Monster Island Musings From the Film Connoisseur

OUR COLLECTIVE FEAR OF THE NUCLEAR, OR WHAT EXACTY IS GODZILLA?

By Francisco Gonzalez

To the majority of people who are going to see Gareth Edward’s Godzilla (2014), the idea they have of Godzilla is a very general one. All they see is a monster movie. To them Godzilla is just this giant monster that goes around stepping on people and destroying buildings while shooting laser beams from its mouth. But in reality, Godzilla is so much more than that! So here my friends I offer you a small explanation of where Godzilla comes from, and what he really means, metaphorically speaking of course. First off, it’s important to mention that Godzilla is one of the longest running franchises in cinema. I mean, Godzilla is like James Bond or Dracula, characters that are so iconic that they will never die. Godzilla is an iconic behemoth that will live on forever! So far Godzilla has been in 28 Japanese films produced by Toho Co. Ltd! There are two American Godzilla films and countless videogames and comic books. Godzilla coming back film after film makes sense when we take in consideration that practically nothing can kill Godzilla! Just ask the Japanese army, they’ve tried everything and nothing gets through Godzilla’s indestructible skin.

Shooting Godzilla's destruction in GODZILLA (1984)

 

Godzilla always comes out of the ocean and by the end of the movie he will most likely go back into it. He is sometimes portrayed as a God punishing humanity for abusing the planet. In other films, Godzilla appears as earth’s protector, like in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) where Godzilla protects humanity from Destoroyah, one of the most powerful monsters to ever walk the face of the earth. Be it punisher or protector, Godzilla is an unstoppable force of nature. But where did the idea of Godzilla come from? Well, Godzilla’s birth as a character can be traced all the way back to the many nuclear weapons tests that the United States conducted during the 40’s and 50’s, but primarily to the nuclear attack upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima, an event that for obvious reasons left a profound scar on the psyche of the Japanese nation.

 

Once upon a time, the United States was all about nuclear weapons. For a while there, all they wanted to do was test their nuclear capabilities, to see just how much destruction they could inflict on any given enemy. Their ultimate goal with these tests was to know the effectiveness and explosive capabilities of these bombs before using them against Japan during World War II. But even after World War II (and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) the tests continued and so the U.S. tested their atomic bombs on their own turf, igniting atomic bombs in places like New Mexico and Nevada. Other times, they would test these bombs out in the Pacific Ocean, near the Marshall Islands, where they actually managed to tests 67 nuclear weapons! 

 

All this testing yielded valuable knowledge and information to scientists and the American military, but it caused irreparable damage on many islands and territories; with health effects lingering on the affected population. In other words, if you lived anywhere near the places where these tests were conducted, chances are you’d start suffering from exposure to radioactive fallout. This happened to the residents of Bikini Atoll in The Marshall Islands. The residents of these islands suffered horrible health effects because of exposure to radioactive fallout, the U.S. simply hurled money their way as a way to repay them for their troubles. But what’s a couple of million worth when two weeks later your dick falls off? Right? Sadly, nuclear weapons testing continued! For example, on March 1, 1954, United Sates conducted a nuclear test called ‘Castle Bravo’ which just so happens is the biggest nuclear explosion ever detonated by the United States! This test yielded an explosion far greater than they expected, and so the aftermath was worse than they had imagined. Radioactive fallout spread throughout the world, it affected residents of nearby islands and killed one crew member belonging to the Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon #5. 

My point being that nuclear testing has been something of a concern for Japanese people, especially when we take in consideration the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. When we look at it, the Japanese people are a nation psychologically affected by nuclear weapons and why wouldn’t they be. I mean, these detonations yielded thousands of deaths in one swoop. The fear of nuclear weapons reflected itself in Japanese popular culture especially in Japanese films, and still does to this day. One example is Akira (1988), a film that takes place within a society affected by a nuclear attack that took place during ‘World War III’. Another film to directly reflect a society traumatized by nuclear weapons would be the animated film Grave of the Fireflies (1988), one of the best films on the subject, I highly recommend checking that film out, it’s a very emotional experience. Hell, even films from other countries addressed these horrifying events, like the French film Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) a film about an actress making a film about the whole Hiroshima incident, while there she falls in love with a Japanese man; together they muse about love, life and war. In that film the city of Hiroshima is a character on itself, a survivor of the horror. But, one of the best examples is without a doubt Ishiro Honda’s Gojira (1954), the first Godzilla film ever made. This film was a direct response to all these nuclear worries. 

