waters for the Godzilla franchise!

Following the awesome Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster we have Invasion of Astro-Monster, which is actually weirdly similar, but not anywhere near as good. Like the last film. We again have Godzilla and Rodan VS King Ghidorah, almost like they didn’t want to go get any new monsters costumes out of the garage, but we’re missing Mothra this time out, so in a sense it’s even a step back from it’s immediate prequel. Weird!

THE PLOT- A new Planet, called Planet X, is discovered in our solar system. We soon learn that Planet X is inhabited by an advanced race of humanoids, and they want our help. It seems that after he had his ass handed to him by our Earth monsters, King Ghidorah retreated to Planet X, a land where he could ruin everything indiscriminately without interference. The people of Planet X offer a trade; they can’t deal with Ghidorah’s shit anymore, so if we loan them Godzilla and Rodan they’ll give us the cure for cancer. Long story short, they’re a bunch of treacherous A-holes, and soon we end up with an invasion force from Planet X forcibly attempted to colonize Earth, and they happen to control Godzilla, Rodan AND King Ghidorah using electro magnetic waves now. It looks grim for Earth, but since most of you are aware that there are another twenty or so sequels to this film, I don’t think it’s out of line for me to spoil the end and say that they figure it out okay.

So, Invasion of Astro Monster feels way too much like it’s predecessor to be fresh. WAAAY too much like it. Also hindering the film is the light monster content; there just isn’t enough kaiju clobbering action to carry this picture. What we have instead is a greatly expanded role for extra-terrestrials, something that was hinted at in the prior film, but relatively unexplored. This time around we certainly get our fill of aliens, but they feel boring and they eat up way too much run time. Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster had so much going for it, but Invasion of Astro-Monster just feels like an inferior sibling.

Also, this is the movie where Godzilla does his weird victory dance. I don’t know what in the hell that was about.

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C-

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GHIDORAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER!!!

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Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster ~ 1964, Ishiro Honda -Japan

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Hell yeah! After the somewhat less than thrilling Mothra VS Godzilla, we are again back on the right track with the excellent Ghidorah; The Three Headed Monster, one of the best Godzilla films released up to that point. This movie is relevant for a couple reasons, but also it’s really, really cool. End of review?

THE PLOT- Strange, global anomalies are on the rise. Both Godzilla, and Rodan have returned from wherever the hell they were and for however the hell long they were gone, UFO sightings are becoming more frequent, and a strange meteorite falls to Earth and lands in the mountains, eventually cracking open to reveal Ghidorah, a three headed douchebag from space. Initially, Godzilla and Rodan are disinterested in Ghidorah, or the threat he poses to humanity, as they are much more interested in kicking each others asses simply because the other chose to exist, but Mothra, understanding Ghidorah to be a death sentence to Planet Earth, makes a desperate appeal to them to unite with her against the onslaught of Ghidorahs crazy lightning breath and loud dragon shrieks. The forces of Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra (only a larva this whole movie) combine, and beat the hell out of Ghidorah until he flies away.

Ghidorah; The Three Headed Monster has a pretty involved plot, with multiple characters who are conneghidorahcted to one another in various ways, but all the film’s events center around one character – a Princess with amnesia who believes herself to be from Venus, and who also seems to have some psychic abilities. Is she crazy? Maybe? Probably not? Anyway, hot on her trail are some menacing would-be assassins, and she’s really the anchor that holds the narrative together. Everybody wants to either kill her, save her, or exploit her in some way.

This complex plot is welcome, though the film still makes use of scientists and journalists as it’s main stable of characters, it manages to avoid the recycled vibe that had started creeping into the series in prior instalments, and that’s really important. The human characters are all likable, and we don’t feel like we’re wasting our time with them, plus the tiny singing ladies from Infant Island show up, as well, and they’re always good.

Even more crucial; Ghidorah; The Three Headed Monster delivers on the kaiju front. List time;

  1. Four monsters! – That’s two more than two! At this point, this was the closest to a wall to wall monster fest a kid could hope for, and these are quality kaiju we’re talking about here, none of that Jet Jaguar shit. Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and the424440-giant-monster-movies-ghidorah-the-three-headed-monster-poster-2 newly introduced King Ghidorah is a pretty A-List line up.
  2. The fights– The monster fights in this movie are all great. The big, four-monster brawl at the end starts off strong and kinda ends on an off note, but it’s still very enjoyable.

