King Kong Escapes (1967)

Before I settled on Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, the movie I had considered as a Christmas review was King Kong Escapes. I had been considering making a tradition of reviewing non-Christmas Rankin & Bass films--especially those involving giant monsters. After all, The Last Dinosaur was my Christmas review in 2013. The only problem was that, well, after this film (which Rankin & Bass co-produced with Toho studios, more on that in a bit) the only other film that fits that criteria is The Bermuda Depths. And unlike this film and The Last Dinosaur, it doesn't have lengthy sequences set in the Arctic.

However, while I decided to put the film aside for another time, something happened that made me decide to go ahead and review it as soon as I was able: on December 26th, 2014, Rhodes Reason passed away.

Who was Rhodes Reason, you ask? Well, aside from being a prolific character actor--including playing a Space Roman gladiator in an episode of Star Trek--he was the token gaijin "hero" of King Kong Escapes. And yes, I did mean the sarcasti-quote marks.

There's also the fact that this film sort of fits with the theme of Checkpoint Telstar's "Month of AlloSundays." There isn't a true Allosaurus in it, but there sort of is one. But then, I'm not posting this on a Sunday.

We begin with a United Nations submarine tooling along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, purportedly on an oil prospecting mission. On board, we are introduced to Lt. Susan Watson (Linda Miller, whose voice has been dubbed over by a banshee with a sore throat), the ship's nurse. She gains some likability points by responding to a leering sailor's comments about wishing he was running a fever with a threat of dosing him with castor oil. She says it playfully, sure, but I choose to believe she fully intends to make the guy vomit his guts out if he doesn't behave himself.

Watson is, of course, bringing drinks to the Captain's Cabin. Inside, the skipper, Commander Carl Nelson (the late Rhodes reason) is showing off some maps and drawings of gorillas to his first mate, Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada!). Watson commets that she doesn't get their obsession with gorillas. "I think they're dull," she weirdly observes. Nomura smirks and replies, "Well this one's sixty feet tall. What do you think of him?"

Left to right: Jiro "The Actual Hero" Nomura, Susan "Fay Wray" Watson, and Carl "Designated Hero" Nelson.

You see, Cmdr. Nelson is a bit obsessed with the legend of a giant gorilla called "Kong," who is supposed to live on one of the islands in the chain they're currently surveying. That island is Mondo. Yes, Mondo. I suspect it is next to Hepcat Reef and Daddio Trench. However, as much as Nelson wants to go look at Mondo and hunt a giant gorilla, it's not part of the mission. So he'll have to amuse himself with drawings of Kong and photos of giant steps on a nearby island that clearly were meant for something much larger than a human to use. (Forget about the steps, they won't come up again)

Someone else has something more useful in mind for those drawings of Kong that Nelson has. Somewhere in the Arctic, at a secret base, the fiendish Dr. Who (Eisei Amamoto!) has somehow obtained copies of those drawings and used them as the basis for a gigantic robot gorilla: Mechani-Kong!

Now, you might think that just having a giant robot gorilla is a goal in and of itself. I mean, that's freaking awesome, right? But no, Dr. Who--no, not that Doctor Who--has built Mechani-Kong for a specific purpose. See, Dr. Who's extravagant services have been hired by one Madame Piranha* (Mie Hama!), the representative of an unnamed country with designs on becoming a global superpower--who will later refer to herself as, "Your typical Oriental mata-hari," to my Korean girlfriend's eternal delight.

[*Madame Piranha is just "Madame X" in the English version, but "Madame Piranha" is a way  cooler name so I'm using it]

Keep your Timelords, this is the only Dr. Who that matters to me!

Oh, and a brief aside for anyone who insists on referring to the villain as "Dr. Hu" as an attempt to differentiate him from the even then popular British sci-fi character: you're wrong. The character originated in the cartoon where he was a short, bald-headed white guy named Dr. Who. I have no idea if the name was a coincidence or deliberate (and bizarre) rip-off, but the name is the same.

Yeah, I'll still stick with the Japanese Dr. Who.

Anyways, Madame Piranha has come to Dr. Who's base to oversee his operations, but it's not the robot she wants. See, Dr. Who built the robot to mine the mysterious Element X, which is a very rare and powerful element that can be found in hugely rich veins all around the location of his base. Trouble is, Element X's massive power is a result of it being so radioactive as to be immediately lethal to any human mining crew. However, a giant robot gorilla with a grenade belt (!) should have no problem digging it out. And so, under Piranha's watchful gaze, Dr. Who sends Mechani-Kong out on its maidenvoyage to dig up Element X.

Trouble is, Dr. Who didn't take into account the magnetic properties of Element X. So the instant Mechani-Kong uncovers the stuff, the robot slumps over uselessly. A hugely embarrassed Dr. Who swears to an unimpressed Piranha that he will find a way to get her the Element X she so desires.

And don't ask me how Dr. Who retrieves Mechani-Kong from the dig site, but he'll later have the robot back to full function and it's clearly not just a duplicate of the original.

Meanwhile, things also go "wrong" for Cmdr. Nelson when an underwater rockslide smashes the propellor of the submarine. The sub conveniently must anchor in the bay of Mondo Island for repairs, so naturally Nelson seizes the opportunity to go ashore and explore Mondo--and he brings Nomura and Watson along with him in the sub's groovy hovercar.

Strangely, after they park the car, Nelson observes that the island seems deserted in a way that implies he has been to the island before. This may be a line that was messed up in translation because nothing before or after suggests this, as we shall soon see. There is, however, one elderly islander (Ikio Sawamura, who can be seen playing virtually any old man character in an Ishiro Honda film) who shouts a warning at them from afar that they are trespassing in the domain of Kong. Nelson, who stragely understands the native's language, catches the word "Wong" being used as a prefix to "Kong." Apparently, "Wong" means "King."

Honestly, it's hard to say if "King Kong" or 'Wong Kong" sounds sillier.

The islander then disappears from view, but Nelson wants to chase after him. So Nomura agrees to follow him--carrying their only rifle--and they tell Watson to wait by the car. "You'll be safer here," Nomura tells her.

I really hope that at some point later on, off screen, Watson beat both of them over the head with a thick and heavy book because the second they leave, a hungry Gorosaurus shows up.

Gorosaurus is what I was referring to when I said the film sort of features an Allosaurus. Athough the dinosaur is not named in this film--he gets his name in Destroy All Monsters--this is his debut. He's one of my favorite monsters in the Godzilla lexicon, even though he is basically nothing but an Allosaurus crossed with a T-Rex and Ray Milland, and then blown up to 60 feet tall. For one, I love his design--which is easily the greatest use of a guy in a suit as a dinosaur prior to the non-CGI Raptors in Jurassic Park--and his personality is way cooler than you would ever expect from a dinosaur designed as "T-Rex stand-in."

The majestic Ray Millandosaurus.

Gorosaurus spies Watson and promptly zeroes in for the kill. Watson's screams alert Nelson and Nomura, but they also wake up something in a nearby cave. The mighty Ko--oh my God.

*deep breath*

Eiji Tsuburaya's first attempt at a King Kong suit in King Kong vs. Godzilla is rather notorious for being terrible. Its fur is the wrong color, it looks rather like it was stored in a damp basement for a few years, it's shaped nothing like a gorilla (even when they sometimes give it "arm extensions"), and its face is stuff and inexpressive. It's overall a terrible gorilla suit, even compared to what Hollywood was using at the time.

This suit is worse.

Oh, it actually has the right proportions--more or less--and it is closer to the actual fur color of a gorilla, but everything else is worse. Words can't even fully describe its goofiness.

"Ha! That's great. Now, seriously, guys, where's the Kong suit?"

At any rate, the goofy Kong makes his way to the clearing where Watson is being menaced by Gorosaurus. In case you hadn't figured it out, you're about to be treated to a baltant recreation of one of film's greatest special effects sequences--the Kong vs. T-Rex fight from the original King Kong. It's...somewhat less impressive than the original.

"Ow! Bad dinosaur! BAD!"