There are various interpretations for Godzilla, but without a shred of a doubt, he is a metaphor for nuclear weapons; other interpretations say that it represents the United States themselves. Whatever the case, Godzilla is something to be feared and be horrified by. Actually, that first black and white Godzilla film functions as a horror film, something that clashes with the more childish sequels that followed. If we look at Godzilla closely, we can see just how much of a metaphor for nuclear weapons he is. For example, Godzilla’s scaly skin was designed to mimic the keloid scars seen on survivors of Hiroshima. Godzilla’s origins have varied depending on the film, but in general, he is an ancient prehistoric sea monster that is awakened by nuclear radiation, so Godzilla is actually a mutation. I would say that the biggest allusion to Godzilla’s nuclear origins would be his ‘atomic breath’, a nuclear blast that comes out of Godzilla’s mouth that is sometimes blue, sometimes red, depending on the movie. Many of the films allude to this nuclear connection, but the biggest one for me is in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) a film in which Godzilla becomes a threat to humanity because it’s about to have a nuclear sized heart attack that could wipe out most of Japan. As you can see, if we connect the dots, we know exactly what Godzilla represents. There was an attempt to get all countries to sign the ‘Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’ of 1996, but alas, eight countries have not signed it, so it is not in effect yet and so nuclear testing still continues to happen throughout the world, the most recent tests conducted by North Korea. So now Godzilla is not just a symbol of the Japanese’s fear of Nuclear weapons, it represents a fear we all share, the fear of madmen, ready to press that button and wiping us all from the face of the planet.

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Francisco Gonzalez has been running The Film Connoisseur for more than six years. The Film Connoisseur is a film blog filled with articles, lists and reviews on everything from the classiest art house films, to the cheesiest B-movies. It's an all-encompassing film blog. Francisco is also the writer and illustrator of Killer Comics' Macabro, an anthology comic book dedicated to science fiction and horror stories. He's also a self-taught filmmaker, having written, produced and directed a series of zombie comedies: CANNABIS CANNIBALS (2008) and its sequel, CANNABIS CANNIBAL EXODUS (2009). Francisco plans to shoot the third film in the series, CANNABIS CANNIBAL FOREVER, in the summer of 2014.

Monster Island Musings From Author, Beverly Gray

My Thoughts on Japanese Movies, With Monsters and Without

By Beverly Gray

My passion for Japanese filmmaking began when I discovered the work of the great director, Akira Kurosawa, whose career began in earnest just after the end of World War II. His first significant effort, a charming but threadbare production that shows the impact of post-war scarcity, was The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail. This 1945 jidaigeki (“costume drama”) followed an Edo-era general and his troops who disguised themselves as monks to outwit an enemy border patrol. One of the leading players was Takashi Shimura, a dignified and soulful actor (1905-1982) who racked up over 200 motion picture credits. Shimura was featured by Kurosawa in more than twenty films: he played the Woodcutter in Rashomon (1950) and the central role of a dying bureaucrat in Ikiru (1952), earning himself a BAFTA nomination as Best Actor in a Foreign Film.

Takashi Shimura with Ishiro Honda while shooting (clockwise) GODZILLA (1954), THE MYSTERIANS (1957) and FRANKENSTEIN VS. BARAGON (1965); photos: ishirohonda[.]com.

In 1954 Shimura rode into pop culture history as the leader of The Seven Samurai. That very same year, he was the wise scientist Yamane in the original Godzilla. To make his monster-movie credentials complete, he appeared in several more atomic monster and sci fi films including GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN (1955), THE MYSTERIANS (1957), MOTHRA (1961), GORATH (1962), GHIDORAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER (1964), and FRANKENSTEIN VS. BARAGON (1965). No one can say that Shimura’s career lacked diversity.

My former boss, Roger Corman, had little to do with Japanese monster movies. But—as I detail in my updated biography, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires,Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers—he pounced on a Japanese special-effects flick, 1973’s The Submersion of Japan, and edited it into something Americans would watch. Part of the transformation involved a new name, which was tested in one of Roger’s infamous polls of high school students. The polling results were hardly a surprise. As Allan Arkush, then a film editor and now a successful TV director, told me, “Are you going to go see Tidal Wave or The Submersion of Japan? It’s not a contest.”

***

Beverly Gray served as Roger Corman’s story editor at both New World Pictures and Concorde-New Horizons, collaborating on 170 low-budget features. She is also a journalist and teaches screenwriting workshops through UCLA Extension. Her first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking (2000) was an LA Times bestseller. Her other published works include Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon...and Beyond, and two expanded versions of her Corman bio, which has been tastefully retitled Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires,Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. The latest edition, bringing Roger into the present day, is now available as both an ebook and a paperback. You can converse with Beverly online at Beverly In Movieland. This is the site of her twice-weekly blog, Beverly in Movieland, which covers movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent.

