Tag Archives: Movie

Jason Goes to Hell… eventually

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I didn’t start seeking out and enjoying horror films until I was in high school. As a littler guy I was scared PRETTY EASILY and didn’t see how choosing to be scared could possibly be fun. But I’ve always loved monsters and creatures and stuff, so to test my child-mettle I’d at least peek at the horror section at our local video store (the long gone but not forgotten Video Tree, thank you Ernie, wherever you are!). The box for Jason Goes to Hell was a standout:

The VHS sleeve was embossed so that Jason’s chromed-out mask (sick, BTW) and his demonic butt-worm popped out from the box. In 1993 I had certainly not seen any Fridays the 13th, but I more or less knew who Jason was through pop culture osmosis and, well, the huge crazy furious man in a hockey mask hacking people’s limbs off in the woods was pretty goddamn scary to me. So seeing that Jason was titularly Going to Hell, I assumed the movie would chronicle his gruesome demise and subsequent journey through the the realms of Hell. I imagined Jason’s Divine Comedy being a sort of reverse-slasher film, where the forces of Satan would chase, torture and terrorize Jason as ironic punishment for his decades of malice. “What a crazy, bold vision for the final entry in a slasher series!” kid me thought.

When I finally sat down to watch it years later I figured I wouldn’t get to see Jason wading through lakes of fire and dodging devils. And I was right! Jason Goes to Hell is basically “what if Jason was The Evil Dead” and that’s pretty cool too.

More years passed, and my OTHER favorite psychotic rage monster DID have an honest-to-Satan underworld odyssey:

As always, thank Godzilla for Godzilla.

Oozetoberfest 2025 Watch List

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We’re practically into September which means it’s Halloween Season (FOR ME PERSONALLY)!

This Spooktober I have dubbed Oozetoberfest! I’m catching up on horror movies and creature features that I’ve never seen, both vintage and hot off the 2025 presses. This year I’ve got a sub-focus on slimes, blobs, oozes, and melting. Also featuring brains and aliens and alien brains and brain aliens! Brailiens? Oh, and say hi to David Cronenberg, he’s in the back with the snacks and the cooler. We’re havin’ fun. Letterboxd link if you want to slop it up Batt Scare-It style this Oozetoberfest!

‘S gonna be a real GOOSHY one

The Evil Dead: still the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror

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Evil Dead II (and Ash vs Evil Dead) will always be my favorite installment(s) of the Evil Dead franchise, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ the original film is a singular masterpiece of supernatural terror.

Dark forests and dank cellars, soul-crushing isolation, the skin-crawling feeling of being watched, inexplicable paranormal weirdness, disembodied and unfamiliar voices calling to you, demon possession, the undead, warp-speed bodily rot and decay, the iron claw of madness wringing the sanity from your mind, your senses betraying you, unspeakable acts of flesh-shredding violence, inhuman things that look and sound just like your dearest loved ones torturing you physically and emotionally… This movie feasts on every fear in the collective unconscious and burns into your brain forever thanks to Sam Raimi’s visionary story and direction, Bruce Campbell’s vulnerable and authentic performance, and the unflinching, gruesomely spectacular, horrifyingly inventive gore/makeup/special effects.

On the rare occasion I have a nightmare that isn’t a mundane anxiety dream, it looks and feels almost exactly like The Evil Dead. Lo-fi, herky-jerky, cloudy-eyed, gut-splattering, jittering, skittering grimy greasiness that feels real in spite of (or even because of??) its brain-breaking surrealism. Its like the good Dr. Stantz once said:

As deep, furious, and mysterious as the sea itself: 70 Years of Godzilla

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Godzilla, when taken as a single fictional entity over his 70 year career (and especially on rewatching Minus One), I think you could argue is a personification of the ocean itself. Impossibly huge, indestructible, invincible, unthinkably strong, crashing down on anyone caught in its path, washing away everything from the smallest insect to entire landmasses. It can be a savior to humanity or it can be humanity’s cruelest, most bloodthirsty executioner. He defeats all challengers, even if it takes ages for him to wake back up after his last war. Sometimes he wages war on us, other times on things that threaten us.

He is unknowable, his motivations fluid and alien to our landlubbing monkey minds. He will die, resurrect, mutate, and evolve forever: he was here before humanity and will go on for eons after we die out. Human intervention turned a fierce but fair nature spirit into a wrathful, radioactive demon hellbent on decimating the warring, polluting human race.

The humanist themes of Godzilla Minus One are a balm for the bleak, chaotic, violent times we live in. The world is better with you in it, even if you don’t agree or believe it. You can survive disaster and grow again after. Each of us is like Godzilla in that way: when tragedy strikes or when life takes a painful turn, we too can resurrect, evolve, and survive… even if it takes longer than we hope. For all the havok it can wreak, the Earth would be worse without the ocean, and it would be worse without you.

