Category Archives: Review

Godzilla vs Mothra vs her split personality “The Thing”

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1964-mvsg-poster-jon-2Easter’s come and gone, but in the spirit of the holiday (and spring in general) I just had to review Mothra vs Godzilla.  It hits all the right notes! A pastel-colored stripey egg, themes of birth, death and rebirth, more eggs, a giant pink humanoid rabbit shitting out jelly beans, and tiny singing ladies.  Okay, maybe not those last two. More importantly, MvG is straight up one of the best Godzilla films, and an absolute classic giant creature feature.  It takes the blueprint Toho shakily put down in the previous King Kong vs Godzilla and refines it into the now-standard monster vs. monster formula while perfectly tying together Toho’s two most famous beasts.  It’s also the first Godzilla flick to make it more or less unscathed to the States, with the exception of a schlocky marketing gimmick. Steal the Reese’s eggs out of your loved ones’ Easter baskets and cuddle up with an electrified steel net, because we’re talking about Mothra vs. Godzilla!

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Barugon with the Wind

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Gamera-vs-Barugon-Poster-japanese-monster-movies-37044169-410-576Last month I joked about not being able to find a giant monster movie that would be thematically appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day.  To my knowledge, Japan (or anyone, really) has yet to film a 300 ft. tall Leprechaun pushing over Tokyo Tower.  But then I got to thinking about the true meaning of St. Paddy’s, and suddenly King Kong vs. Godzilla seemed like a perfect fit: in that movie Kong’s a huge lush that loves to gets loaded on berry juice, and a major plot element is getting him black-out drunk so they can cart his sloshed ass off to Japan! But before I had a chance to study up on KKvG, helpful Reddit user TheRedBee chimed in with their suggestion, “Kaiju Leprechaun? I suggest Gamers vs Barugon. It’s got rainbows, treasure and booze.” And with that, the choice is made!

I’ve been itching to dig into classic, goofy Gamera, especially since I’ve already touched on serious Gamera in my review of Gamera 2: Advent of Legion. Gamera vs Barugon represents the Gamera series tentatively dipping its toe into campiness right before going full-on balls-out crazy.  But the movie wants to have it both ways and be a clever monster thriller too: Barugon has some pretty adult themes, and there isn’t a single “Kenny” in sight. It’s a fascinating mess! Grab a drank and a giant opal, because it’s time to jam-era with Gamera!

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Rodan is my Bro-dan

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rodanus2So without a holiday or pop culture fiasco to relate to, I came into February a free man, able to write about any monster movie my secret, greasy heart desires. After months away from the Godzilla franchise I knew I needed to head back that way, but something about Rodan grabbed me first.  Rodan joins up with Godzilla and Mothra Avengers-style after this one anyway, so I figure it’s close enough.

I personally tend to overlook Rodan because it’s sandwiched between Gojira and Mothra and doesn’t have any monster-on-monster action, but that’s a mistake:  this beast is a joy to re-watch, and represents Toho really hitting their stride with kaiju.  It’s their straightest attempt at monster horror, and it’s a blast.  Rodan was the highest-grossing sci-fi movie of its time, and is still one of the most beloved icons in the genre right alongside Mothra and Godzilla. Plus the US version features voicework from everybody’s favorite Star Trek officer turned Facebook super-star George Takei! So burst out of your egg, break the sound barrier, and snack on some newlyweds, because it’s time to go-dan with Rodan!

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Glorious Leader of Best Korea Presents: Pulgasari

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Pulgasari-posterIn light of the recent shitshow over Sony’s The Interview it only seems right to take on North Korea’s very own kaiju, Pulgasari! It’s one of the very few kaiju movies to also be a period piece, taking place in feudal Korea. It probably won’t surprise you that Pulgasari attempts and fails to be anti-capitalist propaganda (instead coming closer to satirizing Best Korea and Glorious Leader), but it might surprise you that they kidnapped a South Korean director to make it!  No, seriously, Kim Jong-Il kidnapped director Shin Sang-ok, and his ex-wife, actress Chong Gon Jo, and held them captive for 8 years, forcing them to remarry and crank out seven films, including Pulgasari.  It gets weirder: Toho’s Godzilla team (including Godzilla suit actor Kenpachirô Satsuma) did the special effects, presumably without being kidnapped.  And one last blast of bizarreness: the movie ain’t bad. The highest rating most sources online give it is “so-bad-it’s-good,” but considering the insane circumstances, the movie turned out pretty damn solid. I feel kind of shitty enjoying Pulgasari because people were torn from their homes and held captive to make it, and North Korea’s whole situation is a totalitarian hellscape, but you’d probably make a good movie too if your life literally depended on it.

So grab some swords and shovels to munch on, make a little dog-bear-man out of rice (and maybe poop), and jam some sick snyths on your Casio, because I’m talkin’ about Pulgasari!

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Gamera Drops the Hammer-a

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heisei_poster02a_pos (1)This month I’m reviewing Gamera 2: Advent of Legion. A.K.A. Gamera 2: Attack of Legion, A.K.A. Gamera 2: Legion Invasion, A.K.A. The Color Purple. Why start a trilogy in the middle? Snow! More specifically, I love Christmas, and wanted to continue my theme of holiday-flavored reviews. That said, nobody’s made Santa vs. Gappa yet, so the most festive thing I could find in giant monster movies is snow. And it’s actually pretty rare! Kaiju are fine with showing up at night, during rainstorms, or in the middle of tidal waves, but it would appear they take most winters off.  Son of Godzilla has an amazingly moving and tender snow sequence at the very end of the movie, but the majority of Gamera 2 takes place in Japan’s wintry wonderland.  And really, I’ve been itching to talk Gamera for  a while now.  Not only that, but G2 is stuffed with incredible practical effects and puts Toho’s monster movies of the same era to shame in pretty much every way.  So grab a sixer of Kirin, bundle up, and prepare yourself for Legion to attack! Or invade!  Or advent!