Monster Island Musings From Author Daniel XIII

 Jet Jaguar is the Greatest Toho Character EVER... Wait, Come Back!

By Daniel XIII

Let me get this right out of the way, I possess an opinion so unpopular among Godzilla fans I’m surprised that I haven’t been dragged to the town square and branded with a giant “G” on my cheek like some sort of kaiju lovin’ Hester Prynne (well I don’t “love” the kaiju quite like big H “loved” that priest, but you catch my drift). So, what is the heinous, unfathomable, dare I say traitorous, preference that your ol’ pal The Ouija Board Kid Daniel XIII harbors? Why it’s none other than the fact that I think Jet Jaguar is the single best character to ever have come from those mad geniuses at Toho (which was kinda given away by the title of this thing, but maybe you can pretend you didn’t read it or something).

And, there go 90% of Cool Ass Cinema’s readers…

Well, to the 5 of you that are either too drunk to click the little “X” that will close this blasphemous text or those that are staring at the soft glow of your monitor like slack jawed gawkers at the site of a particularly gnarly car wreck, let’s talk a little bit about why I think Double J is such a cool cat.

Simply put, Jet Jaguar encapsulates everything that films about giant creatures destroying cities (or dusty fields with one or two trees) should be, at least to me; colorful, surreal and filled with a child’s unrestricted design aesthetic. I simply don’t understand folks that aren’t immediately drawn to a premise like; giant cockroach/beetle released by a long lost undersea kingdom fights a giant lizard and a robot with a mile-wide shit eatin’ grin with the help of his cybernetic space bird friend with a buzz saw belly. C’mon, how does that not put a smile on your face? I know, I know…it’s not the grim, depressing tale of an H-bomb surrogate, orphan resultin’, slaverin’ super beast that the series started as (and for the record, I dig that iteration of Godzilla as well), but sometimes things just cry out to be smacked in the gob with the whiffle ball bat of ridiculous. And at the swirling, phantasmagoric, day-glow heart of the maelstrom of preposterous stands a primary hued sentinel of awesome with his shark-fin head raised high in pure defiance of logic, reason or (most importantly) adult sensibilities.

What child hasn’t dreamed of having someone in their lives that would provide to them a sense of over-whelming security? A true-blue, unwavering protector that could smash the monsters under the bed, hold them high on their shoulders, and make them feel like nothing in this cold world could ever cause them harm. Well, let me tell ya Jack, that is some “universal theme” material right there, and Godzilla vs. Megalon, the film in which Jet Jaguar appeared, hints pretty strongly that it’s young protagonist Rokuro doesn’t have the most stable of home lives. He appears to be under the guardianship of his uncle Goro (who may or may not be having a relationship with a cool race car driving dude named Hiroshi…although I can never tell if that was the producers intent or if that is just how things are viewed from an adult perspective, although this film contains very little in the way of a female presence save for those bizarre dancers in Seatopia, and some girly mag pin-ups tacked to the interior of a truck). Anyway, Goro creates a friend for Rokuro in the form of the super robot Jet Jaguar, and Jet Jaguar is everything that I postulated above; he appears nigh indestructible, he’s always available, and he’s always happy to be around Rokuro (due to that aforementioned sculpted rictus), things that parents cannot always be, but what most children would ideally love to experience. He also has a groovy-ass theme song that commands punching.

And while the screenwriters gave ol’ Jet the qualities of the super-father figure, his aesthetic design is pure childhood wonder as well, and the reason he hits those notes perfectly is that he was actually conceived by a child. As part of a competition to generate a new hero to capitalize on some of that sweet, sweet Ultraman cash, Toho decided to let the fan-base (i.e. some young kids) conceptualize their new hero. From the fiery ashes of that heated battle came the award winning creation of an elementary school student/design god/hit with the ladies (implied, but c’mon you know to this day he uses the ol’ “Want to see my magically growing robot?” line which has to be a real chick magnet) entitled Red Arone (though I’ve seen that spelled Red Alone as well…either way that name doesn’t really possess the Rock n’ Roll tanginess of what they eventually rechristened the ‘bot); a robot that was seemingly the result of putting Ultraman, Mazinger and a few Crayola crayons in a blender (though judging by the name perhaps only the red crayon was used originally…or maybe that “R” and “L” switcheroo happened here as well and the character’s name was actually Led Arone, which would make him metal as all hell…wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the kid creating Jet Jaguar…).