MONSTERS HAVE CONQUERED THE WORLD

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godzilla_vs_kong_ver12_xlg-900x900

[Like I mentioned in my previous post, here’s my incomplete Godzilla vs Kong review! The further along it gets, the more unfinished it is, but I wanted to share what I had before signing off.  After the review I’ll cap it off with a  mess of closing thoughts. Enjoy!]

Godzilla vs. Kong is the movie I have been waiting for since I was a little boy.  Not necessarily this version of the movie, but a big budget, high-profile rematch between my two favorite monsters of all time.  I love these two big mean fuckers on their own, but together?  That’s pure movie magic. Totally audacious, unhinged imagination let loose and exploding on screens all over the planet.  

The more I learned about filmmaking and the more I paid attention to the film industry growing up, the more I came to believe that Godzilla and King Kong would never meet again on the big screen. Even when Legendary announced their plans to build towards this movie, I had my doubts.  A single MonsterVerse flop could easily kill the plan, a global plague could even more easily kill the plan.  And yet!!  And yet here I am, reviewing the movie I’ve hoped for and daydreamed for my whole life and spent over half my life convinced I would never get to see. Not only that, but the rest of the world at large (not just the kaiju fan community!) seems genuinely stoked! True randos were cooking up funny tweets and fan art and speculating about plot details in the lead-up to its release! I told a friend that the release of Godzilla vs. Kong felt like Monster Christmas, he agreed!

w9mn06r6gan61Godzilla vs. Kong, currently the capstone on Legendary Pictures’ ambitious MonsterVerse cinematic universe, has its problems, large and small… but it also delivers all the big, crazy, colorful, joyful, thrilling, scary, gross, and awe-inspiring fun you could ask for in the greatest monster prize fight rematch in history. Just the fact that there’s now a mega-budget, (relative) smash-hit Hollywood blockbuster that has a title starting with “Godzilla vs.” is incredibly exciting. The fact that said title ends with “Kong”?! I’m freaking the fuck out over here, gang. I will be for a long time 🤣

This won’t be one of my usual reviews. Partly because I’m probably incapable of being objective about this movie (I have pretty bad recency bias on a good day, let alone for a movie I’ve daydreamed about since I was 6), but also because I want to talk about where I’ve been lately, the new kaiju boom we’re living in, and how I’m thinking about some major changes when it comes to my writing and this website. I’ve also been jonesing for an excuse to look back on what this site, the kaiju fandom, and the monsters themselves have really meant to me all this time–MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD was always a deeply personal project, and these last couple years especially have taught me a lot about myself and why these big stompy bastards matter so much to me.  

So this might be a sort-of kind-of a farewell post? Or at least saying farewell to the super in-depth kaiju reviews?  Who knows, I might feel completely differently in the near future and find myself re-inspired to get back to the big meaty reviews!  I’m not in a position to guarantee anything right now–so instead I want to just go with the flow and see where it takes me. Deep down I’ve been itching to pivot away from writing about other peoples’ creations and start writing my own stuff (I’ve threatened friends and family with fan-fic for years), and that’s at least some part of why I’ve had such a hard time getting out reviews the last couple years. Of course I can’t just WALK AWAY when there’s so much kaiju kontent to review, so for this big funky mega-post I will also do micro-reviews of every “Main Monster’s” filmography. For me that means Godzilla, Kong, Gamera, and Ultraman, and probably a few other odds and ends in there too [Had to ditch this, sorry. Maybe someday!]. This is a weird one and a big one and a personal one, so hoist up your glowing nuke-ax, buckle into your H.E.A.V. and grab a barf bag because we’re atomic breath-ing all the way down to the Hollow fuckin’ Earth!

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Villain Monster Flies Away, Human Heroes Reflect on What They’ve Learned, Good Monster Wades off into the Sunset… Until Next Time

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“I AM OFFICIALLY STOPPING MY BLOG”, he said, stupidly.  

“For sure nobody cares and it’s way weirder that you’re talking about it,” everyone said, correctly but also kind of meanly.  

I don’t know, how else do I open this? I’m stepping away from the blog, but I don’t want to leave it on a cliffhanger. I am okay. I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything weird.  I’m just ready to move on. 

Not from kaiju, of course.  I’m still fucking obsessed.  I’m currently watching Zyuranger, Mirrorman and Ultraman Trigger. Zyuranger is my favorite of the three, and I like it a fartload more than I ever liked Power Rangers.  I know that’s spicy, but I could never get into PR’s Saved by the Bell-ish stories.  And their re-contextualizations of the monsters were lame.  There’s a micro review for ya! Zyuranger FUCKIN’ SHREDDDDS, MAN.