Kong picks up Watson, gives her the ol' Fay Wray eyes and then puts her in the crook of a nearby tree for safety while he challenges Gorosaurus--and promptly gets walloped by Gorosaurus's trademark kangaroo kick, which is really the only thing that keeps this sequence from being only a pale imitation of the real deal. Kong is resilient, though, and ultimately pounds his saurian foe into submission. Kong then takes Watson from the tree to make affectionate faces at her--and the puppet for expressive close-ups may actually be worse than the suit--while Watson tells him to put her down via repeating herself slowly like a typical white American trying to communicate with a speaker of another language and "sign language."

Somehow this works and she runs off to rejoin Nelson and Nomura. Kong objects, but since Gorosaurus is not dead he has to pause his pursuit to break the dinosaur's jaw--which causes Gorosaurus to vomit up soap bubbles instead of, you know, blood. Meanwhile, the three heroes find their hovercar waylaid by a silly sea serpent. Kong luckily arrives to throw a rock at its head--which somehow only annoys it--and then proceed to wrestle with it.

"It's okay, I saw Bela Lugosi do this once."

The three make it to the sub, but then Kong--having extricated himself from the serpent's coils--begins shaking the sub violently in the hopes of somehow dislodging Watson. Knowing she's the only one who can stop the sub from being torn apart, Watson goes topside to reason with Kong. Kong, naturally, tries to carry her off. However, he remarkably takes the hint when she jumps out of his hand and returns her to the sub before forlornly returning to his home. Presumably he's going to put on his giant fedora and go rant on Men's Rights message boards.

Nelson wastes no time in forgetting his actual mission and returning to the United Nations Building in New York to rave to a bunch of reporters about how awesome Mondo Island is and how Kong totally exists. His goal is to get another expedition to Mondo funded. One of the reporters is actually Madame Piranha and she has a radio link to Dr. Who. After Nelson explains how Watson was able to soothe and almost commuicate with Kong, Piranha seaks away to tell Dr. Who that Watson is the key to controlling Kong.

See, Dr. Who has decided that the best way to save face after the failure of his Kong robot is to kindap the real Kong and make him dig out Element X. How Dr. Who can be certain the radiation wouldn't be just as lethal to Kong as any other animal is never addressed, but we can safely assume the answer is "he's a giant monster."

So, Dr. Who's ships and helicopters arrive at Mondon Island ahead of Nelson's new expedition. Kong is knocked out with ether bombs and chained up to the helicopters. The islander runs up to Dr. Who and his landing party to protest, but in the greatest part of the film Dr. Who just responds, "Yes, Kong's mine now," before pulling a gun and casually putting three bullets into the islander, and then turning back to the task of wrangling Kong. So Kong is airlifted off the island and secured in the cargo hold of one of Dr. Who's ships.

Thus, the island is bereft of Kong when Nelson's expedition arrives. There's evidence of the capture, but that means very little. Well, until Watson fnds the dying islander. The man tells Nelson what he saw before expiring, and Nelson explains to Watson and Nomura that he said "an Oriental skeleton, with eyes like a gutter rat" took Kong away. (No, I have no idea why the islander would have a concept of "Oriental" or "gutter rat", but maybe Nelson is paraphrasing) At any rate, Nelson knows exactly who is responsble: "My old friend, that International Judas: Doctor Who."

My girlfriend, around this point, suggested that Nelson and Dr. Who are rivals because they're ex-lovers. I gotta say, it checks out--and makes the movie more entertaining.

On their way back to the UN, a sea plane approaches the sub and advises that they have orders to take Nelson, Nomura, and Watson to Tokyo. Of course, the plane is actually staffed by Dr. Who's henchmen--and Nomura picks up on the fact that they're not Japanese first, but the trio decides to see where this is leading. The answer, of course, being to the Arctic.

There, we discover Dr. Who has hypnotized Kong and fitted him with a headset so that Kong can be monitored and receive orders at the same time. He kidnapped Nelson, Watson, and Nomura as insurance--seeing as how Watson has sch value to Kong and they're the only living King Kong experts. Such as they are. Bet he's wishing he hadn't killed the guy who spent decades of his life on the same island as Kong, huh?

Kong is sent to work, and seems to be making far more progress in digging out Element X than MechaniKong. Dr. Who's gamble seems to be paying off at first since clearly Kong is immune to the radiation that Elerment X gives off...but it turns out that the hypnotism Dr. Who employs is not. So Kong snaps out of it, throws off the headset and charges back down the tunnel to the base--with the uge metal door slamming shut to trap him in the tunnel ony just in time. Well, now Dr. Who really needs Watson's help, but naturally none of our heroes wants to help him.

So Dr. Who locks Nomura and Watson in a freezing cell and then plays chess with Nelson. Here's our first instance of Nelson being a worthless hero while Nomura tries valiantly to keep Watson from freezing to death. Oh, and when Dr. Who is called away, Nelson is summoned to Piranha's quarters and begins putting the moves on her over drinks. You know, while his subordinates are freezing to death. He does, eventually, get Watson and Nomura out of the cell, but he sure took his time about it.

Of course, Dr. Who finds himself in a bit of a jam when Kong finally tears apart the huge steel door and then digs himself out of the tunnel and goes bounding off into the Arctic wilderness. Dr. Who sends MechaniKong after the real deal, but Dr. Who not only forgot to shield the robot's "brain" with lead, but neglected to make its body watertight. So when Kong dives into the freezing Arctic waters and swims for it, his robot duplicate can't follow.

Dr. Who barges into Madame Piranha's quarters, completely unbothered by the fact that all of his prisoners are calmly hanging out in there with her unrestrained. He just wants his captives to tell him how strong a swimmer Kong is. Somehow Nomura and Nelson both know that Kong regularly swims back and forth between islands in the same chain as Mondo-even though there is no way they could know that--so Dr. Who knows for certain that Kong will escape this time. Hey, the title didn't lie!

Dr. Who locks his prisoners up again for the journey to follow Kong, who has--naturally--made a beeline for Tokyo. Dr. Who intends to send MechaniKong into the cty to subdue Kong, and he doesn't care about any collateral damage. However, Madame Piranha is not so ruthless as her business partner. Not only would having her country's involvement in the destruction of major city cause an international incident that they can scarce afford to handle without Element X backing them up, but she just doesn't want to see millions get killed by the battle beween two 60-foot monsters in the middle of a crowded city.

So Piranha lets Nomura, Watson, and Nelson escape to warn the authorities and hopefully get Kong under control before the beast causes any damage or gets killed. Unfortunately, our heroes arrive in Tokyo only slightly ahead of Dr. Who. Nelson and Nomura convince the Japanese Defense Force not to attack Kong and Watson calms the beast, but then MechaniKong smashes through a building--intent on reclaiming Kong via the same hypnotic device Dr. Who used before, now installed on its head. Nomura uses a rifle to take out the hypnotic device, but MechaniKong just grabs Watson and now the battle is on.

Not this battle, sadly, but almost as awesome.

I've spoken of King Kong Escapes previously, in my review of Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. The film started life as a result of a deal Rankin & Bass struck to produce a King Kong cartoon, provided they also produced a eature film along with it. Rankin & Bass turned to Toho, knowing they could produce a feature film for a lower cost than most Amerian studios--and also possibly the fact Toho had already bought the rights to Kong in order to make King Kong vs. Godzilla probably made rights negotiations easier.

I'm going to guess the script Toho first sowed to Rankin & Bass that wuld become Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster probably was actually one they'd been kicking around prior to the partnership. I mean, it's hard to believe Toho had zero plans to reuse Kong after the amount of money they dropped for his rights. The appearance of Mothra in the screenplay and Kong gaining strength from electricity both point towards the film being a sequel to King Kong vs. Godzilla instead of a stand-alone feature.

Regardless, I'm thankful that Rankin & Bass refused the script and it became a Godzilla vehicle instead because that means we got two awesome movies instead of one.

