Monster of the Day #3070

Updated on July 23, 2020 By Ken Begg 7 Comments

Sorry about yesterday, I had technical issues.

The print is zoomboxed and soft and features a dub track, which I usually can’t stand. But hey, that’s what we grew up on. It’s the AIP TV version (no theatrical release here) of Gamera vs Gaos, aka as we knew it, Return of the Giant Monsters. So put your nostalgia goggles (earphones?) on and give it a lot. This is also the film that inspired the most intelligant and just all around great remake/modernization since Cronenburg’s The Fly. And no, I’m dead serious about that. On YouTube.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    Yeah, the 1990’s trilogy is really very good.

  • Ericb

    Funny thing about the AIP Gamera movies is that when I first saw the first two sequels on TV there was no indication in the local listings, which just gave the title, that they were Gamera movies and I was overjoyed while watching that they had Gamera in them! After I saw the first Gamera movie on an early Saturday afternoon I had no idea he had a whole series of movies.

  • The Nineties Gamera is no doubt the best Kaiju films of the period. Which hurts to say, as I’m more of a atomic dinosaur fan than a flying turtle fan, but its true.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I loved the 90’s trilogy too, but there was a cheesy earnestness to the earlier Gameras that I’ll always love. And Gyaos was surprisingly scary when I first saw him on TV. He was eating people, right on screen!

  • The Rev.

    Believe me, to this day I can’t believe my second-favorite giant monster movie is a Gamera one (Advent of Legion), but the whole trilogy is just superlative. The Heisei Godzilla films started strong (Biollante, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla II) but just petered out.

  • The Rev.

    I agree about the old Gamera movies. The first is a little weak, but the next two are fantastic (Barugon and Gaos). I even have fun with the rest of them…well, until the last two, because Zigra is pretty bad, and let’s not even get into Gamera: Super Monster.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Going by what I can remember of the last one, if they’d made it ‘Gamera versus the Galactic Empire’ (they did use footage from SW, right?) I could have watched that.