So with all of that taken into consideration, it’s easy to see why Jet Jaguar struck a chord not only with a young creep like myself, but with my entire coffin club o’ fiends n’ ghouls. And I’d wager, deep down in that coal-black, cynical lump of sarcastic spite you call a heart you dig Jet and his pals too, and hopefully someday you’ll be able to proclaim that admiration without fear of rebuttal from your fellow Godzilla fanatics! Or maybe you actually do hate him, either way you read this whole thing so I WIN! Now, someday if you’re lucky I’ll tell you why the Smog Monster is freakin’ killer as well!   

***

The self proclaimed Ouija Board Kid, Daniel XIII is the result of an arcane ritual involving a bowl of Count Chocula, stag films, and a stack of Son of Satan comics. Ol' XIII is a staff writer for both The Retroist and Photon City News, as well as the sexy and talented author of bat-shit crazy horror novella THE HOUSE OF THIRTEEN DOORS.

Monster Island Musings from Achillesgirl in Actionland

THE ADORABLE POWER OF DESTRUCTION

By Achillesgirl 

Not too long ago I was walking down a San Francisco street and saw a 1965 Datsun Bluebird.  It was in mint condition all the way down to the old fashioned license plate.  I felt an inexplicable surge of happiness but could not articulate it in any way so I just waved my hands around like an idiot for a while.  My companion, who knew I’m no car buff, was baffled.  I was finally able to blurt out, “It’s a Godzilla car!”

What we loved when we were children, we will always love.  An object can trigger the adult re-experience of that same simple, indiscriminate love.  Sudden remembrance can be a powerful feeling; that car almost set me to weeping because it evoked my childhood love for kaiju movies.

When I was a tiny scrapper in the late 1960′s I watched kaiju on TV.  In Los Angeles at that time local television stations aired many after-school dubbed Japanese shows like ”Johnny Socko”, “Kimba” and “Speed Racer”.  At night, between Bogart and Fred Astaire, I watched Godzilla and Gamera.  I watched them all thoughtlessly and with great emotion, as impressionistic children do.  When I grew up and VHS tapes became cheap quick-buys at the drug store, I bought and watched films like “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and “Gamera vs. Barugon”.  Again,  thoughtlessly and with great emotion.

I recently re-watched a bunch of kaiju flicks with the intent of writing some kind of critique for Cool Ass Cinema but I quickly realized that I am really only intrigued by the subjective emotions that make up the world-wide kaiju phenomenon.  While we all have our reasons for loving kaiju, and we express them in many different ways, I can actually only understand my own reasons.  I will try to explain my thoughts.

If asked, I would claim to be a “fan” but I have no interest in learning the names of monsters, actors, or directors.  I don’t want to acquire an understanding of the genre.  I don’t even care about the plot, which usually moves too slowly for my taste.  Yet I wax lyrical on the genre simply because I have a big goopy crush on Godzilla and Gamera, and I love the crap out of “the happy parts”.

“The happy parts” means Datsun Bluebirds falling off cliffs, tiny tanks firing sparkly-puff missiles, cardboard HQ control panels bleep-blooping, model boats wobbling across bathtub waves, and 60′s-stylish hysterical Japanese mobs running from collapsing balsa wood houses.  As if that isn’t adorable enough, there is a parade of colorful, texture-crazy rubber monsters with absurdly expressionless eyes all fighting and shrieking and smashing stuff – pylons, trees, hydraulic dams, banks, monorails, freeways, skyscrapers – just smashing every single thing they encounter.  So much adorable destruction!  I find the chaos irresistible.

Most of the films are quite stylish but the one I favor nowadays is “Destroy All Monsters” (1968).  The mise-en-scenes are excellent, the sets and costumes are kitsch-tastic, and there are lady-aliens, adorable miniatures, and tons of bitchin’ monsters.

I was just the kind of little girl who dreamed about wearing white gloves with a gold purse and high heels to a surprise beach-attack with her platonic alien guy friends.

The happy parts are totally awesome but I do demand something more from kaiju films. My emotional requirements for them have not matured since I was five and thus are pretty atavistic: no "bad monster" movies because they make me sad. I do not like the evil Godzilla. I cannot actually enjoy "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" (1956) because no matter how truly iconic this film is, there is just too much drama for my immature emotions. I do not want to see Godzilla represent the ghastly fear of atomic devastation, nor do I want to see the remarkable bravery and nobility of the Japanese survivors. I feel great discomfort when Godzilla is a metaphor for the horrors of war. I just need him to make me feel happy.  

This is the monster I need to see. And just for the record, I never had a crush on Nick Adams.