King Kong Escapes is a delightful film, indeed. It's aimed at a younger audience, but doesn't adopt a condescending attitude like many kids' films. Watching it as an adult is therefore not a chore, unless you're some kind of monster who dislikes guys in rubber suits beating on each other on miniature sets. Of course, while the film is perfect for a young audience in most respects, parents should be cautioned: while the defeat of Gorosaurus is completely bloodless (unlike its inspiration), both Madame Piranha and Dr. Who meet violent, bloody ends. Usually creature violence is considered less horrifying than human violence, but this film is quite the opposite. There's no Disney-esque move of chucking the villain off a cliff: Dr. Who dies pinned beneath heavy machinery, coughing up blood, and then is drowned by a few thousand gallons of sea water.

Aside from that, there's really nothing beyond a bit of typical late 60s chauvinism to make it unsuitable for kids. Well, that and the bizarre bit of racism that has Nomura doing all the actual heroics and sets up a relationship between him and Watson, only for Watson to run to Nelson's arms at the end! Nelson has more chemistry with Dr. Who than he does with Watson, but I'm guessing someone was afraid that American audiences would be furious at a Japanese man being involved with a white woman. (The inverse would, naturally, not have been a big deal at all--for reasons of racist logic that I won't rant about here) Of course, this being a kaiju film we are spared them kissing*, so feel free to interpret the embrace as Watson receiving comfort from a father figure, while she really loves Nomura.

[*For some reason, perhaps a cultural one, kaiju eiga never have any kissing in them that I've seen, no matter how heavily a romance is implied between two characters. The only exception that I know of being Invasion of Astro-Monster, where we briefly see Nick Adams and Kumi Mizuno kissing. (Which proves my other point above, sort of) This is why it amuses me that people interpret the ending of Pacific Rim as Mako and Raleigh not being romantically involved. By kaiju eiga tradition, they were practically necking]

"Enough about the human characters," you say, "what about the monster action?" Well, as I've said the King Kong suit is the worst ape suit Toho ever produced and the sea serpent, while well crafted, is so obviously inanimate that poor Haruo Nakajima (who else?) in the Kong suit is forced to wrap it around himself in order to "fight" it. However, MechaniKong is the second most awesome mechanical doppelganger that Toho would deliver in the Showa era--and Gorosaurus is by far the best man in a suit therapod put to film, in my opinion. The fight scenes are also well-choreographed. The Gorosaurus fight could easily have been nothing but a sad recreation of the original Kong vs. T-Rex fight, but the addition of Gorosaurus's kangaroo kick gives it a bit more life.

The real standout, though, is the final fight in Tokyo. Rather than the expected wrestling match, it becomes an odd game of "King of the Hill" as MechaniKong climbs up Tokyo Tower with Watson in one hand while Kong gives pursuit. The Tokyo Tower "miniature" (I say because clearly it's a massive set, only small by comparison to the real thing) is wonderfully built and the fight is actually pretty suspenseful.

I also appreciate that the relationship between Kong and Watson is more one of friendship and admiration than the traditional ape lust. Aside from Nelson's casually sexist joke about Kong being tamed by her because she's a looker, there's never really a hint that the ape thinks of her as anything but a tiny pet.

In the end, King Kong Escapes is exactly what it sets out to be: a fun matinee flick. It's not deep, nor is it an enduring classic like original King Kong. However, it's a far better "remake" than either the Dino de Laurentiis or even Peter Jackson attempts. After all, it actually remembers the dinosaurs and it's not 3 hours long.

Also, it has Doctor Who: International Judas.

And if he ever met the other Doctor Who, he'd become That Intergalactic Judas.

What's this?  A special guest to deliver one last closing comment? Well, I guess this is still close enough to count for AlloSunday.

I say, Doctor Who in the Arctic? I'm prepared!

Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla (1994)

Yes, I'm still here. Between the level of effort that had to go into Hubrisween and the general demands of being a father to a 6-month old, I haven't really had time to complete a review. However, I knew I couldn't let two important events pass me by:

1. It's Christmas, and I needed to review a movie that is both perfectly suited to a Christmas review and wholly unrelated. A movie about a giant crystal space monster visiting Earth? Totally qualifies!

2. Koichi Kawakita passed away on December 5th, 2014.Therefore, it behooves me to honor him.

Now, I'd like to think most of you reading my reviews already know who Kawakita is. However, I've also seen the search keywords that bring you here, from "sexy T-Rex gore vore" to "giant tadpole crushes man in arena" and the superbly baffling "go to hell terrorist write on hand," so I know at least some of you have no idea what I'm talking about.

(Oh, but if you ever find out what movie contains a giant tadpole crushing a guy in an arena, please let me know. That sounds like a fun time)

Koichi Kawakita was the special effects director for the Godzilla series from 1989 until 1995 (not counting the first two Rebirth of Mothra films, which we will get to soon enough), basically for all but one of the films officially called the Heisei series. He brought us one of the best Godzilla designs in the series in Godzilla vs. Biollante and got the honor of being responsible for rendering Godzilla's death in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.

Kawakita is in the center, there.

Kawakita's legacy is a bit of a mixed bag, like most special effects artists. He brought the series some of its best effects in Godzilla vs. Biollante, but Godzilla vs. Destoroyah ended his tenure as effects director with some of the worst. He introduced some of the best new creatures the series had ever seen, a Godzilla offspring that actually looks like Godzilla, and imparted a real sense of mass into all the kaiju in the series--but he was also infamous for going so far overboard on beam attacks that many of his films were more like kaiju shootouts than brawls.

And today's film is often touted as the low point of his time in the series. Ask Godzilla fans which films they consider the worst, and today's film will often come near the top of the list.

I utterly reject that notion.

Like Cinemasochist Apocalypse and El Santo, I'm actually quite fond of the film. Why? Well, let's find out!

Somewhere in space, something glowy and crystalline is roaring through the void. The as-yet unknown creature fires off three crystal spheres, zooming away from it at a frightening speed--and slamming into Earth, at an island whose name is either Birth, Burse, or Bass Island depending on which subtitle, dub, or bad English dialogue you're listening to. The name is unimportant. What is important is that the island is next door to where Godzilla is having himself an underwater nap. So, thanks to stock footage from Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth, Godzilla wakes up good and cranky thanks to yet another damn meteorite landing on his head.

Meanwhile, the UNGCC (United Nations Godzilla Countermeasure Center) is working on their new super-robot, Moguera--an acronym for Mobile Operation Godzilla Expert Aero-type, the "U" is supposed to be "Universal" but it was only added in after Toho decided to officially Romanize the robot's name as "Moguera" instead of "Mogera," which is how it appears in the film. Now, Moguera actually is a character that had appeared before, as an instrument of alien destruction in Toho's 1957 film, The Mysterians. Here it's been given a new origin and, as hard as it will soon be to believe, been given a significant upgrade in the badassness department.

At least this Moguera isn't taken out by a falling satellite dish,

"Yeah, come at me, satellite dishes. I've been working out!"

It still looks pretty goofy, though. Even minus the spinning antennae on its head.

At any rate, Moguera is not only armed to the teeth with the usual missiles and laser beams, but it can split into two vehicles: Land Moguera (a tank with a giant drill, made from the top half) and Star Falcon (a flying vessel, made from the bottom half). If you're looking for a cheap laugh, note that the Star Falcon's cockpit folds out from what is basically Moguera's codpiece.

While Minister Takayuki Segawa (Kenji Sahara!) is busy grinning over Moguera and getting thumbs up from token white guys at the Moguera launch base, another project is underway. We'll quickly learn this Project T, as in T for Telepathy, and it is headed by Professor Chinatsu Gondo (Towako Yoshikawa) and Doctor Susumu Okubo (Yosuke Saito). All they are missing for their project is the right psychic, so who would you expect them to turn to except Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka, reprising the role for the fifth time and wearing a pretty cute bob this time instead of her usual ponytail).

"I'm the protagonist this time!"

