Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) directed by Jun Fukuda

Also called Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, this is an odd Godzilla movie in that the human part f the plot isn't so boring or beside the point. Godzilla only appears at the end and Mothra appears after Godzilla. Ebirah is a giant lobster who only shows u now and then, killing anyone who tries to leave the island run by an evil terrorist organization called the Red bamboo.  There is also a giant condor that comes out of nowhere and doesn't last long. The Mpthra worshipping native of a nearby island are slaves fo teh red Bamboo who have them making a yelloe substance that can stop Ebirah from attacking boats so the terroists cane come and go as they please. 

OK the human story is not exactly plausible but the characters are fun and interesting enough to keep you interested. The effects are not gratifying, some of the model work is super but the lack of realism has a certain charm. Some shots of the tiny singers who call Mothra are just dolls and on some of the boat senes, the ment rowing or dolls or even articulate puppets. It's super obvious and, like I said, charming. 

The bad guys are killed by Ebirah while making their escape but they have set an atomic bomb to destroy the island before they fled and our heros become concerned that it will killed Godzilla who saved them. Why? Godzilla is usally living off nuclear energy and jumping into the water wouldn't save him so close to the explosion if it was a danger to him. Don't watch a Godzilla movie, aside form the forst Godzilla minus 1 if you are looking to make sense of it! 

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) directed and co-written by Shusuke Kaneko

Poor Baragon doesn't get a mention in the overly long title! Maybe he had his name removed after seeing the finished film? The film isn't that bad to be honest though Baragon does next to nothing except get killed and Mothra is pretty much in the same boat which leave the real battle between Ghidorah and Godzilla.

Supposedly taking place after the original 1954 film and ignoring everything that came after it, Godzilla has returned and a reporter, her military dad and a bunch of other people including the ghost of some old guy awaken three other monsters as guardians to protect the world. There seems to be a "spiritual" to some of these later Godzilla films, Biolante had the spirit of a girl murdered by terrorists in it and Godzilla has the souls from the war in this film. The spirits of Baragon and Mothra join with the spirit of Ghidorah to fight Godzilla. It's doesn't work in either film if you ask me. 

The effects in this film are a mixed bag. Godzilla is very mean looking with white eyes with no pupils and a lot more puppetry added to the face for more expression. The other monsters have none of that and Ghidorah has an underwhelming toy like design. Mothra is... fine. She starts in a pupil state which last all of 5 minutes before entering her cocoon which looks a sack of balls floating in a lake. There is an attempt to add CGI throughout but it doesn't work for the most part. The model work and destruction effects are the usual high quality, Toho Studios always hire talented model makers. 

Another thing to mention is the lead character, a female reporter who as just as idiotic... I mean heroic as male heroes are. I mean she chases GODZILLA on a bike to film it's rampage while her assistant turned love interest by the end of the film helps her but never takes her role as the hero away.

So dumb as it is the human characters are better than in most giant monster movies and it does move along and kept me entertained. 

War of the Gargantuas (1966) film directed by Ishirō Honda

Ishirō Honda is a legend in kaju films and for good reason. Even though this film is a sort of hot mess in many ways it isn't without merit. A giant hairy apeman attacks a giant octopus that is attacking a boat and he attacks the boat. It's quite the opening scene. The monsters appears again and again causing destruction and literally eating people and spitting their remains out. It's quite horrific for this type of film at this time. 

Some scientists it seems had a ape kid at some point that ran away and was presumed dead in the mountains and the authorities think it is back, now gigantic on a killing spree. The scientists don't think so as their ape pal was kind and gentle. As it turns out, there are two of them one in the mountains and another from the the sea which... grew from cells of the other but in the ocean so it lived underwater and is sensitive to light? 

The two monsters are at odds, the nice one trying to stop to the mean one ending up in a battle that destroys (surpise!) Tokyo. The two take the fight to the ocean and a volcano suddenly appears from under the surface and maybe kills them both. 

