Monster of the Day #3370

We watched a Gamera movie several months ago at a Watch Party. However, I barely got Howling II in after it had been on my list for a long time, because it turned out it was less than two weeks from leaving Amazon. I would have felt like a prat if we had had all the Gamera movies, old and new, available and then we only watched on before they left. I hope they’re on there a while longer, but who knows. And these, I think, are the remastered versions used on the Arrow Blu Rays. In any case, participants regularly commented on how good the prints looked.

Gamera vs Gyaos is my favorite of the oldies, and it’s no surprise that Gyaos was the villain called back for the modern ones, The design is great, Gyaos is actually evil (and eats people–were seeing that in the old Godzilla movies), and the film is full of fun comic book logic, including the hilarious plan the humans come up with to destroy Gyaos. The film also sports what is probably the least obnoxious Kenny. I haven’t watched this in a while, and I forgot how well produced this one was. This was probably the last chapter before they started cutting the budgets, and it shows, with great models, great sets, lots of process shots, etc. Just a wonderful movie.

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Beckoning Chasm

Yeah, that was fun. I think the one with the squid (Viras?) was made up mostly of “flashbacks” to the other films, but I can’t keep all the Gamera stuff straight.
The Rev.

Yes, the one with Viras has extended sequences of flashbacks from the first three movies. I want to say about a third of the running time is recycled. Despite that, I think it’s one of the stronger Showa films, as the new stuff is pretty good. Obviously that amount of stock footage is nothing compared to what they did with Super Monster but it’s still a sign of things to come in the series.
Rock Baker

Yep, of all the non-Toho efforts, this one comes closest to matching Toho in quality. Possibly the previous film was a slightly better movie all around, but this one does deliver the goods and does so quite well. Sadly, it was released directly to TV here as THE RETURN OF THE GIANT MONSTERS, but it did come with a typically nice Titra Studios dub.
Gamera977

Yeah, in Vs. Barugon Daiei blew the budget on a longer more serious movie and did have to cut back a little here on budget and running time. It still didn’t do that well in theaters and would have been the last film had not an American distributer stepped in and offered to help with the cost for the rights to run the movies in the West. Their only demands were 1). Each movie must feature a new kaiju for Gamera to fight and 2). a Caucasian kid along with the Japanese kid since they thought this would make the movies easier to sell in the West. Daiei also cut the budget by recycling more and more stock footage as well.
Eric Hinkle

Even as a boy I thought that Gamera vs. Gyaos was far and away the best of the Gamera movies. Gyaos was just such a cool monster; and the whole eating people on screen was shocking to see as back then. So much so that I had to be sure to watch the film every chance I had, of course!
Cullen Waters

Always good to see Gamera.

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