Something to mention, though… Although the Rodan VS Godzilla fight is still pretty cool, there are a lot of points during that one that start to look less like a fight, and more like a sex scene. Kind of a lot. And the Ghidorah fight at the end does look slightly gang bang-ish at times, too. Am I suggesting that Toho was having some fun with us? That Ishiro Honda was really into monster porn? No. I don’t know what I’m saying; but turn this movie on and tell me it doesn’t look a little bit like Godzilla and Rodan are doing it.

  1. Monster personality!!! – This is, for sure, the first time in the series we actually get an insight into these monsters individual personalities, and it is surprisingly fun and rewarding (also a little silly, but who in the hell cares, this is a movie where two radioactive dinosaurs and a caterpillar battle a three headed asshole dragon from beyond the stars. I would hope that you could pardon a little silliness). Mothra literally speaks to Rodan and Godzilla. Apparently, these skreeonks and assorted beast screams are actually a universal monster language, and the Tiny Women from Infant Island translate the conversation for us. Mothra comes across compassionate and magnanimous, and both Godzilla and Rodan are grumpy, stuborn dicks. Awesome. They both refuse to help, until Mothra says “Okay, looks like I’m gonna have to go it alone,” and wiggles off to her certain doom, at which point Rodan and Big Papa G quickly decide “F that, no way!” And rush to Mothra’s rescue. The whole sequence is a really fun insight into a side of these characters we haven’t seen before, and in fact, it makes them enjoyable characters in a new way. It is at this point that Godzilla really begins his transformation from the terror of Japan to the likable, ornery, anti-hero he would be for most of the remaining Showa era films. It’s a major turning point in the series, and it helps to boost Ghidorah; The Three Headed Monster up, making it one of the better films in the entire cannon.

Plus, Rodan isn’t in enough movies.

A

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VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE!

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Varan The Unbelievable – 1962, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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Poor Varan. Turns out Big Papa Toho did not create all his Kaiju equal. Like Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra, Varan, yet another giant, spikey lizard (but with flying squirrel flaps!), was introduced to the world in his very own standalone movie; and like his three, more fortunate comrades, he got the royal treatment. His name was the title of the movie, he didn’t share the stage with any other monsters, and in his film, he was depicted as being a near invincible force of prehistoric fury which threatened all of Japan, if not the world. This is pretty boiler plate kaiju contract stuff. However; whereas Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan went on to enjoy decade spanning careers full of glorious mayhem, Varan fast faded into relative obscurity. In fact, the only time I remember seeing him again was in Destroy all Monsters, and even then, he was basically downgraded to the Kaiju equivalent of an extra. he didn’t even fight anybody. Fucking Gorosaurus got more love than Varan! What went wrong?!

THE PLOT~ when two scientists are mysteriously killed in a remote area of Japan while on an expedition to capture butterflies (really!) the brilliant decision to dispatch three additional scientists to the exact same area is made without haste. Lo and behold, our new team of scientists discover that the superstitious locals believe these killings to have been done by their god, who is, no surprise, an angry monster. This primitive belief is instantly belittled and dismissed by our scientists, who go on to immediately awaken, and subsequently irritate the shit out of that very monster, who then destroys the village real hard. Our dickhead scientists then go back to their big, monster-free city and tell everybody about this creature, who they have named Varan, and Japan says “What’s that you say? A living dinosaur? The most miraculous living creature on Earth? We better go kill that.” So, a bunch of Army dudes descend on the rubble that was once a peaceful Japanese village out in the middle of nowhere and try their damndest to kill what is quite possibly the rarest creature on the planet. While they fail to kill Varan at this time, they are succesful in pissing him off- wildly succesful, in fact. Varan, no longer enjoying his living situation now that the lake he slept in is poisoned and cannon shells seem to be impacting against his head constantly, gets the hell out of there and travels to Tokyo for absolutely no reason. The Japanese, refusing to take “Please don’t kill me” for an answer, assemble their top scientists for Plan B- the focus of which is still killing the hell out of Varan because he is very large and not shaped like a person- a crime they cannot pardon. A new plan is formulated and put into effect, and Varan suffers. Victory!