This movie is interesting in that it tries stuff not seen in other giant monster films but it has the feeling it twas made up as they filmed. the "hero" Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Paul Stewart is a smarmy jerk in my opinion and his characters does next to nothing to help the situation. Apparently he was a nightmare to work with and it shows. 

While not a great movie, it does entertain and the model work is really good. The creatures are pretty basic and not the prettiest things you'll ever see. 

Godzilla VS Biolante (1989) directed and written by Kazuki Ōmori

 

I recently caught this on a cable network just as it was starting and decided to watch. I swore I had not seen it but I think I did. I did remember it being one of the later Godzilla films people thought were good and above the earlier sillier films from the 70s but... I have to disagree. 

The film has some interesting elements, like the giant plant monster is at first OK except for the giant flower on top which makes it a bit silly but it transforms into a pretty awesome looking creature at the end. It doesn't move all the well I thought but it was pretty complicated and I give credit where it's due. 

The story which got such praise was simply ridiculous, complicated and with the same characters we have seen in other lesser Godzilla films. People we really couldn't care less about other what their stories are. There is an international spy thriller part that just made me laugh out loud and a "touching" story about a scientist father who loses his daughter in a terrorist attack and does what any loving father would do. He takes her DNA and misses it with a plant and Godzilla cells and turns her into a giant plant monster. For some reason she is conscious in the creature for a bout 5 minutes then she seems to fade away, probably so  no one will root for the plant monster over Godzilla during the fights. At the end her face appears in the sparkly remains of the monster and flies into space where the particles reform into a giant flower in orbit. 

The crazy earlier films from the 60s and 70s had a charm this one was missing as it tried to be a lot more than it was. 

TV series: Monarch - legacy of Monsters

 

Evidently I have been n a Japanese monster kick lately. We had a chance to watch the Legendary TV series Monarch - Legacy of monsters recently. Legendary is the studio making the new American Godzilla and King Kong movies which have been getting worse with each one. I have to say the Series was much more interesting and better put together. There are damn few monsters but much more interesting characters and situations and mysteries to get you involved. 

A young  San Franciscan woman goes to her father's in Tokyo and discovers he  has another family there. She meets her new brother and the two go on hunt to find their father with the brother's ex girlfriend and get caught up in the history and intrigue of Monarch, the organization that is trying to control the giant monsters appearing over the earth since Godzilla attacked in 2014. The series at the same time follows the beginning of the organization by following the scientists and military man who founded it. 

I won't spoil much but everyone seems to be related and no one is to be trusted. It moves along and throws in enough monsters to remind you they are still there and it has Kurt Russel and his son playing the same character in different time periods. Like most of these mystery mongering plots, it takes awhile to find anything out but it's not boring. I will say the last 2 episodes basically cover everything in the first 8 and you could watch those two and be pretty much up to date and not have missed too much. It, of course ends on cliffhanger and I will watch if a second series comes around. I liked everyone in it more than anyone is any of the films and while not earth shattering, it did leave me curious for what happens next. 

Godzilla Minus 1 (2023) directed by Takashi Yamazaki

 

I will admit that after seeing trailers for this film, I was excited. It looked AMAZING and the setting, post WWII Japan was intriguing since Godzilla was not supposed to appear until the 50s when the first film was released. 

This is, in many ways, a return to the tone of the original Japanese film although I was glad to see it was not as big a downer as I anticipated. It's no laugh riot, but in a film about lost hope, lost honour and loss of everything, it had its uplifting moments. I was not sure what the title meant but (thanks to my friend George) it was cleared up for me. Japan is literally starting at the lowest point in its history... zero at the film begins and then it manages to drop even lower, to minus 1 when Godzilla arrives and makes things even worse. 

The leads are a Kamikaze pilot who is dishonoured by living through the war, a homeless woman who has found and decided to take care of a baby which makes her also dishonourable in may people's eyes who assume she is a prostitute and how they eventually come together as a family of misfits trying to figure who they are after the devastating war. In my assessment, Godzilla is the representation of that devastation and loss after the war as he comes in keeping anything from being rebuilt and no one can move on while he is proving how small and weak humanity is compared the the terrors the have released on themselves like the bomb, the war and of course Godzilla itself. 