Godzilla’s transformation from soulless instrument of mass suffering to big goofy heroic friend in the later children’s kaiju films is, for me, a wonderful shift.  The happy-monster film was a miniature fairyland in which my young self escaped, and in which I still occasionally like to retreat.  In that happy world humans are kind, smart and beautiful and monsters are helpful friends; pain is toy-like and solutions are far removed from any kind of real-world danger.  In that world both monsters and children are intrinsically kind and brave.  And because they are virtuous, they are protected and loved.  They perform heroic deeds, don’t die, vanquish evil, save the world, and then bid a fond farewell to each other.  I felt a real sense of safety in that clean, upright, adorable 1960s Japan.

It's easy to do what's right when you're a one-dimensional hero. I probably had a crush on Akira Kubo when I was six.

Children’s kaiju films capitalize on one of children’s deepest desires:  No Parents.  In these movies parents have minimal presence and children are allowed an enormous amount of freedom.  The quirky inventor father finds nothing unnatural in expecting his child to help him build a world-saving machine.  And he totally understands his kid’s desire to befriend a giant monster.  Really, the kaiju film parent is not a parent at all; he is a relatively powerful companion and ally.  Is this not every child’s fantasy relationship with adults?  To be protected and treated with respect?  To be useful and valued?  To be free to explore and learn, and to save their friends and the world?   A dream worth striving toward.

I think that at the very same time that children identify with the fantasy lifestyle of that one lucky little parent-free boy who gets to hang out with a monster, they also identify with the monster.  I think kids love Godzilla not just because he is adorable but because he is also extremely powerful.  He is huge, free, spontaneous and self-actualized.  He may not be very smart but he doesn’t hesitate to act on his intuitive righteous impulses to protect his city, the kids, and their silly parents.  He can beat up and and kill his enemies without fear of punishment from a higher authority.  He IS the authority.  He can do a crazy amount of damage, even smash an entire city, and people don’t hate him for doing it.  They love him.  He is a hero.  He is a demi-god.

And let's face it, even when he was still evil, Godzilla was one adorable, goofy motherfucker.

As an adult viewer of kaiju films, I no longer identify with the child.  I am the monster.  That monster is something I am very deep-down afraid that I am, and at the same time he is who I want to be.  Some of us who have felt the effects of hard nurture on our nature can probably sympathize with bad monsters.  Human ignorance and cruelty – war, radiation, bombs, and science – mutated them into a huge, dangerous, horrible, aggressive beasts, and then very same assholes who created them ruthlessly exterminate them.  Ugh, such a tragedy.

King Ghidorah's magnificent beauty can't stop everybody from beating him to death.

Of course the idea of selfish, insensitive humans causing endless amounts of needless suffering for the innocent turtles and Tyrannosaurus Reges of the world is nothing new.  I don’t know how old the “Frankenstein” icon is but we have reincarnated him in storytelling fairly frequently, and we probably will do so until we can find the light and restore balance to our terrible world.  In almost all these stories Frankenstein, King Kong, Godzilla and other sad persecuted monsters are usually understood and accepted by only one (or two if they’re lucky) pure-hearted people.  That role, the solitary voice of righteousness and justice, is not surprisingly almost always filled by women or children.  They are there to tell us to come to our senses, and to remind us that compassion is the only truth.  Often these voices are too gentle and weak to protect the monster.  Just like real life.

Since I identify with the monster,  I kinda prefer a happy ending.  I want to see those big crazy bastards be happy heroes that people love and don’t want to exterminate.  In “Destroy All Monsters” the people of the world unite with the monsters to fight off enemies from outer space.  The message, however superficial, is one of unity.  Compassion and tolerance for monster-diversity triumphs over war, division, invasion and fear.  Everybody wins, except the evil aliens, who could just as easily be a viral epidemic.  And when the monsters’ hard work is done they return to graze the hills of their island in peace, just hanging out and being what they are: powerful, self-actualized, spontaneous, adorable demi-gods.  That symbolism is powerful and uplifting.  I sincerely wish the same ending for each and every one of us.

But all of this is fleeting.  In the end, my little feelings are a blink of the eye and they just don’t matter.  Impermanence is life.  A sense of this “floating world” is always present in kaiju films, and it makes them extra special to me.   I always feel a worshipful awe for the ephemeral nature of art when I see the kaiju genre’s countless incredible costumes and miniature models.

"Rodan" (1956)

Fans know about the enormous time, effort, and care that went into these creations.  Every single beautiful, skilled, detailed miniature set was made for the sole purpose of being smashed by some guy in a rubber suit so they could make one silly scene for one silly movie.

Like Tibetan sand paintings or champion sand castles on the beach, these sets are true labors of love that evoke the ethereal, fleeting nature of art and life.  The moment of their destruction expresses the duality of yin and yang; creation and destruction; life and death.  When I see these wonderful sets go down in flames and rubble, I feel all the joy and sadness of what I perceive as a truly magnificent act of devotion.  In the end, for me, the kaiju film’s deepest meaning can be found in their exuberant, joyful, adorable destruction.  It is the true beauty of chaos and the real meaning of love.