So, just why exactly did Gojira, Mothra, and Rodan go off with such a glorious bang, while Varan goes off with a muted, humiliated frump? Well…

Varan feels cheap, for one thing- low budget, and crummy. firstly, there were apparently more than one Varan costumes used, and they are of inconsistent quality. That’s a problem, but it’s far from the only area where the producers seemed a little penny-conscious; the underwater sequences are especially flimsy and look devastatingly swimming-pool-like. I don’t think this is what killed the film, however. Budgetary shortcomings can be overlooked, and monsters can be embraced even if they begin their lives as poorhouse kaiju. For Varan, his movie suffers greatly from its simplicity more than anything. It feels underdeveloped and rushed, right off the bat, it’s evident that this is a much more linear, Point A to Point B style monster movie than Gojira, Mothra, or Rodan were. This is 100% the truth, and it sucks.

It’s just so one dimensional! It never really takes the time to breathe or invest in its characters. Every time Varan goes on a rampage the tension is actually actively removed by frequent visits over to the sidelines, where numerous onlookers, mostly scientists, reporters, and military personnel, just hang out and watch the chaos, apparently not at risk of getting Varraned. To be frank, this is a bone-headed mistake, it makes this monster mayhem feel alarmingly safe, and in the end the black and white photography does more to make Varan feel gloomy than the actual on-screen smashing.

Varan’s simplicity is, however, most devastating in it’s tendency to dole out the what, while totally skipping over the why. That’s the greatest folly of Varan; gone entirely from it’s composition is the element of introspection which we had come to take for granted in Toho’s monster films. This thing could have carried the alternative title “SCIENTISTS ARE DICKS: THE MOVIE.” That’s the real moral, and it’s a moral that appears to be lost on Varan’s narrative altogether. This movie totally glosses over the undeniable guilt of the film’s scientists, who are responsible for everything bad that happens in this film, start to finish. It’s not ever even suggested that they could be guilty of anything whatsoever, and damn, they’re super, super guilty, in a big way. I wanna take you through a scene:

When the second group arrives at the remote village near Varan’s den, the same village that is soon after destroyed by Varan, there is a conflict of sorts between the town’s religious leader and Kenji, the lead scientist who has come to investigate what has happened to his colleagues. Essentially; it plays out like this:

Kenji: ‘Sup? Heard you guys think there’s a monster. That’s so stupid- there isn’t!

Priest: …Well, we’re pretty sure there is-

Kenji: That’s stupid!

Priest:…Well, okay, just listen, please, don’t go over there into that area you guys, okay? It’s kind of a big deal for us-

Kenji: PISS ON YOUR RELIGION, WE’RE SCIENTISTS! WE’RE GOING RIGHT INTO THAT AREA, YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!

<Barges in, instantly piss off monster>

Kenji: Oh, looks like he is real.

<monster completely destroys village and everything inside it>

Kenji: Well, we’re going back to Tokyo where we have electricity and McDonalds, have fun dying in the wilderness without food or shelter, you fucking assholes.

AND SCENE!

For real, that’s the bare bones of how that plays out. These people show up, immediately disrespect the locals, blatantly defy their rules, they heed no warnings because they think they know better, and then when they wake up Varan, they just bounce, and the only people left to bare the weight of the consequences are the poor villagers, who are first treated like idiots and then go on to lose absolutely everything, insult AND injury. The fate of these people is never again addressed or considered, and no amount of shame is directed at the scientists who actually provoked the attack in the first place. They appear to forget about these human lives that they’ve destroyed immediately, and move onto the task killing this creature for no reason at all. It’s this attack that drives Varan out of his ultra-remote home and into highly a populated metropolitan area, as well, so it’s actually so, so obvious that this is another hubris story, but I honestly think the film fails to recognize this. It’s never explored or stated, they really just follow it along in a startlingly two dimensional fashion, and I think this is the biggest reason Varan failed to gain traction, and ultimately, could not help establish Varan himself as a monster with a future in the film industry. This is the Toho picture that rushed out a statement before it even knew what that statement was; and it’s not even a new statement. In fact, it’s so overt, that the argument could be made that this isn’t even hubris, so much as a simple lesson in morality. “Don’t be a dick” is another moral very present in Varan, but it too is not acknowledged or expressed in a conscious way by the movie itself. It’s kinda nuts.