Despite the heavy subject matter, this movie is still, at is roots, a giant monster movie. The integrate the original Godzilla theme music, come up with ridiculous ways to destroy the menace, destruction is everywhere and it even manages to reference previous films without being too "canon driven". There are extremely sad parts and the willingness to talk about the how the Japanese government put very little value on human life while fighting the war was refreshing. The Americans are not shown as being all that much better in the end. It's a rare kaju film where the human characters are not just front and centre but the  driving force of the plot. It really works. There is real drama in here without Godzilla having to show up at all, but boy does he ever show up. Massive and looking better than I have ever seen despite a low 15 million budget as opposed to the American Godzilla films which I believe average 200-300 million each and are not nearly as interesting to watch. He is massive, scary and his look references not just past versions but mythological dragons. It is an unstoppable force of nature brought to life by atomic bomb tests and is now asserting its dominance over us. It is treated as a real living creature and as our punishment for being into being in the first place. 

Of course no movie is perfect. I would say 20 minutes could be cut not because it drags but because I think a quicker pace would make it even more exciting to watch. I also found the end a little too Hollywood for me which robbed it of some of it's most powerful scenes of loss. There is also a very clear leading into a next film, which I will see 100% but I don't think we needed it. 

Varan the Unbelievable (1958) Directed by Ishirō Honda

 

There might be several versions of this film but the one I saw was about 1 hour 7 minutes, making it about 40 minutes too long. The film was meant to be a USA/Toho joint production but that fell apart and the resulting English and Japanese filmed parts never mesh together. The Japanese sections don't even have subtitles. 

Some military guy and his wife are doing some sort experiments on a remote lake that will poison the water. The locals think a monster lives there who will destroy the world if the lake is threatened. Most of this film is the military guy trying to evacuate the residents while being as sexist as possible to his far too subservient wife who wants the villages to be able to stay in their homes. There is a ton and I mean a ton of expositional dialogue that makes the film drag and the clichéd plot doesn't help it much. I expected more with Honda as director. There are many references to Godzilla, including his theme song being snuck in at one point. 

Turns out there is a monster andit goes on a  rampage. Who would have thought? The wife blames herself because she wanted the villagers to stay and her brilliant husband states "this was no one's fault". Ummm... it was HIS fault 100%! He was poisoning the water and displacing an entire village for... reasons? 

The monster itself is a highlight. Not too badly designed and it moves well on all fours. The effects overall are pretty good for a film of this kind, era and budget but they can't save the tedium between shots of the giant creature destroying stuff. 

Godzilla VS. Kong (2021) directed by Adam Wingard

I thought the first Legendary Godzilla movie had a ton of flaws like killing the one engaging character 20 minutes in and showing most of the monster fight scenes on TV screens instead of giving us clear shots of the action but it wasn't unwatchable and the effects and cinematography was pretty good. The second gave us even less characters to get involved with but did have a ton of posters, including an awesome King Ghidorah with a fight between him and Godzilla in Boston's (my home town) Fenway Park which was enough to keep my attention for a goofy movie about giant monsters. Godzilla VS Kong continues the trend of making the humans not just uninteresting but somehow makes them so dull you feel like that might be sapping your own personality out you since nature abhors a void. 

To try and find a positive... it's colourful. That's it. The monsters fight for no good reason they story isn't one and every element seems to have been pulled out of hat and just inserted randomly. It manages to make less sense than any of the early Toho monster movies and introduces conspiracy theories like the hollow earth and fluoride in tap water! WTF? The characters are so dumb and unappealing cardboard cutups that there is suspense, not way to care about is going on even if you could decipher a plot line form this mess. You can't even figure which characters are where on the earth. There is no sense of time as they seem to go form the USA the Hong Kong without having to book a flight, pack or get a hotel room in more seconds. There is no sense of scale either. The giant monsters could be any size, they have no real sense of weight or how huge they are. There are not consequences you would care about to anyone or anything in the entire film. It just happens and they mix dull over tropes with confusing and incredibly dumb but not fun elements.  then the put in Mechagodzilla for 10 minutes.