Or maybe this is.

I’m not sure.

***

Achillesgirl has been a fan and friend of Cool Ass Cinema for many years. She putts around on her FB page The Heroic Sisterhood: Ladies' Asian Action Cinema Appreciation Society and website Actionland, and she occasionally tweets. Hit her up anytime for free bad advice on dog training and color coordinating your wardrobe.

Link to FB page:  HEROIC SISTERHOOD: LADIES' ASIAN ACTION CINEMA APPRECIATION SOCIETY
Link to website:  ACTIONLAND

Link to twitter:  ACHILLESGIRL

Monster Island Musings from The Theater of Guts: Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974) review

THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS (NOSUTORADAMUSU NO DAIYOGEN) aka CATASTROPHE 1999 aka LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH 

Starring Tetsuro Tamba

Directed By Toshio Masuda

This film was met by undeserved negative publicity from The No Nukes Campaign and has gotten lost in the shuffle; it’s a vital and important film that should have a legit DVD release. It deserves more attention than the Western version of religious hysteria seen in propaganda films like The Day After and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. 

Hey, get this caterpillar off my lip!

A schoolteacher bares the brunt of Nostradamus' predictions of Japans fate in WW2 and is banished from his school. He hears how everything will be compromised after the arrival of the Black Ships in 19 century Edo period of Japan. 

The ominous score by Isa Tomita is very spooky and utilized to great effect over Hitler stock footage and war atrocities make the looming threat seem frighteningly realistic.

Hey, white people! Get off the road!

I remember being obsessed with The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981), strictly a propaganda documentary with Orson Welles in high school. This film is more ahead of its time and though it carries the same prophetic warning, there is less of 700 club fanatic religious connotation attached. The poster art for the 1981 film even copies the Japanese one.

Did you even try to call in General Smokey the Bear?

A biologist named Dr. Nishiyama (Tamba) and his son and new wife, Mariko and Nobuo, discuss how the air is more polluted then ever and animals all across the globe are dying of starvation (in 1974 this is still a relevant threat even today). Giant slugs make an appearance and are battled by waves of flame throwers (don't they know to drop a hail storm of salt and that would do the trick?) AF2, a food chemical agent is discussed over dinner that ties into the prophecy. The young couple and their unborn child, serves as a symbol of hope to battle the tides of war into the future.

I hope you like Guano flavored sushi.

At a U.N. seminar industrialization is blamed for destroying the eco system and overpopulation, which is something I agree with. Charles Lyell’s theory of Catastrophism is inevitable and sadly, we can’t control it. Signs that the natural order is breaking down continue with an old man wading into the sea, trying to commit suicide because the death of thousands of fish zap his will to live.

Even though this film is devastatingly bleak, the young Nishiyama couple remain optimistic. Toward the finale, there’s a spectacular interpretive dance among the sand dunes that nearly brought a tear to my eye! This film makes Fukasaku's Virus (1980) look like a laugh riot!

フリーバード (Free Bird)

Next on the chopping block are deformed babies infected by radiation just in case you weren’t miserable enough. Down at the hospital, parents clawing at him for empathy confront the doctor, but the physician is very stoic, he already knows that all hope is lost.

According to Patrick Macias' book Tokyo Scope, the scenes in New Guinea disturbed one uptight member of The No Nukes Campaign when he saw it at a Kansai theater enough to narc on the film to the censorship board.

Your Match.com profile doesn't do you justice.

In New Guinea the language switches to English. Nishiyama and a team of German scientists don HAZMAT suits and discover giant bats and bloodthirsty cannibals! The cannibals are immediately shot down; they carry hideous boils and sores on their faces. The jungle nightmare is a testament that they disease could spread to Tokyo in a Cannibal Apocalypse scenario of man-eating-man turning into a plague. Although not all the effects are negative as they show super speed children hopped up on Zinc tainted water, fly around and perform hard Math calculations.

Nishiyama debates with Christian businessmen, who believe a divine Biblical plan has taken effect. When he mentions they should reign in societies over abuse of resources, he is called a Nazi! Toward the end we see how this government sanctioned notion of share the wealth makes drugged out hippies go completely ape shit!

Retainers for peace against oppression.

This film is very ahead of its time and was unfairly banned by Japanese censors. Global starvation and food shortage between third world countries is an endless problem that is still relevant. It begins to snow in Egypt and erratic weather patterns start bombarding the Earth. They illustrate the global impact with submerged model cars and bridges (this is the goofiest part of the movie, but it's so brief it doesn't diminish anything).