Hahaha okay, so yeah, I’m not moving on from kaiju, but I am moving on from writing reviews of kaiju media (beyond the occasional tweet).  I don’t feel that burning drive to do it anymore, and there are a ton of folks out there covering it faster and more in-depth than I ever could (looking atchoo, Gormaru Island). It’s time to close up shop.  I fell hilariously short of my preposterous goals, but I feel good about it anyway.  It was fun, I made some friends, and I found even more big beautiful beasts to go batty for.  OH HEY A NEW GODZILLA SHORT FILM CAME OUT TODAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaDfDKIQY5k

As an out-and-proud Final Wars Fanatic and a Hedorah-ing Hedonist, I am of course overwhelmed with joy. It’s a fun, silly little blast.  I made sure to calmly and maturely let Toho know how I felt about the short:

Capture

So I’m stopping the blog, but I’ve got some unfinished writing I want to share. Just for fun, I guess.  My notes for the Ultraman episode “My Home is Earth” are a scant few interesting nuggets I mined from IMDB and Wikipedia (and other ‘pedias), but they capture the harrowing, somber spirit of the episode.  After that is my partial intro for a Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) review.  I’ve got one more post in me that will be coming soon–the first 75% of a Godzilla vs Kong review plus some closing thoughts.  This stuff’s all incomplete–broken links, missing images, unfinished thoughts, placeholder text, all the blood n’ guts–but I’m a bit of a gorehound, so maybe you are too.  No matter what, thanks for reading.  

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More Like Afterbirth of Mothra ;( (Part 2 of 2)

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OIP

2020 still sucks boiling hot dogshit through a straw made out of electrified razor blades and barbed wire, so let’s ignore it for a little while longer and finish off our deep dive into 1996’s delightfully doofy Rebirth of Mothra!  If you missed part 1 of the review you can rub your eyeballs all over it here.

There is SO MUCH more monster moth mayhem to unpack and I can’t wait.  I will say this before we pick up the recap where we left off (Desghidorah’s grand entrance): I think this is one of my favorite Heisei-era Toho monster flicks.  This movie is way the fuck more solid than it gets credit for.  It doesn’t have the earnest sci-fi seriousness of Return of Godzilla, it doesn’t have the astonishingly good practical effects of Godzilla vs. Biollante, and it’s not hilariously, mind-bendingly weird like Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, but it’s got it’s own, different set of goals and nails ’em! More on that and a whole bunch more after the jump!

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More Like Re-Girth of Mothra ;) (Part 1 of 2)

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rebirth_of_mothra_poster_1996_02First and foremost, Black Lives Matter, Arrest the Cops that Murdered Breonna Taylor, Defund the Police. Furthermore, Trans Rights, Love is Love, No Human is Illegal. Also, wear a mask, wash your hands, and social distance–it doesn’t matter if you’re not at risk for COVID-19, doing those things will save the folks that are.

So uh, everybody having an extremely cool, normal time here in the year or our lord two-thousand and twenty?  I’ve been struggling (and failing) to get back on the monthly review train, and living in the middle of a hell shit nightmare garbage world isn’t really helping. BUT some slick new hardware (my very own first ever laptop!) should help me turn that around going forward!

But let’s not dwell on the fact that every time you make the grave error of accidentally paying attention to the news it’s a firehose spraying four hundred quadrillion gallons of boiling hot diarrhea directly into your open eyes, nose and mouth.  How?  BY REVIEWING A GOOFY-ASS, FEEL-GOOD, KID-FRIENDLY, VERY 90s MONSTER MOVIE MY FRIENDS.

I’m finally digging into the Rebirth of Mothra (or just Mothra in Japan) trilogy here on MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD! Reasonably enough I’m starting with the first entry in the trilogy, 1996’s Rebirth of Mothra.  I’ve seen all three entries, but it’s been at least 10  years now (probably closer to 15?).  Something about these left a… not-awesome taste in my mouth. The taste was so not-awesome that I knew I’d really need to work up some chutzpah to revisit and write at length about these films.

EXCEPT THAT SHIT ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT APPLY TO THE FIRST MOVIE.  What happened?  Did I change?  Did the movie change?  Is some other movie to blame for this trilogy’s dookie-riffic reputation (HMMM?)?  Can Mothra save us from the relentless dogshit hell nightmare reality of 2020?  Read on and find out!

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Clear out your Bowels From Beyond the Clog(ged toilet), it’s time for Howl From Beyond the Fog!

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330px-Howl_from_Beyond_the_Fog_posterLook, I realize that’s probably the worst review title I’ve ever cooked up, but when your review style is “R-rated, kaiju-obsessed Gene Shalit” things like this happen.

Also, I came up with the review title before actually watching Howl From Beyond the Fog! Now that I’ve seen it, I can say with certainty that the review title is an amazingly bad fit.  Now that it’s there though, I can’t think of a better one.  ANYWAYS

I helped Kickstart this bad boy! Keizo Murase, the designer of the original Varan suit (and special effects whiz for The H-Man, Mighty Peking Man, and more) was tapped to create Howl’s GORGEOUS monster suit. Frankly that was enough to get some buck-a-roos from me, but Howl’s also an ambitious short film that takes place in rural Japan in 1909–a refreshing change of scenery from the usual modern day city smash-em-ups.

ALSO IT’S A PUPPET MOVIE?!

How does that work?  Does it work? Read on my babies!

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