Tag Archives: retrospective

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.

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.

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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King Kong vs. The Dude Part Two’d

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b1356f20e3bbfb3996633be04296a825All right mother humpers, time to make like machine gunfire from a helicopter and finish off King Kong (1976)!  That joke made me sad as I was typing it!  But this is a classic, tragic beauty and the beast tale, just like its 1933 grandpappy and its 2005… un-pappy? Anti-pappy?  Reverse pappy?…

ANYWAY you can click here to read part 1 of the review if you missed it or if you just can’t get enough of that totally gnar-gnar, flavor-blasted MCTW content.

In part 1 we set the stage, took a peek at the creative team behind the movie, and stopped just as King Kong met Jessica Lange Dwan! Can King Kong and Dwan save the midtown youth center by putting on a funky-fresh talent show with all their hip inner-city friends, or will the evil real estate tycoon bulldoze it to make way for a subdivision of ugly McMansions?? Don’t believe me that that’s totally the actual, real plot of the movie?  Better read on to make sure!

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King Kong vs. The Dude (Part 1 of 2)

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KongPoster

Pretty fuckin’ ballsy to call your obvious  remake an “original motion picture event” 🤣

As a monster movie fan I’ve seen all the Godzillas, all the Gameras… but only most of the Kings Kong.  This month I am one step closer to Kongpletion, because I finally saw the 1976 remake, King Kong!  We got Jessica Lange, we got Jeff Bridges, we got Charles Grodin, we got the guy who played Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, we got some tasty American suitmation, and it’s all in a lavish, mid-70s Dino De Laurentiis super-production!

So what the fuck took me so long? For one thing, Kong ’76 has always had sort of a mixed reception… for another thing, they took out the dinosaurs.  And the expedition to Skull Island (only they make sure to NOT call it Skull Island) switched from an ambitious-but-doomed movie shoot to an ill-advised oil survey (because it’s the 70s, so you gotsta get those gas crisis references in!) These are all really minor, nitpicky things, but in my brain they all pointed to the distinct possibility that this was a King Kong movie that was embarrassed to be a King Kong movie, and I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit for another one of those.

I’m psyched to be wrong though! Kong ’76 is a mixed bag, but it’s a beautiful mixed bag! Most importantly, it IS 110% an honest-to-Godzilla King Kong movie! There’s also a shitload of BUCK NUTTY behind-the-scenes stories about Kong ’76’s conception and creation. Plus it’s fascinating seeing how this movie clearly laid some (unintentional?) groundwork for 2017’s terrific Kong: Skull Island.  So hit pause on Deep Throat, grab your pet rocks Petrox, and get ready to feel feelings about the Twin Towers all over again, because we’re setting sail for (definitely not) Skull Island!

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MCTW Podcast: Shin Godzilla (feat. Zachary Bergman)!

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516vgGSwt-LMonsters Conquer the World Podcast crashes its bullet trains into Shin Godzilla! We’re joined by special guest Zach Bergman (aka Sour Gout)! Zach’s got a deep understanding of Shin director and Neon Genesis Evangelion mastermind Hideaki Anno; his career, his history in anime, and Japanese culture at large.  All pertinent stuff when you’re discussing a movie that’s got Anno’s ripe, powerful MUSK all over it like Shin G!

Matt and Ralph weigh in on the movie too of course, and we all pretty much have a grand old time yakking about this one-of-a-kind monster movie milestone. Plus we shine a searing purple laser on the (faux) Prince connection, Shin Godzilla’s roots in the 3/11 disaster(s), post-war Japan, otaku culture, hopes and dreams for the upcoming Shin Ultraman, Corporate Ralph, and of course, everyone’s favorite floppy bug-eyed baby boy, 2016’s brightest star, the precious and inimitable, Kamata Kun:

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Hello my darling son. My perfect, wiggly boy. How is your neck-blood today?

It’s out on your favorite podcast catcher! Or you can hit up this lil’ link-a-rino too: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/monsters-conquer-the-world. Hope you dig it and have a fun-tastic Labor Day weekend!

Ultraman Review Part 9: Episodes 21 & 22

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ultraman-logoHoly balls it’s been over a year since I’ve done an Ultraman round-up?!  Happy to say the wait is finally over! I’ve got a pair of Ultra-sodes ready and rarin’ to be recapped, reviewed and reminisced over! This time we got a smoke monster (eat your heart out Lost!) and we got a burrowing worm monster!

Whether you’re new to Ultramania or it’s just, you know, been over a year since I’ve reviewed this stuff, you can start from the beginning here or brush up on the last pair of episodes here!

The more Ultraman I see the more I dig it.  And not just the original series (which I recently finished for the first time)! I’ve made some headway into the next series, Ultraseven… and I’ve watched all of Ultraman X, Ultraman Orb, Ultraman Geed, and both seasons of Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle! Plus we watched Ultraman the Next on the Kaijuly movie marathon stream, and guess what? That shit ruled too.  Basically, if you enjoy Godzilla, Gamera, et al. enough to read this site and/or listen to our podcast, you GOTTA give Ultraman a shot. I am like, eternally grateful it was forced on me that one fateful G-Fest.  Let’s jump into these episodes!

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