This is a real minimalist, cut and dry monster movie that fails to give us a reason to feel anything about what we experience within it’s narrative. Frankly, it’s bellow average. Varan suffers from terminal simplicity, and because of this, his future is a bleak, bleak thing. It’s too bad, he seems like an okay guy.

C-

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RODAN!!!!

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Rodan ~ 1956, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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Holy smokes, yes.

Rodan is a favorite of mine going way back. This is his/her/their first appearance, dating way back to the pre-Mothra days of 1956, and it holds up pretty darn well for the most part. With the possible exception of the ultra-grim Gojira, and the deliriously funky Godzilla Vs Hedorah, this is also one of the darker, scarier films in the entire expanded Godzilla universe, which is for sure cool. Rodan is also apparently Toho’s first Kaiju film to be shot in color, but it doesn’t feel overly vibrant or gimmicky, the palette is mostly browns, reds, and Earth tones. It’s just like Honda to use the fanciest new toy available such in a reserved, controlled fashion.

THE PLOT~ When a series of bizarre murders strikes a small, rural mining community at the base of Mt. Aso in Japan, rumors begin to spread that Goro, a missing miner with a reputation for hard fightin’, had gone all My Bloody Valentine on his colleagues and was currently hiding out deep within the chambers of the mine to escape the watchful eye of the law. Goro’s sister Kiyo is pretty upset when every person in town throws her brother under the bus like crazy, and her boyfriend Shigeru does his best to console her, but really, what do you say when your girlfriend is down in the dumps because her brother is wanted for viciously mutilating his coworkers? I had a hard time turning it all around when I took my ex-girlfriend to a Vietnamese restraint that we didn’t know was closed on Sunday. This task is doomed to fail.

Well, as it turns out, Shigeru gets lucky, because the real killer turns up and attacks them both inside Kiyo’s own home, and it sure as hell ain’t Goro. No, actually, it’s an enormous, menacing insect, the size of a damn Grizzly bear, so that really changes the course of the evening pretty drastically. “Good news, honey, you brother’s good name has been cleared! The bad news is that the last thing he saw before he died was the pincher end of this fucking abomination as it lacerated the shit out of him in the cold, dark tunnels of the mine he was confined to for most of his adult life. But again, very few people probably still think he was a murderer, so that’s the silver lining here.”

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Soon, the people of this small village discover that in fact there are dozens, if not more, of these giant insects currently living deep inside the mine, and this is a problem the really kind of have to deal with right away. After participating in an offensive strike against these monster potato bugs, Shigeru is lost inside the mine and presumed eaten. Next, a bunch of scientists pow wow to try and figure out what the hell is up, and predictably, they learn that these bugs are prehistoric somehow. Japan had a real bumper crop of prehistoric monsters reemerging back in the mid twentieth century.

Speaking of …! Around this time, the entire planet starts getting divebombed by some super fast, highflying UFO that has been horrifying the shit out of everyone, tearing up any plane that tries to chase it down, and causing sonic booms which have badly damaged several cities. Nobody knows it yet, but this object is actually Rodan, or Rodans, because there are two of these critters. But just what is a Rodan? A damn giant pterodactyl, that’s what- but they fly much too fast for anyone to get a decent look at them. At this point, most people assume Rodan to be some sort of craft, a theory supported by the fact that they seems to leave a vapor trail behind him/her while in flight… Which… Like, what is that? That’s… That’s gross, actually. It’s gotta be monster farts. Rodan has no engine.