When the two come to her at the ESP Institute, Miki isn't sure she wants to help. After all, she's spent the previous four films getting to know Godzilla and doesn't feel he should be controlled like a puppet. Of course, as Gondo points out, would Miki prefer Project Moguera insead, which seeks to kill Godzilla? (Good luck with that) Okubo, who is much more direct, says that they'll just have to recruit one of Miki's pupils instead. Miki finds that far more objectionable, as none of them are as advanced as she is and trying to pit their telepathy against Godzilla's mental will could kill them.

Miki takes a walk to think things over and two things happen. First, she sees a vision of Mothra flying through space--where she went at the end of Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth to save Earth from an oncoming asteroid that would obliterate it in 1999--with little Mothras flying off of her. (The implications of this will become clear later) The second is that the Mothra symbol earrings she wears begin to glow and she is visited by Fairy Mothra, a psychic projection of Mothra, that then changes into the image of The Cosmos (the "twin" fairies, Sayako Osawa and Keiko Imamura reprising their role from the 1992 film). The Cosmos warn Miki that a horrible space monster is heading toward Earth and it wants to kill Godzilla, and that would be a very bad thing since Godzilla is the only thing that can stop the beast from destroying Earth.

Gee, bet Mothra wishes she hadn't gotten Battra killed now, huh?

With a plea to Miki to help Godzilla save the Earth, The Cosmos vanish. Gondo and Okubo walk up, and Miki now eagerly accepts the chance to help. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Koji Shinjo (Jun Hashizume) and Lieutenant Kiyoshi Sato (Zenkichi Yoneyama) of G-Force have been dropped off on Birth Island. They're supposed to be there to assist Major Akira Yuki (Akira Emoto) with preparations for Project T, but his welcome to them is to stab Sato in the neck in order to save the man from a lethal local variety of big damn spider. (Okay, so the poor spider that gets to take a knife through the cephalothorax appears to be a variety of tarantula, so it's more a big darn spider) Also, Shinjo noticed his compass going haywire and both he and Sato observed the huge, mysterious crystal structures left by the space monster before the spider incident--but they seem to promptly forget about them immediately after.

Yuki may be a big grump, but for some reason that is lost on Little Godzilla, who follows yuki around like a 30-meter puppy. The cute, well-designed Baby Godzilla from the previous film has grown into his toddler stage, which makes him look like one of those "Chibi" or "Super-Deformed" Godzilla toys come to life. It's a design that, like Minilla in the Showa films, is not unjustifiably reviled for being an attempt at creating something sickeningly cute. However, he actually is kind of cute and I've found that the older I get the less I mind his design. I still much prefer the more dinosaurish Baby Godzilla and Godzilla Junior designs on either side of this film.

"Love me!"



Yuki sets Sato and Shinjo to work digging holes to fill with tear gas mines. This has jack-all to do with Project T, but you see some idiot decided that the best person to head a mission designed to control Godzilla instead of killing him was a guy obsessed with killing Godzilla. I have no idea what purpose the mines serve, other than annoying Godzilla whenever he decoes to take a stroll on the beach or come up on land to check in on his adopted son, but Yuki's real plan is to kill Godzilla with--a bullet. A bullet full of blood coagulant, fired by an uzi, which he intends to fire at a weak spot in Godzilla's arm pit.

Because a creature that shrugs off tank rounds, missiles, masers, electric shock, and acid to the eyes will totally be taken down by small arms fire. Weirdly, nobody ever points this out to Yuki when they're trying to dissuade him from his Ahab complex.

While those three doofuses are digging holes and watching Yuki shower (yeah, I have no idea what that scene is about, but there's some brief rear male nudity if that's your thing), NASA is conferring with the UNGCC. You see, their interplanetary exploratory ship has been destroyed--the only evidence they have to go on is footage of a bunch of terrible white actors in "zero gravity"suddenly being killed by crystal spires piercing the hull of their ship. NASA has concluded "that some kind of giant monster..." and they need the UNGCC's help to fill in the blanks.

Well, luckily UNGCC has pretty good telescopes at their disposal and they see the space creature passing by what I think is meant to be Jupiter--based on later scenes--and over the objections of Commander Takaki Aso (Akira Nakao), who thinks it should be used against Godzilla, Minister Segawa orders Moguera to be launched to intercept the fiend before it reaches Earth. and yes, this means that NASA apparently launched a vessel far enough out to be attacked by a space monster before said monster had even passed by the asteroid belt.

On Birth Island, Miki arrives with Gondo and Okubo. Shinjo immediately puts his foot in his mouth by asking why she likes Godzilla so much. I suppose next he'll ask a vegan why they think eating meat is wrong, while chomping on a turkey leg. Gondo, meanwhile, seeks out Yuki since the two have a history--a history of her apparently trying to get her brother's friend to notice how freaking pretty she is, while he either remains oblivious or pretends to be. (More on her brother in a minute) She's rather irritated that he had asked her to send him all kinds of medicines to make "Yuki's Special," but her attempts to get him to "notice me, damn it" while he fiddles with the bullet are interrupted by the mines going off on the beach.

Naturally, after Shinjo and Sato are overcome by the tear gas, it turns out that Little Godzilla was setting off the mines because Yuki somehow forgot there was a baby kaiju on the island that thinks everything Yuki does is fun to mess with. Naturally, the mines drive off Little Godzilla in a way they absolutely won't for the real deal. And naturally, the real deal--perhaps having heard his child's cries of distress--decides to emerge from the sea, set to Akira Ifukube's classic theme (although the film's overall score is by Takayuki Hattori). The long shot of Godzilla, superimposed into the sea, is one of the best shots from Kawakita's reign as effects director--but then, composite shots were definitely one of his strengths.

"Yes, dear, the vista is beautiful but can we run now?!"

Of course, the best shot is immediately followed by the sequence that is widely considered the lowest point in Kawakita's work: the asteroid belt sequence. The concept is marvelous--Moguera attempts to take on the space monster in a dog fight amongst asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter. Unfortunately, either Kawakita ran out of time or budget for the sequence and what ends up in the film is two small props of Moguera and Space Godzilla facing off amongst unmoving foam asteroids in front of a plain black backdrop.

"But sir, the odds of making a convincing asteroid belt on film are--" "Never tell me the odds!"

There's no arguing that, in execution, it's a pretty dismal failure. However, I think that it still gets more hate than it deserves--and a lot of the hate for the movie itself seems to motivated by the poor quality of this one scene. That strikes me as pretty odd given that, overall, this film actually has some of the best effects of the 1990s films. It's certainly far more consistent than the effects work of the next film, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, which was supposed to be the big hurrah for the Japanese series but had Godzilla super-imposed in the background of scenes where normal traffic and unhurried pedestrians carried on in the foreground and where the wheels under the little Destoroyah models were plainly visible even on bootleg VHS tapes. And when you consider that this film has a far larger percentage of kaiju scenes compared to non-kaiju scenes, just one terrible effects sequence becomes a lot more excusable.

At any rate, the sequence concludes with Moguera failing to do anything but slightly annoy Space Godzilla before getting a leg blown off and spiralling off into the void of space, while its opponent continues on to Earth. Moguera must find its way back to Earth somehow as no dialogue indicates it was completely rebuilt when next we see it.

Project T commences on Birth Island in the meantime. Sato and Shinjo chase after Godzilla on a dirt bike and use a grenade launcher to fire a shell at the base of is neck that turns out to be a miniature receiving dish. Then Miki puts on a helmet hooked up to a computer that broadcasts her brainwaves at Godzilla--and allows her to control him and make him calmly walk down the beach. Yuki spends this sequence ludicrously "hunting" Godzilla. Of course, Godzilla's brainwaves quickly become out of sync with Miki's and when Okubo recklessly tries to boost the signal past safety limits, he nearly kills Miki with the feedback.

Yuki, meanwhile, manages to waste every shot he has firing at Godzilla's bicep and chest. When Shinjo and Sato find out that Project T failed, they decide to go help Yuki kill Godzilla. (?!) With their sidearms. (?!?!) For some reason, this development greatly alarms Miki and Gondo, who try to stop them out of concern for Godzilla's wellbeing. This is a bit like trying to stop a child from poking a full-grown bull moose with a thumbtack because you're worried the moose will get hurt.