No one wins this battle of the titans. We all lose. 

Gorgo (1961) and Gappa (1967)

 I was working on a poster for Gorgo for fun and after rewatching the film I realized I had seen something else really similar.

Gorgo is the giant monster story of mercenaries finding a treasure and a giant monster who turns out to be a baby with parent that comes to find it after it has been put in a sideshow in London. The two main characters also just sort of kidnap/save a young Irish kid. Doing so saves his life but it still seemed sort of sketchy. In the end the monsters return to the sea from which they came. The effects are pretty good thought monster is sort of goofy looking. The giant props work well and there is enough monster on major city destruction to satisfy kaju fans. 

Gappa, goes by a few names but has a similar story. The detail are different and follow well established Japanese monster tropes closer than they follow the plot of Gorgo. This time an egg hatches as adventurers are looking for animals to exhibit in a theme park. they take it back but pretty soon its parents are flying to Japan looking for it and no building will stop stop them. In the end they all fly off, back to island they came from, one assumes. Though nothing amazing, it's not a bad giant mosnter flick with the sort of effects expected for a 60s Japanese film. 

Gamera the Brave (2006) directed by Ryuta Tasaki

 I admit I have soft spot for Gamera, the giant flying turtle, as it is my mom's favourite kanji. Why my mom has a favourite kanji is another story. Gamera has always been a softer, maybe more kid friendly than some of the Godzilla films and with even smaller budgets. 

This film has some interesting elements. A man who was saved by Gamera as a boy and has a young son with psychological problems after his mother died. He finds a weird egg that hatches into  turtle that exhibits all sorts of intelligence and powers... much like Gamera, who had sacrificed himself when he saved the man. The son and the turtle grow a bond as the animal grows to gigantic size just in time fight the newly emerged monster Zedus. With the help of the young boy and his friends, the new Gamera is given extra power by a magic stone that was found at the same time the boy found the egg.  An epic battlic ensues and the new Gamera wins the day while the children cheer him on. 

This film is fairly fun though pretty dumb in many respects.  It has the problem most Gamera films do, one or more annoying child actors that really get on your nerves. It does have a really cool monster in Zedus, maybe one of the best giant monster designed out there. The effects are better than you might expect but Gamera has the look of kid's plush toy with giant eyes and baby like features that just do not work. It's hard to recommend this as children's film - Zedus is blown to pieces at the end which is gross but before that we see him eating hapless like chicken nuggets people multiple times throughout the film! 

Following the current trend for Japanese monster films to have better effects and more complicated storylines that may or may not work, this movie hits enough marks to be an enjoyable watch as long as you remember that it's a film about a giant flying turtle who is "the friend of the children". 

poster project: King Kong (1933)

 

 I love the original King Kong, it was my Aunt Helen's favourite movie. She saw it many times when it was released. The looks of the creatures and the jungle scenes are just amazing and Kong is one of the few effects that really reads as a real character even today. 

This went through something like 30 iterations before I stopped changing things. Should Fay Ray be on the top of the Empire State? Should I draw the planes coming for Kong? At first it was to be just a long shot of the Empire State with kong seen tiny at the top and the planes arriving.  Finally after going though the film a few times I saw some interesting shots I had not seen used before and decided a mostly silhouetted Kong hanging off the building inspired by the screenshots and Willis O'Brian's preproduction drawings with an art deco design inspired by the opening credits might be best. 

The logo was interesting. It looks normal enough watching the film but if you start to recreate it it's sort of Escher-like in its construction. The letters looked carved but actually could never exist in the real world. I drew a simplified version of the tower and kept Kong mostly black with white highlights and some subtle dark greys to fill in details around his face. I looked at how the stop motion puppet was constructed to draw the feet and hands. 