So, back at Mt. Aso, our scientists make another startling discovery; Shigeru is alive after all, but he’s dazed as hell and wandering around the mountain like a freaking zombie. They grab him and take him in for hospitalization, and initially he seems to be suffering from total amnesia. When he regains his memory, he drops some serious shit on everybody- apparently he blacked out after the attack on Potato Bug base, and when he came to, he was in a huge cavern somewhere deep within the mine, just in time to see Rodan hatch. The horror he experiences is so great that he temporarily loses his mind, which is totally H.P. Lovecraft status. Cool.

Once Rodan is identified, the rest of the movie is mostly about trying to kill them, which is all pretty straight forward, until the end of the film. See, at this point, Rodan is little more than a winged retread of the same material Gojira explored two years earlier, but the movie distinguishes itself from it’s predecessor in a few key ways, all of which are really driven home in the film’s climax.

Firstly, Rodan is never shown to be quite as horrible as Godzilla. In Gojira/Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the metaphor is clear- this monster represents atomic warfare, he is an evil man hath wrought, and now the hens have come home to roost. In Rodan, the atomic bomb thing really isn’t as cut and dry- the idea that atomic weapons may have been responsible for waking Rodan up is certainly presented, but it’s not as fact- it’s more like “Hey, how is Rodan not dead like he should be?” To which, the answer given is “I dunno. H-bomb? We’re all screwed, though.” Without the direct and implicit ties to nuclear war, Rodan sort of comes across more like an agent of our mistreated environment. For one thing, these animals are freshly hatched- so all the zooming around and flapping at buildings is more a case of children at play than the deliberately destructive monster tantrums Godzilla is known for. The finale takes this concept even further; get ready for a major buzz kill:

At the climax of the movie, our Anti-Rodan team formulates a strategy whereby explosives are used to trigger a volcanic eruption in Mt. Aso. The locals are horrified because of the damage this will do to the environment and surrounding settlements, but the military flatly declares this a necessary compromise and pushes forward with the idea. As the two sibling monsters snooze peacefully inside their cavernous nests, Japan detonates their bombs, and indeed, Aso does erupt, but not before the twin Rodans can escape. However, apparently overcome by smoke, one of the monsters tumbles down into a river of lava, and the other Rodan, apparently much more sentimental than the monsters we are used to dealing with, chooses to join it’s sibling, and willingly lands next to it, thereby committing kaiju suicide… Both monsters die, engulfed in flames, and not at all in the bitter, violent battle we expected… Which… Honestly, is sort of heavy, and probably made all the army dudes feel like serious dicks.

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In the end, Rodan manages to pull the old switcheroo on us, and leaves us feeling like we’re the real monsters, who overstepped our bounds, could not deal with the consequences, and rather than learning to live in harmony with the surroundings we have created, we choose to suppress, exploit, and kill that which doesn’t suit us, and it’s not fair. This gives Rodan a different thesis, even with similar content and themes, and it makes the movie a tragedy every bit as potent as the post Hiroshima monster film that kickstarted the Kaiju phenomena.

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The are two noteworthy flaws in Rodan, one; Rodan is a flying monster, and therefore this movie serves up numerous aerial sequences, but they are all badly hampered by technological limitations. The resulting shots may have been easier to swallow in the 50’s, but of all the antiquated effects that we see in these old movies, these aerial sequences stand out as being beyond what modern eyes can excuse, this is a few steps passed ‘retro’ and well into “shlocky.” Two; although distinct in small ways, the movie is still a bit of a rehash. I’m not too bothered by that, though. Rehashing is something Toho would earn a damn black belt at in the coming years, and they often manage to do it while still delivering a fantastic film. This is one of those times. Rodan isn’t as well loved as Gojira, but it’s a movie I’ve always been fond of, and I highly recommend it.

A

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My Bloody Valentine (1981)!!!

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My Bloody Valentine– 1981, George Mihalka

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As of 2015 there have been a generous handful Valentine’s Day themed horror flicks made, and this one here is the best of the bunch, by far. I really expected that, by now, somebody would have made a horror film about a big fat guy in a diaper with tiny wings who shoots people with a bow and makes hilarious jokes, but if that movie exists, I can’t seem to find it. The closest we’ve come so far is the 2001 horror film Valentine, and dammit, that is a far cry from the glorious killer Cupid flick that I have imagined. Fortunately, My Bloody Valentine is a total classic, even if it doesn’t quench my thirst for absurdity, and it remains one of the best Holiday Themed slashers out there, even after thirty years. If you’re at all a slasher fan, you should track it down pronto, Tonto.