At any rate, it becomes a moot point when Space Godzilla lands on the island right by his crystal power converters. Where Little Godzilla is currently hanging out. Seeing the resemblence to his papa, Little Godzilla attempts to make contact--only to cower in fear from Space Godzilla's frightening countenance. Little Godzilla's eyes light up red briefly, in a bad attempt to recall the actually good effect from the previous film where Baby Godzilla's eyes glowed red when he was afraid. And the Space Godzilla proceeds to beat up on a kid. Boo, hiss!

Of course, given later developments, this actually is more like an illegitimate child lashing out at the half-sibling their father actually chose to recognize. You can't blame Space Godzilla for being upset at that!

"FAAAATTTHHHHEEEERRRRR!"

Godzilla comes to the rescue of the son who isn't an eldritch abomination from the depths of space. However, Space Godzilla's powerful lightning beam weapons, energy shield, and ability to fly quickly put Godzilla in the position of having to use his body to shield Little Godzilla from the blasts. But Space Godzilla, being a bastard--in more ways than one--seizes the opportunity when the wounded Godzilla falls over, and telekinetically yanks Little Godzilla away and imprisons him in one of the crystal structures. Space Godzilla then flies off for parts unkown and the real Godzilla stumbles into the sea to recuperate.

Even Yuki can agree that obviously the space monster is the bigger threat. So quickly plans are made to head back to Japan--only Miki is planning to stay and look after Godzilla and the little one. (What she can do for him while he's trapped in that crystal prison is beyond me) Shinjo, already lovestruck with Miki, decides to stay behind--and makes Sato stay, too. Nobody notices the suspicious look on Okubo's face before the helicopter departs.

"I have a wonderfully Grinchy idea!"

Gondo makes a presentation to the UNGCC about Space Godzilla, explaining that the creature's cells are nearly identical to Godzilla's, so it must be a "Space Godzilla." Gondo explains that the Godzilla cells that formed the creature could either have come from Biollante (who shouldn't actually have ever existed, thanks to the time travel nonsense in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah) or Mothra (hence Miki's vision earlier). The cells then fell into a black hole (!), came out a white hole (?!), and then merged with a crystalline lifeform and then grew powerful by absorbing the energy of exploding stars.

Oooookay, then. Ask Stephen Hawking if this hypothesis checks out and I'm sure he'll find a way to punch you.

At sunset on Birth Island, Miki gets another visit from Fairy Mothra that tells her nothing of substance. However, she and Shinjo get to have a relationship-building conversation where we get a few hints that he's not as obstinate and violent as she thinks he is, but he also stupidly wonders if all she thinks about is Godzilla. Look, there's a reason she's the first regularly recurring human character in a Godzilla movie, chump! Oh, and then some mercenaries break into the camp at night, beat Shinjo and Sato up, and kidnap Miki.

Look, she's psychic but she's not clairvoyant, okay?

Of course, when Gondo picks up Shinjo and Sato--minus Yuki, who is following up leads--she already suspects Okubo kidnapped Miki. Which implies she suspected that her project partner was up to no good but didn't bother to warn anybody until he did something. Also, we find out here that Gondo's brother was one Colonel Gondo--who G-fans would remember as the awesome character from Godzilla vs. Biollante who had the nerve to shoot Godzilla point blank in the mouth with a rocket launcher and quip about it. Of course, you might recall he then got a building dropped on his head as a result of his wise assery, and Yuki has been obsessed with avenging his friend ever since.

Miki wakes up strapped to a bed as Okubo removes the Project T helmet from her head. See, he was copying her brain wave patterns into his computer so he can control Godzilla without her--and naturally he wants to use Godzilla to hold countries to ransom. Of course, this doesn't explain why he needed to kidnap Miki if he could have just copied her brainwaves, but villain. Villain currently hiding out in a known Yakuza base, in fact.

Well, "the Japanese mafia," according to Yuki. Normally I would assume that means Yakuza, but given most of the gangsters we see are white guys, maybe this really is a Japanese branch of the mafia. Shinjo, Sato, and Yuki sneak into the base as Okubo is directing Godzilla to swim...somewhere, to the delight of the white guys. Meanwhile, Space Godzilla is flying over Japan and causing machines to go haywire. So haywire, in fact, that a claw machine begins somehow rapidly spewing out stuffed animals to the delight of a comic relief businessman and his terrified underling.

Godzilla's brainwaves once again outmatch the control system, just as our heroic trio burst in and get into a gunfight with several thugs. Miki helpfully uses telekinesis--a power even she didn't know she had--to help Shinjo shoot a gangster in the foot. And then it's time for all the good guys to run away, because Space Godzilla is coming. So Okubo gets to die trying to fix his machine that will never work, as Space Godzilla blasts the hell out of the building as he flies over.

Of course, it's time for everybody to beat feet to G-Force HQ because earlier Commander Aso asked Yuki to head Project Moguera, and Space Godzilla just set up shop in Fukuoka and turn the city into his own crystal fortress. Naturally, Moguera requires two copilots, so Shinjo and Sato go right from shooting gangsters to kaiju punching duty. Shinjo and Miki get a tender goodbye and Yuki...asks Gondo to refill his lighter for him. That's his way of letting her know he cares, or something.

However, Godzilla has just landed on the coast, after destroying stock footage of the naval armada from Godzilla vs. Biollante, and he making is way toward Fukuoka to take out his evil spawn.Yuki forgets the mission briefly to go antagonize Godzilla, but Shinjo knocks his superior officer out with one hit--incredibly easily, considering they're all wearing helmets--and ties him up so Moguera can return to its original mission:

Getting the tar kicked out of it by Space Godzilla.

"I REGRET EVERYTHING!"

Even the robot's crew calls it a piece of crap in the middle of the fight. Luckily for them, Godzilla shows up in Fukuoka and either doesn't hold a grudge against them for shooting him or is too focused on revenge against Space Godzilla to care. It's a good thing, too, because it will take their combined might to defeat him...

It is very true that the climactic battle between the three combatants isthe perfect embodiment of the main complaint against Kawakita's effects: most of it consists of the monsters standing on opposite sides of the screen firing beams at each other and rarely ever coming into physical contact with each other. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the climax is boring or uninteresting. Far from it. The film concludes with colorful beams and massive explosions, and Fukuoka is practically wiped off the map in the process. What more could you want out of a kaiju battle?

Oh, okay, sure, you could want actual physical combat. Koichi Kawakita decided early on in his tenure on the series that he wanted to fully imbue his monsters with a sense of mass and power. He felt that, in order to do that, he needed to reduce a lot of the grappling and wrestling of the preceding series. It wasn't all that noticeable in Godzilla vs. Biollante and the first half of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, but by Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth it was pretty obvious. Mothra was given beam weapons for the first time ever simply so she could blast laser beams at Godzilla from afar.

Yet, was that necessarily a bad thing? One of the most badass moments in the whole series was the first time Godzilla and Mechagodzilla met and we were shown how evenly matched they were when their beams met and caused a massive explosion. Beam battles are fun and colorful, Are they repetitive? Sure, but even the best kaiju brawl can be accused of that.

Indeed, perhaps one reason this film is so reviled by so many Godzilla fans is that its kaiju battles deliver almost exactly what every Godzilla fan always asks for: more Godzilla and monster battles. This film delivers more Godzilla action than about 90% of the series and shows why it's actually a good thing that not every Godzilla movie has a lot of Godzilla in it. Much as I love the film, it does get a bit monotonous at times because there's only so many ways to keep a monster battle going past ten minutes of screen time.

That said, I still feel that the film gets unfairly maligned for no good reason, especially compared to the other Heisei films. Is it honestly worse than the total mess that is Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah? Worse than the final sendoff that feels more like everyone just giving up in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah? I don't think it is. I think it's a fun romp and callback to the heroic Godzilla films of the 1970s, and sometimes that's enough to damn a film in the eyes of fans who think Godzilla should be serious all the damn time.