There were a bunch of RKO logos in the 30s and I picked one that looked the most interesting with the other deco details. I added grain to the background elements so it would have that airbrushed from the period but excluded Kong and the titles so they would be super clear and stand out more. All things considered I am happy with this as it looks like what I was going for and combined my drawing and design skills in equal measure. I think so, anyway. I struggled with where to to put the title as it was on the bottom and small for most of the process and I did not want to cover his upper hand but it fits more on the top and larger and gives it more a feel of a poster from the time the film was released. 

A good start for 2021!

Monster Zero/King Ghidorah

 

Otherwise known as King Ghidorah. I had a nice long chat with my my friend Mike today about art and other things and I was inspired enough to do another giant monster poster.I had been planning this for a few days so it didn't just happen out of nowhere, but my ideas came together and I thought I should strike while I was in the mood to create something. 

The title took longer than I thought. I tried it in 3D but there were all sorts of problems getting the textures right. (I wanted it to be made of rock for some reason.) In the end I went with just using Affinity Designer and adding more subtle  effects to the text. *EDIT: I could not help myself and did more work on the 3D titles and solved the problems I was having.)

I struggled a bit with the lightning rays... should i do them or not. They seemed over the top so in they went. I used the sort of style I did for Godzilla but with three heads, two tails and wings Ghidoraj was much more dynamic. Again I went through movies to find references but I also discovered some of the toy figures and studio publicity photos had ideas I could mix and match. 

This looks like comic book cover to me but I think it makes a good poster as well. 

Godzilla poster

 

One of a series (most likely) of giant monster posters. I went through the film to find good references and drew the King go the Monsters as he appeared in the original film. These will not be as clean and start at my Star Wars poster series but not too far off from that. I like to keep it simple. 

King Kong (1976) directs by John Guillermin

The 1976 remake of King Kong was a BIG deal. Firstly there were two version set to come to the big screen, this one and another that was to use new stop motion animation techniques to update the classic film as opposed to the guy in suit this one used.  Secondly, once this version as set to go, the ad campaign for it was enormous. Posters, bubble gum cards, you name it. They pulled out all the stops to make sure everyone on earth near a movie house knew this film was coming.

Since it follows more or less (mostly less) the original classic film script, there is no real need to recap it here. It is an updated telling however and the adventurer film maker Carl Dedham is replaced by Fred S. Wilson, his 70s evil petrol magnate version ( now plated by Charles Grodin) who wants to exploit Skull Island for oil, but when that doesn't work out, he decides to kidnap the giant gorilla living there and show him off to reduce his losses. Ann Darrow is now called Dwan (seriously, she is) played by Jessica Lang in her first role and she is, in a word, terrible. Funny, but terrible. She made good use of her 3 year work hiatus after this movie to really learn her craft and become the great actress we know now. Her lover, Jack (Jeff Bridges) is now a palaeontologist who stowed away on the boat going to Skull Island just in case there was giant monkey there. The Empire State building was replaced by the ill-fated Twin Towers that had recently been completed.



For reasons I cannot fathom, reviews for this movie were pretty good all around and the praise for its effects were almost universal. The script by Lorenzo Semple Jr, who is one of my favourite writers from the time he wrote the Batman TV show to his amazing campy update of Flash Gordon, is uneven at best and totally inappropriate and plain wrong at worst. It is really funny at times, but this flies in the face of how everyone else in the production saw the project. He seems the only one to get the joke. Because of that humour, I find it hard to just trash this film for the pretentiousness Dino DeLaurentis had to take on this big budget update of the RKO classic and still find it enjoyable in that "bad film" way.

To be clear: This film does not hold up. I liked it well enough at the time, there were few effects movies to compare it too until Star Wars came along,  but the effects are all pretty dismal. I don't know where the high praise for them came from. Bad matte work, and a monkey suit that was disappointing even to its creator, the very talents Rick Baker. The biggest issue is the lack of scale. Kong never looks any larger than a guy in suit walking around miniature scenery. He has a range of facial expressions from angry to rape-y pervert eyes when Kong looks at Dwan - which is uncomfortable to watch to say the very least. The updated touches are ridiculous as well. Kong is rolled out in New York City in a giant gas pump. For about 2 seconds the suited actor is replaced by a full sized robot (with 2 left arms) that was made solely for the purposes of giving the impression before the film was released that the monster would be the giant robot throughout. The end scene is totally banal and meaningless. There is no "Twas beauty that killed the beast" in this film.

