Tired Turtle. Stock footage Gamera re-battles all his favorite foes for his target demo – Japanese schoolchildren in painfully tight shorts. GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER is the final in the “Showa” series, which includes all the badly-acted, badly-produced GAMERA films since his inception in 1965. In a long line of worst films, Daiei Studios saved the absolute worst for last, aiming … Read More
GAMERA VS. VIRAS
Octopustulent. In a cold open, a bumblebee spaceship with English-speaking aliens attack Earth because it’s the planet most like theirs in the universe. Actual logic in a GAMERA movie! Then Gamera the giant flying turtle attacks the spaceship because – whatever. An unseen commander onboard the ship, who might just be Richard Burton, elocutes orders to his unseen crew, and … Read More
GAMERA VS. GAOS
Pointy Birds. Pointy birds, so pointy pointy. Anoint my head. Anointy ‘nointy. — Steve Martin, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS. Godzilla had Rodan, a giant marauding bird, so Gamera went one better and hatched Gaos – not just a giant bird, a giant pointy bird – from a volcano! With a head ornament styled after a shuriken star, and laser … Read More
GAMERA VS. BARUGON
Finian’s Barugon. As with all movies that kill off their prime properties in the first installment, this sequel to GAMERA (1965) must retro-activate a trashy pulp retrieve of its dead star attraction. So (in the American version at least) there is the sweaty-mouthed, talk-fast-so-no-one-will-notice introduction narration: Gamera, the destructive prehistoric turtle hatched from slumber by an atomic bomb, was cocooned … Read More
GAMERA VS. ZIGRA
Space Fish Out Of Water. Futuristic fish-creature against prehistoric turtle-creature in a battle to the almost-makes-sense. GAMERA VS. ZIGRA is the 7th Gamera film, and effectively the last in the “Showa” series made by production company Daiei – and the exhaustion shows. (There would be one more contracted Gamera film in 1980, GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER, a stock footage compilation like … Read More
GAMERA VS. GUIRON
A Real Cutup. GAMERA VS. GUIRON is the fifth entry in the giant turtle’s series, continuing in the dopey footsteps of his great uncle Godzilla. After a first movie introduction where he was all about wanton destruction, by now he has been re-rendered as “friend to children.” And stupidity reaches a new turtle dimension. Two young boys accidentally fly a … Read More
GAMERA
Stone-Age Mutant Ninja Turtle. GOJIRA was a smash hit for Japan’s Toho Studios in 1954, so competing Daiei Studios pondered on how they could also create a property as towering and nightmarish as the fire-breathing irradiated lizard; a gigantic, destructive, plodding behemoth that would strike terror into the heart of Mankind as fearfully as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! And … Read More