Does that mean the film doesn't have major flaws? Of course not. There are plot elements that make no sense (like nobody bothering to investigate the crystals on Birth Island before Space Godzilla shows up), the attempts to make this almost a direct sequel to Godzilla vs. Biollante are odd (especially since, per the Heisei timeline, that film never happened), and really the Project T subplot only serves the purpose of giving Miki something to do--and Okubo's villainy is almost totally a plot cul-de-sac.

Then there's the monsters. Space Godzilla is awesome, which even the film's detractors usually agree with. But, much as I loved Kawakit'a Godzilla design in its 1989 debut, the fact that every suit that followed was only minor variations made it get somewhat dull. And I have never liked how the eyes went from dark and feral to bright eyes that look totally out of place in the suit--potentially as an attempt to make the face look more feline as opposed to the more seal-like appearance it originally had. And while Little Godzilla and Moguera are not as awful as popular opinion states, they aren't all that good, either. Somehow, though, it all evens out for me.

Is everyone who dislikes this film just a stick in the mud who forgot how to have fun? Of course not. As I said, it's a flawed film. However, it's a fun film and for me that is far more important. Godzilla may have started out as a serious, somber allegory--but its evolution into a fun, pulpy series is what made it so enduring. And this film embodies that side of Godzilla wonderfully. If you're open to it, I think most people will find it it to be quite fun.

So have a Merry Christmas, and try to be sure that any unexpected family reunions don't end with someone locked in a crystal cage,

"Merry Kaiju-mas!"

HubrisWeen, Day 26: Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)

I am so sick of zombies.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some zombie movies being made that I have enjoyed and there are ways to tell a zombie story that won't make me just roll my eyes and move on. On the whole, however, I am absolutely sick of them and would not complain if horror movies were to declare them off-limits for the foreseeable future.

So when I began putting together my list of HubrisWeen films I declared that I was going to do my damnedest to avoid any film with "Zombie" in the title for my Z film. I quickly began to realize this was a doomed effort.

But then I realized: why not choose a zombie movie that isn't full of Romero-style flesh eaters? Why not choose a film about traditional zombies?

Yes, indeed that proved easier to swallow.

We open with a title card telling us that there exists a "twilight zone" between life and death, and the poor souls trapped in this in-between become--"The Walking Dead!" So that's two hit television shows that didn't exist yet name-dropped in the opening.

As an illustration of what the title card is referring to, we join our heroine Jan Peters (Autumn Russell) as she is being driven to her childhood home in Mora Tau, Africa. I'm not sure what part of Africa but it's whichever coast looks identical to California and is completely devoid of absolutely any black people. Though given this is 1957, I should probably be glad of that.

On the road, Jan spies a strange, shambling figure (Karl "Killer" Davis) covered in seaweed heading towards their car. To her horror, the driver, Sam (Gene Roth), runs the man over without any remorse--breaking a headlight in the process. Sam apologizes to Jan for not stopping, but tells her that her grandmother will explain. Well, Grandmother Peters (Marjorie Eaton) explains that the man was "one of them" and Jan expresses dismay that her mother still believes in that voodoo nonsense. Jan is still skeptical even after, later that evening, she sees her grandmother standing by the launch landing as another man with the same shambling gait walks right past the old woman and wades into the water until he disappears from view.

Mrs. Peters won't be the only believer soon. A ship has anchored off the coast, which proves to be a salvage expedition run by George Harrison (Joel Ashley), who is after some legendary diamonds supposedly found in the wreck of the Susan B, which lies 100 feet below their very position. He has hired professional diver Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer) to help secure these diamonds. Though Harrison's wife, Mona (Allison Hayes, better known as the titular giantess of Attack of the 50-Foot Woman), would like to invite Jeff to do a complete different kind of diving, if you catch my drift. The expedition's last member is Dr. Jonathan Eggert (Morris Ankrum, here not playing a general), who is along solely because of the legends attached to the diamonds--he's some kind of an anthropologist or some such, and he actually doesn't want a share of the loot.

The group toasts to their luck and, in a truly baffling bit, Mona throws her arms around Jeff and George responds to Jeff's discomfort with, "Oh, can't you take a kiss without making something out of it?" Whereupon Mona plants a big, wet kiss on Jeff and George looks on with a completely inscrutable expression. Is he angry? Amused? Hoping for a threeway? You got me.

At any rate, the crew are properly welcomed to the waters of Mora Tau when a mysterious figure rises out of the water and grabs one of their sailors. Another sailor fires at the attacker and is certain he hit the man, but it's no good. The sailor is fished out of the water, dead. His neck was broken, so at least he wasn't a victim of friendly fire. Naturally, when they put ashore Mrs. Peters and Jan are waiting for them and Mrs. Peters demonstrates that she knows that they lost a man, and furthermore she knows how.

See, Dr. Eggert had written to Mrs. Peters to let her know of their coming, so she got herself ready for the inevitability of their demise. She shows them a graveyard full of impromptu grave markers indicating 1906, 1914, 1923, 1928, and 1938--the years of various European and American expeditions that have come to raid the Susan B and instead found themselves victims of the zombies that guard the cursed treasure. Those zombies used to be the crew of the Susan B, who had found the diamonds in an ancient temple and attempted to make off with them, only to perish and sink under mysterious circumstances. The captain of that vessel was one John Peters (Frank Hagney), and you can guess whose husband he used to be.

Mrs. Peters has helpfully had graves dug for Harrison's expedition and the dead sailor is deposited into one just as Mona falls into another. Terrifying enough on its own, but Mona is suddenly overcome with terror because she is certain the grave was meant to be hers.

It doesn't help that, shortly afterward, one of the strange men wanders into the bedroom that Jan and Mona are in. Jerry's attempt to physically force the zombie through the outside door nearly gets him killed, but Mrs. Peters shows them the one true way to drive away the walking dead--a lit torch. The zombies are terrified of fire, perhaps, she muses, because it's the only thing that can destroy them. Don't expect anybody to actually test that hypothesis, though.

Mona, Jan, and Grandmother Peters: Badass.

Mrs. Peters and Dr. Eggert talk and we learn that she has stayed in this zombie-infested jungle estate because she believes that if the cursed diamonds are found and destroyed, then her husband and the other walking dead will finally find eternal rest. Dr. Eggert is not sure that this expedition will be the ones to free her husband, seeing as how Harrison is not the sort of man to find precious diamonds and then dispose of them. But Mrs. Peters can dream.

Meanwhile, to Mona's disappointment, Jerry has taken a shine to Jan. After some painful 1950s flirting, Jan tells him about running down the zombie on the road and he decides they should grab a Very pistol--since if fire scares them, so should flares--and drive out to the scene of the collision to see if the zombie survived. Sure enough, they find the headlight fragments and the footprints of the zombie leading from the direction of the bay to the road...and then on past where the accident should have killed him. Showing some actual sense, Jerry says he'll mark the spot and they'll come back during daylight to investigate further. Naturally, the danger of the night is somewhat undercut by the fact that this sequence is so obviously day-for-night that the couple's flashlights aren't even on!

Unfortunately, when Jerry goes back to the car, the zombie decides it has had enough of just watching them from the treeline and grabs Jan to carry her off. Jerry stabs the zombie in the throat and then just gets slapped away for his troubles. When he comes to, the zombie has gotten far enough into the jungle that only Jan briefly regaining consciousness to scream allows him to follow her kidnapper to a mausoleum in a jungle cemetery. Jan has been laid out on an altar of some sort in the mausoleum, and Jerry is just in time as the zombies rise from their sarcophagi to...do something to her. Well, Jerry uses the Very gun to dissuade the zombies from doing whatever it is that a group of zombies who haven't yet learned to gutmunch would do to a prone victim. He then rescues Jan.

"Hello!" "Hello! "Hellloooooo!"

And for the first time (but certainly not the last) I notice that the flares Jerry fires always seem to float above the zombies, offscreen, regardless of what direction he was aiming the gun when he fired.

