DV: OK. Look, look, it’s Rodan. It looks real, but it’s not. Good thing, Rodan is already a bad guy, ‘cause he’s mean. Mr. Freeze is not in this movie.

HE: Look at their cool moonbase.

DV: Daddy, the moon is not made of cheese. Those aliens are making good monsters do bad things! I guess that’s Monster Island, where all the monsters are from. Tokyo is destroyed by 4 monsters! Too bad.

HE: Here comes the army with tanks to fight the monsters.

DV: Those look like toys. The humans don’t look like toys. Hey, the earth monsters are winning. Oh no, the aliens are mean!

HE: Burning UFOs give you so much more.

DV: Know what I mean about Mothra? It’s beautiful, it’s wings. But Mothra is not in here, I didn’t even see her. Oh, wait she’s in pupal stage; she hasn’t grown into a butterfly yet. What a rip.

HE: Yeah.

DV: Godzilla is a girl! She had a baby, Baby Godzilla! Spelled son, not sun. And the kid Godzilla has parents.

HE: Hmmm, I guess he did. Did you know that Godzilla’s son’s name is Kumonga?

DV: Hmmm. How come they are Japanese but they’re speaking English?

HE: Good question, Vincent. I think they translated it into English.

DV: Sometimes the Japanese people can learn English. Look at that fire monster, I wonder what that is. That UFO got blown up. Guess what? It exploded, and look at those strange rocks.

HE: I think those are the aliens.

DV: I don’t like them, especially the woman. She’s mean.

DV: What’s the name of the bird one? Don’t you know?

HE: Uh, Rodan, I think.

DV: Yeah, he’s cool, of course.

HE: This movie also has Godzilla, Manda, Varan, Ghidrah, Mothra, Baragon, Kumonga, and even monsters not many people know, like Anguillas and Minilla. Did you know that Eiji Tsuburaya is the genius behind the special effects in these movies? How do you think they made the monsters?

DV: I know they’re not real, Daddy. I think they’re puppets.

HE: Some might be, but some are men inside rubber suits.

DV: Midgets?

HE: No.

DV: Not midgets, just small people, like me.

HE: So what did you think about Destroy All Monsters?

DV: Let’s watch it again!

Dear gentle flock, this is my first review for the TRASH FILM ORGY Site. The word Orgy makes me feel so dirty, but excited as well. My name is Sister Mary Mind Suck. I would to begin my review by taking a quote from a wonderful song that my Sister in God, the singing Nun covers on one of her divinely inspired albums. “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”
I just finished watching a truly incredible film called the H-MAN. Made in 1959 and directed by none other than Inoshiro Honda, yes, the Japanese GOD-HEAD, who brought the world Godzilla. This is a totally different type of movie from his more famous monster movies. It makes a powerful statement about our impact on the earth and the dangers of radiation experiments and is highly charecter and story driven. I found it truly entertaining, and a definite must for those of you who may be wondering what happens in Japan, when they are not under attack from that loveable but destructive, large Fire-breathing ‘zilla. I was really impressed by the opening shot which shows actual H-bomb footage, that appears to be Japanese and not American, this is rarely seen, and therefore a great surprise. The gist of the story is that a ghost ship washes up into Tokyo Bay where out at sea it has come across a radioactive goo-like substance caused by an H-Bomb test conducted at one of the islands. this radioactive goo-with intelligence, of course needs people to absorb in order to survive and propagate, and causes anyone who comes into contact with it to dissolve into puddles of water and become more H-MEN, leaving only their clothes behind. The effects are really good, and are highly reminiscent of John Carpenter’s “The Fog”, which came out 20 years later. As for the Goo effects, they are as good as any you will find in Jim “Fucking King of the World” Cameron’s mess, “The Abyss”.