Mime is running out, we're all doomed!

The youth is met with animosity by the onslaught of riot squads. Freeways turn into parking lots as the cars leave to avoid the food ration laws; their road rage causes a massive firestorm. The scenes with clownish hippies on a ship searching for sustenance are so far out of whack that it was hilarious!

Now we'll never make it to Emerald City.

In 1999 global nuclear missiles turn the planet into a garbage dump (all of this was seen in the Orson Welles film as well, only there was a middle eastern dictator at the reigns). People actually started to seek out that other film thinking they had predicted 911!

I auditioned for the role of Aughra and lost.

After the dust has settled, two ape-like creatures emerge from the ruins and wrestle each other over who gets to devour a snake; its totally hilarious, but it’s meant to be scary. They smooth over that bit of silliness with a passionate speech about the resilience of the human spirit, that I found very inspirational. The film makes a strong case against nuclear weapons, so why were the no nukes people upset? if anything they should've used this to frighten the public.

Seek out this film at all costs because it’s totally brilliant. Thanks to Cool Ass Cinema for sending me a copy.

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Crankenstein has written for his site The Theater of Guts for a few years now and has turned his obsession with rare gore films into a cathartic venture. My writing is inspired by Chas Balun, Deep Red Magazine, Classic Mad, Gore Gazette and Psychotronic Video.

Monster Island Musings: Genre Fan Bobby Shaddoe

The Enduring Appeal of the Kaiju Genre 

By Bobby Shaddoe

It is no secret that a new Godzilla film is set to be unleashed in theaters in the next few weeks. And with all promotional material indicating that this version has set its sights on wiping out all memory of Roland Emmerich’s unfortunate 1998 train wreck, no doubt a rare instance of Hollywood learning from its mistakes, it seems oddly appropriate to take some time to address the enduring appeal of the kaiju genre.

The various films and TV series Japan has released over the past 60 years or so that have featured giant monsters or giant heroes have appealed to our sense of wonder and horror, as well as our visceral love of watching monsters beat the hell out of each other.

Monster movies whether they are giant-sized or otherwise, emerged in the 1950’s as a direct result of the world entering the Atomic Age following the end of World War II. In that with this new weapon at our disposal comes a great responsibility to not allow that technology to be misused or abused. That tended to be the mindset of most these films, because we Americans created the bomb, and used it to win the war; we are the ones that understand that its power is not to be used lightly.

It wasn’t until 1954 that we got to see the flipside of that equation when Ishiro Honda brought us ‘Gojira’ or as we all know him, ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’. With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the minds of the Japanese at this point, it was only natural that Honda would craft a giant monster movie with the intent of putting a human face to the victims of the monster’s devastation.

Growing up in New Jersey, I remember spending most of my summer vacations watching Godzilla films and catching a few episodes of Ultraman, or Spectreman on Saturday mornings.

As a child, I was simply enraptured watching giant monsters do battle, I don’t know why but it was something that captured the imagination. As an adult, I look at the kaiju genre, and at the tokusatsu genre overall, with a greater appreciation for their enduring appeal and popularity.

Much like how the popularity of professional wrestling is very much akin to the spectacle of witnessing gladiatorial coliseum fights during the days of the Roman Empire, the giant monster battles in the kaiju genre also take on something of a mythic quality. While its easy to be dismissive of the idea when you consider that all you’re watching are sweaty men in rubber suits kicking the crap out of each other on a soundstage, surrounded by cardboard replicas, crushed toy models and Astroturf. But, despite all of that, there is a certain willing suspension of disbelief that can come into play, particularly if you’ve got the imagination that what you are witnessing is essentially a clash of the titans. You are bearing witness to the awesomeness of seeing two giants ripped out of the pages of myths and legends, doing battle to prove their ultimate supremacy, while we lowly mortals merely watch on as horrified spectators and the unfortunate victims of collateral damage.

One of the things that I find fascinating and intriguing about the kaiju genre is how the giant monsters are depicted like forces of nature. In that they are unpredictable and virtually unstoppable, can strike without rhyme or reason, and without morality or conscience. In some cases, these creatures strike and cause massive damage, destruction and death simply because they can.

On the other side of the equation, giant heroes like Ultraman, become the personification of the power of the gods themselves being brought to bear, in order to protect the innocent from needless harm.

1966 proved to be an interesting turning point for the kaiju genre when Ultraman made his debut. Unlike Godzilla and Gamera, who both started off as unstoppable forces of nature and eventually evolved into pop cultural anti-heroes, Ultraman was a pure force for good. The silver and red titan from the M78 Nebula, and his franchise brethren, descended from the heavens, not to impose his will on the world like a petty dictator, but to protect the world and its people like a guardian angel.