THE PLOT ~ A rural Canadian mining town finds it’s annual Valentine’s Day celebration disrupted by a string of gruesome murders, reminiscent of an infamous killing spree committed twenty years ago by a psychologically unhinged miner called Harry Warden. Believing Harry to be back in action, but not wanting to stir the townsfolk into a panic, local law enforcement does what it can to keep the news of the killings suppressed, while canceling all Valentine’s Day celebrations in accordance with the killer’s demands. The local youth aren’t into that shit, though. They want to party, and are fully willing to fight for their right to do so, regardless of the fact that License To Ill wouldn’t be released for five more years. Since they have literally no idea that people are being murdered in awesome ways all over town, these care-free future pickaxe victims conclude that the best course of action is to ignore the ban on Valentine’s Day celebrations, and to have a secret party anyway, no grown-ups allowed. But where would be best place for a secret Valentin’e Day party? Well, clearly, deep within the very mine where Harry Warden once cannibalized his peers, of course! Yes, he ate people toward the end of his mining career. So, that’s what they do- and guess how well that works out for them? Not real good.

There’s also a love triangle thing in here- which is actually the focal point of the plot, but that’s not very much fun to write about, and probably even worse for readers, so I’m mostly just going to hit you with the murder stuff. I really do think it’s best this way.

So, My Bloody Valentine is very much what you would expect it to be if you’re familiar with American/Canadian slashers of the early eighties, but if that’s the case, then you should also have seen this movie by now, because it’s a damn essential. It’s a close relative to Black Christmas, The Prowler, and the original Friday the 13th, and also owes a lot of influence to earlier Italian giallo films like Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood. Like those films, this is essentially a murder mystery, but with a much greater emphasis on sensationalized violence, and a focus on the role of the hapless victim, instead of seeing the story through the eyes of some bozo trying to solve the crime, as would be the case with most traditional murder mysteries. It’s distinct from the slashers that would follow it later in the 1980’s by being markedly less poppy, and by giving us characters who are much more realized and complex. We weren’t quite at the point where the audience just wanted to watch our killer tromp around and slice folks in half yet, so it was still important for the film to establish a somewhat believable world. My Bloody Valentine does that.

As a slasher, My Bloody Valentine has the title of “best Valentine’s Day horror film” on lock petty much for eternity. It’s a solid movie, and a damn fine horror film to boot. Our killer is both scary, and acceptably iconic, and the many red herrings doled out as the plot unravels keep the picture feeling interesting and surprising. This may even be the best horror film ever set in a mine, except for maybe Rodan, so suck it, The Stragneness.

Another fun fact that earns My Bloody Valentine mucho street cred amongst horror fanatics, It’s fairly violent. The picture is widely believed to have had nearly ten minutes of gore and violent content edited out of the picture before it was released, to appease the puritanical demands of the MPAA, and to date there is still no real uncut version of the film available. Subsequent versions have included additional unseen footage, but rumor has it there is still more sitting in a canister somewhere that we have yet to enjoy, so hopefully someone get’s that shit cut back together in the future. As it is, the theatrical cut leaves something to be desired if you’re coming into My Bloody Valentine after a gore-fest on par with Evil Dead, any of the Euro slashers, or even the aforementioned The Prowler, but it remains much stronger than, say, Halloween. I think My Bloody Valentine can hold it’s own against comparable slashers of the era in this respect, and it’s certainly good enough to warrant a viewing either way.

Before we wrap up, I want to briefly address my favorite part of the film; the character of Hollis. Hollis is a supporting character- but dammit if he isn’t a bad ass. He kinda looks like what you would get if Garfield the cat was a real human being- and also a little like the product of a cloning experiment involving John Candy and Teddy Roosevelt. As far as I’m concerned, this guy is the film’s main draw. End of paragraph.

A+