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The Giant Claw has more than one Giant Flaw

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giant_claw_poster_1957_02

For Halloween last month, I reviewed a movie starring Frankenstein’s Monster as a way to tie in with the holiday. I love the holidays, so I challenged myself to do it again for Thanksgiving. Naturally there aren’t any Thanksgiving-themed giant monster movies out of Japan, so I had to get a little more creative. My first thought was Rodan. He’s a big flying monster, sort of like a big bird, like a turkey, the go-to Thanksgiving food.  Knowing I could do better, I went with an American flick from 1957, The Giant Claw. Not only does the titular beast look like a radioactive turkey got humped by a mutant vulture from Hell, but the movie itself is a real turkey! I can hear your booing through the internet, please stop.

We’ll talk about how the movie drove its star to booze, its unflattering peek at the state of gender equality in the 50s, that hilariously unfortunate looking monster, and a whole lot more! Hop aboard a flying battleship and fire up your anti-matter screen, we got a turkey to fry!

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Frankenstein Conquers the World… and Our Hearts

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frankenstein_conquers_the_world

The name of my blog is Monsters Conquer the World, and this month I’m reviewing Frankenstein Conquers the World.  You probably won’t drop your monocle into your brandy in astonishment when I say that Frankenstein Conquers the World is one of my favorite giant monster movies, and with Halloween right around the corner, what better time to talk about this delightfully insane monster mash?  That’s right, in Conquers the World, Toho’s Godzilla team gave The Modern Prometheus the full kaiju treatment: an atomic origin story, gigantic size, a city-wide rampage, and damn it, you better believe they found a way to make him fight a man-eating dinosaur at the end! That plot synopsis might sound like word salad, but director Ishiro Honda, suitmation and special effects guru Eiji Tsubaraya, and everybody else associated with the production play it mostly straight, and the whole thing amazingly comes together.  We’ll talk about that, the Frankenstein monster’s (sort of) lost battle with a gigantic land-octopus, and the movie’s long road from concept to completion, replete with traditional showbiz backstabbing! So dig up a radioactive monster heart to chow on and keep reading!

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Fraudzilla Won’t Fulfillya

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Godzilla 1998 posterSo thanks to my friends and the Rifftrax crew, I watched the 1998 American Godzilla movie last month. While I had originally planned to put it off until later… a lot later, I figured I might as well use this viewing on the big screen as my research for MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD  and knock out the review while it’s still pretty fresh in my mind. Depending on who you ask, the movie is either a nostalgic 90s guilty pleasure or the most disappointing movie that isn’t Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Godzilla actually has a lot in common with Phantom Menace: both were hotly anticipated, with months of hype and seemingly limitless potential to be awesome, tons of CG effects, lots of which don’t hold up today, and both made tons of money, despite being filmic diarrhea reviled by fans and critics alike.  But while Phantom Menace is a complete failure at filmmaking and storytelling on even the most basic levels, Godzilla fails in ways that are less catastrophic, but just as unsatisfying.

All that said, there are flashes, glimmers, and glimpses of moments where the movie actually works.  If it wasn’t pretending to be a Godzilla movie, and wasn’t so desperately mimicking Jurassic Park, it’d be a decent creature feature.  We’ll talk about all that, how the movie sat in development hell since the 80s, the bitchin’ early versions of the movie we almost got instead, and that fucking Taco Bell dog.  Grab your Chernobyl worms, a can of Josta, and COME WITH ME.

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Gojira or: How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Fear the Bomb

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godzilla gojira poster

Oh boy, here it is.  The big one.  The 1954 horror classic that started it all. Gojira, a horror movie?  Oh yes.  True, Godzilla doesn’t whisk a screaming maiden off into a haunted castle or lurk in the shadows with a machete and an irrational hate for horny teens, but the atmosphere of apocalyptic dread throughout this movie absolutely evokes the kind of life-ending doom you’d get from any traditional thriller.  Gojira didn’t quite invent atomic horror outright, but it’s easily the best example of it.  While other entries in the Godzilla franchise get goofed on for hokey plotlines, hammy or wooden acting, and primitive special effects, the original seems to rise above it all. Others have written whole books on how Toho’s creative dream team brought the iconic monster to life and his impact on the world, so I’ll hit the highlights, compare it to the Americanized cut Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and make some stupid jokes along the way.  Put your sunglasses on over your eyepatch, drop an Oxygen Destroyer in the fish tank, and grab Raymond Burr because I’m talking about Gojira!

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“Godzilla” Delights Worldwide Audiences, Gamera Furiously Sobs Into Gigantic Pillow

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godzilla 2014 poster

So originally I wanted to post my retrospective on the 1954 classic Gojira before the new movie came out, but these take longer to write than I think, so that uh, didn’t happen.  However, I have seen the brand new Godzilla in theaters twice now, and because I have the brain disease that makes me think about giant monsters all the time, I gotta rap about it.  Straight up, it is not a perfect movie. That said, it just nails so much of what I’ve always wanted out of a modern giant monster movie.  Not only that, but despite being a Godzilla fan since childhood, this movie managed to surprise me… a few times. Part of the credit has to go to the fantastic and minimalist marketing campaign, but the bulk of it has to go to the filmmakers, who knew just how to craft an incredibly solid and satisfying monster film. Plus, it may or may not be a rip-off of an abandoned Godzilla movie concept from the 70s! I’m going to drop spoilers left and right from here on, but if you’ve already seen the movie or are just a bad-ass that is out of fucks to give, read on!

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