While many other giant heroes tended to be unique in their own right, they still followed many of the essential elements set down by the Ultraman franchise: alien from outer space poses as an ordinary human or possesses the body of an ordinary human, joins up with some governmental paramilitary investigative defense force, some type of threat in the form of a monster/alien doing something sinister, the defense force uses whatever means at their disposal to try and neutralize the threat, they fail, and so our hero has to sneak away a la Clark Kent/Superman, make the transformation, giant battle ensues, and our hero is victorious.

While Godzilla and Ultraman remain the top stars in the kaiju genre in Japan, the kaiju genre itself is still very much alive and its international and worldwide appeal remains just as relevant today. Two examples that come to mind are ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘Pacific Rim’. While ‘Cloverfield’ was essentially an overly hyped up entry in the ‘found footage’ genre, its significance is important due to JJ Abrams and Matt Reeves creating what was essentially ‘Godzilla from the 9/11 perspective’.

While some of the main characters weren’t completely likeable, the situation itself provided a certain uncomfortable and unsettling sense of reality, as it provided a first person perspective of what it must’ve been like to be in New York, near ground zero when the towers were destroyed.

Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ on the other hand, provides us with a glimpse of a world so changed by tragedy and destruction brought on by the monster attacks, no doubt as an allegory for how much our world has changed post- 9/11, as well as likeable characters striving to come together to overcome personal demons in order to create the necessary research and technology needed to combat this ongoing threat. It also helps that del Toro brought a sense of fun and entertainment that was severely lacking in ‘Cloverfield’.

But why do we still find ourselves drawn to this genre? What is the essential ingredient that allows these films and TV series the chance to be rediscovered again and again? Perhaps the essential element that provides the kaiju genre its enduring appeal can be summed up in a single line taken from the English dub version of ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’: ‘Maybe there is a little bit of Godzilla in all of us’.

While that line sounds ridiculous upon first hearing it, there is nonetheless some truth to it. Our own history tells us that mankind is just as capable of the same sort of death and devastation as any fictional giant monster. Perhaps these films, like many other films that contain excessive violence and destruction, are a form of therapeutic release? Sure the issue over whether violence in films causes violent behavior is an ongoing debate soaked in controversy, but we cannot deny that there are times when we wish we could vent our anger and frustration towards others in a very physical manner. And while we know doing so would achieve nothing except getting us locked up in Guantanamo Bay or somewhere equally horrifying, the feelings are still there nonetheless.

While Godzilla may represent the primal instincts and darker aspects of man’s nature, Ultraman without a doubt is the flipside to man’s nature. This involves our capacity for good, and an ability to really come together in a time of crisis, as well as the notion of a good-natured person utilizing the power of a god for pure altruistic reasons. Shows like Ultraman teach us that we as a species are so much more than our baser instincts, but only if we choose to rise above our darker aspects. Just as we are capable of committing acts of great evil, we are also just as capable of doing a lot more good.

I think that is why the genre remains popular today and why these films and TV shows continue to be rediscovered. People get a kick of out monster fights, they laugh at the cheesy English dubbing, the good and bad special effects and how they’ve evolved over the years, and also find something of themselves in either the human characters or the monsters themselves.

While its easy to dismiss the kaiju genre as just being pulpy, schlocky, B-grade sci-fi and action fluff, like all good sci-fi, there are times when it utilizes these fantastical elements in order to tell poignant stories that tackle very important and immediate cultural and societal concerns (i.e., war, nuclear disarmament, environmental catatstrophes, racism, etc.) as well as more personal stories (i.e., feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, etc.). Even the basic core theme running through the Ultraman franchise and other similar programs, is the idea of one man being gifted with the power of a titan, and like with any superhero with a dual identity, has to walk the fine line to balance the enormous responsibility that comes with the power they possess. The kaiju genre, when handled well, can be many things to many people. It can be fun, entertaining, silly, smart, dark and horrific.

Whether its smart, silly, thought-provoking or horrific, the kaiju genre is nothing less than fun and entertaining on every level. In the end, isn’t that what we want all films and TV shows to be?

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Bobby Shaddoe is the mysterious alter ego of Robert L. Torres, a life long fan of sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and various other things both strange and unusual. While Bobby Shaddoe considers himself a citizen of the universe (and a gentleman to boot), Mr. Torres currently resides in Hudson, FL with his lovely wife Pamela. When not hard at work as a caregiver for the developmentally and physically disabled, Robert enjoys reading, writing, the occasional cosplay, attending film festivals, and scouring the internet for films and TV shows not shown on American television.