The next morning, after having apparently spent all night telling his story to Dr. Eggert, Jerry asserts that he is certain he could find the jungle cemetery again if necessary. But that will have to wait, because it's time for Jerry to make his first dive down to the Susan B. Jerry hits bottom right next to the wreck, and discovers that the safe is easily visible from the outside--but then he's ambushed by a zombie. After a quick struggle, the zombie disconnects Jerry's airhose. (Which, I swear, is accompanied by a toilet flushing sound effect!)  And, unfortunately, as Jerry himself already observed: zombies don't need to breathe, but he does.

A word on these diving sequences: obviously, the challenge was that they needed to have the zombies able to attack someone in a diving suit. And since there are no actual walking dead in Hollywood, they had to get around their zombies' need to breathe. Apparently this film's director didn't feel like taking the same path as Lucio Fulci, who hired a stuntman willing to hold his breath and wrestle a shark for Zombie, so the obvious alternative was to film the scenes on a dry set. So, how did they get around the problem of making it look like the diver was exhaling underwater?

By installing a bubble machine in the diving suit.

 

Note bubbles emerging from the helmet.

To the film's credit, the bubbles actually do float straight up, so the suit must have a powerful fan in it as well. Also, it's adorable.

Jerry is hauled up before he completely suffocates and taken back to the Peters house, where Mrs. Peters offers an herbal remedy to stimulate his breathing since the nearest hospital is too far away to help him in time. Mona is convinced that Mrs. Peters is behind all this zombie nonsense that it takes Jan tasting the remedy to convince her it's not poison. Even then, when Jerry comes to and Mona walks in on Jan tending to him, she gets so rude with Jan that George barges in and backhands her. He gets so violent, in fact, that Mona chooses to run out into the jungle to get away from him. To the other characters' credit, they do seem at least disgusted by George's violence even though they don't do anything to stop it.

Night falls, and Mona still hasn't returned. Mrs. Peters tells the others that the zombies have Mona and if they've had her this long, it's too late for her. Still, George, Jerry, Dr. Eggert, and two sailors make the trek to the mausoleum and find Mona lying on her back on the floor. The zombies rise as Mona is carried away and it's only by setting a gasoline fire at the door to the mausoleum that the group escapes. However, Mrs. Peters immediately declares that Mona is dead when she sees the woman's blank stare and shambling gait.

Naturally, the others dismiss the only person who's been around zombies for 50-odd years and take her into a bedroom. She won't close her eyes and go to sleep, so George stops watching for for a minute--and she immediately grabs a switchblade and wanders into the room where the two sailors are sleeping. (In the same bed, I might add, so--hello, sailor!) She stabs one and goes after the other, who woke up in time to escape his fellow's fate. In a combination of very well-made rubber prop and very good sound design (I hope!), the surviving sailor throws a candlestick at Mona and hits her right in the forehead. She doesn't even wince and advances until the others hear his scream and restrain Mona. At Mrs. Peters' urging, the zombified woman is returned to her bed and then surrounded by lit candles.

"Turn around, bright eyes..."

George is even more determined to get the cursed diamonds now, so he and Jerry suit up and go down with lit acetylene torches. For some reason they do this at night, but probably because they want to leave as soon as possible and hoped the zombies were still trapped by the fire.

They aren't.

George is quickly swarmed because, again, he refuses to actually use the torch on the zombies. Perhaps because the "torches" are clearly some kind of reflective plastic meant to simulate a focused flame. George is hauled up safely, and Jeff manages to crack open the safe and extract the chest containing the diamonds. He's then hauled up as well...

...only that chest is a homing beacon. And, in a sequence foretelling so many zombie movies to follow, they swarm the deck of the salvage ship. The torches they have aboard burn down too quickly and the flares run out. The sailors all jump overboard and swim to shore--luckily for them all the zombies are on deck--but George (who was somehow wounded during the dive), Dr. Eggert, and Jerry are trapped in the cabin with the zombies trying to bust their way inside.

Jerry hits on a way to save them all from certain death, not that George is much a fan of it. Jerry fashions a torch, grabs the chest, and hops in the launch to head to shore. George may be convinced Jerry is cheating him, but even he can't deny that the zombies break off their attack to follow the chest. When Jerry lands in the bay and comes into the house, Mrs. Peters helps him to figure out how to open the chest and extract the diamonds--which he hides in Jan's scarf. But Mrs. Peters insists the diamonds must be destroyed to end the curse. Jerry feels that surely selling the diamonds would do just as well, especially in America with an ocean for the zombies to have to walk through in order to follow him.

Oh, but they're already following.

Diamonds are a ghoul's best friend.

Well, George barges in and grabs the chest, not having time to confirm if Jerry had opened it and relieved him of his booty. He grabs Mona, who naturally fixates on the chest immediately--the zombies are apparently not able to tell the difference, either, or else Jerry left some diamonds in there--and prepares to depart as the zombies turn back towards the launch. Unfortunately, he set the chest down long enough to untie the launch and as Mona grabbed it. When George tries to pick his wife up, she caves his skull in with the chest and joins her undead companions as they head into the jungle.

Well, Jerry convinces Jan and Mrs. Peters to leave with him. But when they get to the launch, the zombies return--having somehow figured out that the chest was empty. And now, in what I can only assume is a function of the filmmakers realizing they were almost at the 70 minute mark and needed to cut things short for matinee length, the film just completely drops any pretense of logic.

Mrs. Peters sees her husband standing there in his waterlogged uniform and, seeing her face, Jerry relents and gives her the diamonds to "destroy." This means that Mrs. Peters drops them over the side of the launch into the shallow water of the bay (!) and then Captain Peters suddenly disappears (!) leaving his clothes behind. "I'll never be rich again," Jerry sighs, because apparently no one could ever possibly retrieve diamonds from five feet of water. The End.

So, when the diamonds were under 100 feet of water that could only be reached by experienced divers, the zombies were cursed because somebody could find those diamonds--but when they're in water shallow enough that your average kindergartner could retrieve them, the zombies are finally at peace?! Yeah, the only way that ending makes any sense is if they were trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible and ran out of ideas.

Up to that point, Zombies of Mora Tau is actually a very enjoyable pulp adventure. Not only do you have a pack of creepy zombies, but you have Allison Hayes vamping it up as a femme fatale and Marjorie Eaton being a badass old lady who fearlessly faces down zombies while also not being as reckless about it as all of her male costars--most of whom nearly kill themselves in the process.

And, of course, you can't downplay the fact that this film is rather unique in the realm of zombie lore. These zombies are of the traditional variety: resurrected corpses brought to life by magic or voodoo. However, unlike most traditional zombie films there is no zombie master. These zombies aren't doing the bidding of a mortal villain: they're somehow controlled by those cursed diamonds. As such they're weirdly similar to the Romero-style zombies we all know and are absolutely sick of these days.

Bottom line, this film is a very enjoyable romp full of delightful pulp tropes--and adorable bubble effects--that completely falls apart at the very end. But as I said, it's only 70 minutes long, so it breezes by quickly enough that you don't really mind that it trips over its own feet in the last 2.

Did I mention the bubble machine? Because that's still just so adorable.

Welcome to Day 26, as we bring HubrisWeen to a close. It has been a wild ride and I highly suggest you check out how my compatriots chose to end their journey. (Hint: It's really, really hard to avoid a movie with "Zombie" in its title)

Will we do this again next year? Stay tuned to find out...

HubrisWeen, Day 25: You're Next (2011)

Pleasant surprises are one of the best parts of being a genre fan.

When I first saw trailers for a movie about a house under siege by creeps in animal masks, I assumed it was just another torture porn horror flick. Had I known it was originally released in 2011, but did not get a wide release until 2013, I'm sure I would have fought even harder against my friend's suggestion that we go see it.

I guess I owe her one, because she made the right call and You're Next proved to be almost nothing like what I had expected.