And...good god, there was a sequel. King Kong Lives that was MUCH worse.

INSTEAD SEE THIS:



Mighty Joe Young (1998) directed by Ron Underwood

While this film is not a classic either, it does satisfy the giant ape desires you might have much better than the Kong remake. The story is serviceable, light and fun. Made by Disney for 90 Million Dollars, it only grossed 50 million. I can't explain why it flopped while Kong was box office gold. Rick Baker returned to try again to make a believable ape suit and this time it works in spades. Mixed with a digital version of Joe, it is impossible to tell which is which and the scale and believability of the giant ape is worth watching the film for. Charlize Theron also gives a great performance as does Bill Paxton.

Godzilla VS. The Smog Monster 1971 directed by Yoshimitsu Banno

This film’s actual title is Godzilla vs. Hedorah and is maybe one of the campiest films in the series. There was a planned sequel but the series producer had the film so much those ideas were scrapped. still, in the hearts of many people, this film has a warm place in their hearts - including mine. 

The story is meant to be a warning to humanity of the danger of pollution, which spawns a giant monster that evolves quickly from turd tadpole to flying turd that seems to fart killer gases that kills hundreds. Finally it becomes a walking creature about the same size of Godzilla so they can fight man to man so to speak. The military creates of wall of giant electrodes to dry out the stinky giant piece of crap but it gets damaged during the monsters battle and Godzilla must activate it with his atomic breath. Hedorah has one more trick up it’s sleeve(?) and another version flies out of the remnants of the last forcing Godzilla to fly after it using his breath as propulsion. He catches it, using the electrons again and pulls out what we assume as eggs and drys them out too before leaving humanity behind - giving us a dirty look on his way out the door. Godzilla wants us to know this was a problem of our own making. 

The film starts with an AWESOME go-go dancer singing the theme song and is filled with all sorts of 70s kitsch. As a kid seeing this at the movies I wanted the toys the young boy is playing with at the beginning. I still do. The message of the film though clunky is still unfortunately relevant. More relevant in fact as we have done pretty much nothing to solve the problem of pollution. 

Production for the movie was pretty low end. 35 days to shoot it and a budget of only 250,000$. To top it off the guy in the Smog Monster suit had a ruptured appendix and had to be operated while still in the suit! 

If you want to see my Dramatic readings animations of the theme song, and why wouldn't you, click below!
Dramatic Reading:Save the Earth

Daimajin, Return of Daimajin, and Wrath of Daimajin 1966 by Daiei Film

The Daimajin Trilogy is an odd little side step in the world of giant monster movies. All three were released the same year and all three have pretty similar plots. Daimajin is a giant statue possessed by a spirit owlet's say... justice.  He is usually called into action by the members of the deposed family or a religious figure, though not always and once his wrath is set in motion, he will not stop until peace has returned to the region. 

In the first film he is called to rid the people an evil warlord who sends his men to destroy the statue, but when they hammer a giant spike into its forehead, it bleeds, comes to life and returns the spike to the terrible warlord by impaling him with it. Revenge was not enough it seems and the monster continues destroying everything in site until the hero, a woman named Kozasa, cries on it's feet - causing the spirit to leave the statues which crumbles into rubble.

The second film is much the same, but Daimajin nows live sin the middle of a lake. Another evil warlord, who takes no chances this time and blows the statue to bits, has taken over the peaceful land.  Despite this, the spirit is summoned and rids the kingdom of the warlords forces and the warlord himself.

In the third outing, the statue is now on top on a mountain instead of the side of one. This time the common people call on his aid and he once again destroys the evil warlord and anyone associated with him. He also becomes a sort of "friend of the children" AKA Gamera the giant turtle series which was also done by Daiei Film.