It is dubbed, but in that fabulous Japanese way, where the voices never sound like what should actually be coming out of the actors’ mouths especially during the song and dance numbers. YES! I said song and dance numbers.
So back to what they do in Japan in 1959, for one thing they spend a lot of time in Cabarets, which feature bikini-clad Japanese favor girls, doing their best Ann-Margaret dance moves. Truly hilarious. Of course no monster movie would be complete without our damsel in distress, Chitako who is the star of the cabaret show and dazzles us with her Julie London -like, singing voice. The story centers around her missing boyfriend Misaki. A hoodlum drug dealer in Tokyo, who mysteriously dissapears after going down into the sewers to collect his heroin. The cops think he is in hiding and do everything in their power to find him. Which mainly consists of following poor Chitako day and night, and interrogating her endlessly. Adding to poor Chitako’s problems are the drug lords who are also after Misaki. Her only friend in the world appears to be Dr. Masada, who has figured out the secret of the H-Man, and tries to convince the police to believe him. Which of course they do not. UNTIL IT IS ALMOST TOO LATE. Insert scream here, and picture tens of Japanese fleeing Tokyo.
This movie borrows a lot from the American sci-fi movies, of the same time period. One will definitely see resemblences to “The Blob and the original “The Thing” and the overall message is completely taken from the message in the classic “The day the earth stood still” However there are some truly great Japanisms, in this movie. One stand out is the fact that all the police officers remove their shoes before entering the home of their missing drug dealer suspect. I found that very amusing. Also to look as hip as possible everybody smokes. OH, the good old days…Makes me hearken back to a better more gentle time, when radioactive goo, washed into Tokyo Bay. As for the musical score of the film, for some reason they opted not for any sort of SCI-FI, sounding music, but rather for a marching band type of score. This surprised me, but in a fun sort of John Phillip Souza, disaster march way.
I really liked the way that the scientists not the cops are the heroes of this film and the girl ends up with the egghead in the end. It is also worth mentioning that there is more than one story at work here, one dealing with pretty vicious drug-lords and the H-man, problem. The writer of the movie, Takeshi Kimura, does a great job of interweaving the tales. It is also very important to mention that there are some wonderful scenes involving frog experimentation, not to be missed.
From the James Cagney impression of one of the cops’ dubbed over voices to fact that the scientists use geiger-counters to check for radioactivity, while not wearing any other protective gear, the bikini dance numbers and glowing green goo-men walking the sewers, I would have to say that “The H-MAN”, rates 4 out of 5 praying hands.
If you get a chance to watch this movie, by all means do so. It well worth adding to any true Japanese Sci-fi lover’s, movie collection.
Until Next Time, Gentle Flock, this is Sister Mary-Mind-Suck.

Set in post-WWII Japan, the movie opens with the sinking of ships. The Coast Guard is baffled, especially as ship after ship are lost. The crowds of concerned people grow more frantic. One thing I love about Japanese films is how serene things are and then suddenly it’s complete emotional chaos! Screaming and people running riot.

So, after the attacks come to a seaside village, killing a number of people and livestock, destroying buildings, the Parliament decides to send out a team of scientists, led by Dr. Kyohei Tamane (played by Takashi Shimura) to investigate. They discover radioactive footprints, and trilobytes, a supposedly extinct crustacean, in the footprints. Oh yeah, they also see and photograph Gojira. From this they conclude that Godzilla, as he was known to American audiences, had received massive doses of radiation from American H-bomb tests, and somehow survived. The Parliament decides that she must be destroyed.

In the meantime, there’s a love triangle between Emiko, the professor’s daughter, Hideto, and Serizawa, a rival scientist, and Emiko’s fiancee. Emiko doesn’t love Serizawa, but feels some sense of duty to him, having been his betrothed basically since childhood. Well Hideto would like to just tell him to pound sand, but Emiko convinces him to let her handle it.

The reporter, played by Sachio Sakai, has heard rumors that Serizawa is working on some sort of super weapon that may be able to defeat Godzilla, so he convinces Emiko to introduce him to the scientist. That happens but it doesn’t go very well for him. Sigh, perhaps there are too many manners going on for everyone’s good.

After the reporter leaves, Emiko stays behind to break off the engagement, but before she has a chance to do that, Serizawa shows her his new technology – the Oxygen Destroyer! She screams and faints, seeing it kill a bunch of fish in a tank. He promises her to secrecy, which at first she has not trouble keeping, understanding the dangers.

But, after a particularly gruesome attack by Godzilla, who is an actor in a rubber suit, in direct opposition to what the American monster makers were doing with stop-frame animation, Emiko decides that she can’t keep the secret any longer and breaks her promise. There is a lot of screen time taken with this scene, emphasizing its importance to Japanese culture – that of honoring one’s word. Something we could use a bit more of here in America.

Well, Gojira has great special effects, using miniatures and a giant tank of water to create some really spectacular effects. Of course, you all have seen the American version, so you know about that stuff already.

Anyway, Serizawa is pissed off about the betrayal and refuses to allow the Oxygen Destroyer to be used, but they eventually convince him that it has to be done for the greater good. An expeditionary force is created and goes out to Tokyo Harbor, where Serizawa and Hideto don diving suits and take this new terror down to the watery depths, where they hope to detonate it, destroying Godzilla. They succeed, but Serizawa sacrifices himself to ensure that the terrible weapon cannot be created again (he had previously destroyed his notes).

Gojira is a cautionary tale that could only be told by Japanese filmmakers, as Japan is the only country that has had atomic weapons used against it, and they know first-hand the terrible cost.

If you get a chance to see it on the big screen, I cannot recommend it enough – the original score by Akira Ifukube is simply wonderful, and the camera work is fantastic. In later Toho productions, much less emphasis is placed on trying to hide the fact that Godzilla is a man in a rubber suit, instead focusing on over-the-top special effects. That campy aspect to later Godzilla movies is great, too, but the suspension of disbelief is much easier to do in the original.