The film starts off, not horribly promisingly, with a sex scene between a middle-aged man and his much younger girlfriend. After he finishes, he goes to take a shower, leaving her to make herself a screwdriver and blare some music on the stereo. Stepping out of the shower, the man finds that the sliding glass door between the bedroom and living room has something written on it in what appears to be blood. He can't read it at first, because it's written so it can be read on the other side of the glass, but we get to see that it says "You're Next."

If he appreciates the nod towards proper grammar, he doesn't get to express it. For right about then he sees his lover's dead body lies on the other side of the glass. And then somebody in a Lamb Mask (L.C. Holt) attacks him.

This may seem like a typical body count murder, but it will actually be relevant later on.

We now join Australian ex-pat and grad student, Erin (Sharni Vinson) as she rides along with her boyfriend, and former professor we will later learn, Crispian (A.J. Bowen), as he drives them to his parents' vacation home for a family reunion in celebration of his parents' anniversary. There's some banter about what to expect, but despite Crispian's doom and gloom, Erin is excited to meet his family. Though it is a little unnerving that his father works for a major defense contractor.

His parents, meanwhile, are just arriving at the house--which just so happens to be down the street from the murder house. Family patriarch Paul (Rob Moran) and Aubrey (Barbara Crampton! Whom I felt immediately ashamed at not recognizing when the end credits rolled, but to be fair I'm not used to seeing her fully clothed for an entire film) begin unloading their car and settling in--but then Aubrey hears someone upstairs when she knows that she and Paul are both downstairs. She freaks out and refuses to stay in the house, but Paul is stubborn and goes to investigate. Paul gets a false scare when Crispian runs into him, having just arrived--and wondering why his mother is in the driveway crying.

Erin is doing her best to comfort Aubrey, considering it's not an ideal first meeting. Aubrey is eventually convinced that it's okay and the house is safe. Soon after, Crispian's brother, Drake (Joe Swanberg) and his wife Kelly (Margaret Laney, credited as Sarah Myers) arrive; followed by his other brother Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and his girlfriend, Zee (Wendy Glenn); and finally baby sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz) and her boyfriend Tariq (horror director Ti West, of House of the Devil and The Innkeepers fame).

The next day, as the menfolk work on barbecue and the like, Aubrey sends Erin to go fetch something from the neighbors. Naturally, it's a no go because nobody answers the door, but Erin manages to avoid discovering why just yet. Meanwhile, Crispian gets to have a hugely uncomfortable talk with his dad about some academic promotion he failed to achieve. The kind of talk where your dad makes you feel like a failure because of circumstances beyond your control. Ah, family!

And so, that evening the family settles down to dinner. Naturally, Crispian's misgivings turn out to be well-founded as some clearly familiar sniping eventually turns into arguing. Drake, in particular, proves himself a massive douchebag. (Fitting, since the actor resembles a douchebag I used to know) First Drake mocks Tariq's artistic endeavors (he makes documentaries for "underground film festivals") and then he sets his sights on accusing Crispian of impropriety for dating a former student.

But that's nothing compared to what happens when Tariq sees something outside one of the dining room's huge windows--and takes a crossbow bolt between the eyes while investigating. In the subsequent panic, another bolt hits Drake between the shoulder blades. It's only Erin's cool head that gets the others out of the vulnerable position in the dining room to the largely windowless front hall. She also stops the others from pulling the bolt out of Drake's back, saving him further injury.

The group quickly discovers their cell phones are being jammed. Whoever's doing this is deliberately isolating them. Deciding that someone needs to go for help, even over Erin's objections, it's eventually decided that since Aimee is the fastest--well, second-fastest, but Drake can't run right now--Crispian and Felix will stand by the front doors and fling them open once she gets a running start. Surely, their assailants will struggle to hit such a quick target.

Of course, they don't need to. A garrote wire has been strung across the outside of the threshold, and it severs Aimee's jugular. The others can only watch helplessly as she bleeds out at their feet. Having to watch her only daughter die is too much for Aubrey and Paul takes her upstairs to lie down. Except that Aubrey isn't alone. A man in a Fox Mask (Lane Hughes) crawls out from under the bed--man must have the patience of a Graboid--and buries a machete in Aubrey's face. The others hear her scream but are too late to save her, and Fox Mask found time to write "You're Next" in her blood before vanishing.

Erin takes charge, directing everyone to secure the windows while she continues trying to reach 911 by sending text messages. As she is securing the windows in the kitchen, a man in a Tiger Mask (Simon Barrett) smashes through the window and grabs her. Erin is not the easy victim he expected, however, and he gets a knife to the hand for his trouble--pinning him to the window frame. However, he still manages to escape after Erin frees herself from his grasp.

Kelly, in the midst of covering Aubrey with a sheet, decides to check under the bed. Oh, hey, Fox Mask is still there. Kelly panics and runs out the front door, narrowly ducking under the garrote wire. Drake, a bit groggy from some pain pills he was given, attempts to follow and catches the crossbow bolt on the wire. Without thinking he pulls the bolt out...and immediately passes out from pain and blood loss. Crispian decides it's time to play the hero and, after going to check the cars--which, naturally, are all missing vital engine parts--he volunteers to go for help. Erin tries to remind him that there are an unknown number of hostile psychopaths who are really good at killing people and he's a paunchy academic, but it's no use and away he goes.

Oh, and Kelly? She finds her way to the sliding glass back door of the neighbor's house, but the man on the couch won't react no matter how much she pounds and yells. Of course, we know why but she doesn't find out until Lamb Mask looms up behind her and smashes her through the doors. Kelly now sees the man on the couch is quite dead, but she's too dazed to get back and flee. So Lamb Mask takes his axe, sets her head up like a croquet ball and then swings his axe into it. Lamb Mask has a seat on the couch to admire his work.

Erin, meanwhile is rallying Felix and Zee to help her round up weapons. She has just grabbed a meat tenderizer when Kelly's body is thrown through the dining room window and Tiger Mask enters, looming over Erin--and she smashes his knee with the meat tenderizer and then proceeds to tenderize his skull. Repeatedly. When she pulls the mask off and asks if either Felix or Zee knows the guy, Felix understandably replies, "It's...kind of hard to tell, now."

You see, as Erin will later explain, she had an unusual childhood. She was raised on a survivalist compound by her father. So those psychos in the animal masks have no idea what they're dealing with. Although, Erin may not know, either. You see, this is not just some random attack. This was planned, and the danger outside isn't the only thing Erin should be worried about.

"Hey, is this the place for The Wicker Man auditions?"

I was a little hesitant on spoiling one of You're Next's greatest surprises, but given it's kind of a major selling point I figured it needed to be pointed out: the fact that Erin may be the most uniquely capable Final Girl ever. About the only way her opponents could be more out-matched would be if she had Ripley and Sarah Connor backing her up.

The part seems to have been written specifically for anyone who ever expressed annoyance with useless characters in a slasher movie. And while, technically, You're Next isn't a quite a slasher film, it definitely should be exactly what the doctor ordered if you're one of those people. When's the last time you saw anyone kill an antagonist with a blender outside of an early Peter Jackson movie?

The acting is quite good and very naturalistic, apparently a result of this film being an offshoot of "mumblecore", a horror subgenre I've otherwise avoided to my knowledge. Many conversations almost feel improvised or else copied verbatim from actual family squabbles. It's also clearly a film with a very dark sense of humor, but never to the detriment of the menace its masked assailants promise. Sure, they're fallible and mortal, but these are are still men who know how to kill you and well.

And, while definitely gory, You're Next doesn't wallow in slow, horrible death like so many films in the aftermath of Saw. These killers are here to make everyone dead, not to torture them. That as definitely part of the pleasant surprise for me, as I never looked back at the Saw franchise after part two and have no desire to--or its illegitimate spawn.

If you like horror movies, you'll definitely love You're Next. If you don't, well, this probably isn't going to change your mind.

"Bring it, Voorhees."

This concludes day 25 of HubrisWeen, which means the end is nigh! Check out what the other maniacs chose for their Y movie by clicking the banner above.