What monster movie are you currently watching?

For the discussion of non-Toho monster media, tokusatsu franchises, and also for mixed discussion of Toho and non-Toho kaiju media.
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mikelcho
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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H-Man wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:07 pm
mikelcho wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:47 pm
H-Man wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:22 pm

Isn't there like a third bad tree monster film in the form of Maneater at Hydra?
Yes, there is, but it's called Maneater of Hydra.
I stand corrected. I must now watch The Revenge of Doctor X (aka Venus Flytrap aka Body of the Prey)) thrice for erroneously switching the preposition!
Ahhh, good one! I like that!

But seriously, I forgot all about that one.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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mikelcho wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 2:40 pm
edgaguirus wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:53 pm Last night I saw From Hell it Came. Is it a bad movie? Yes. Is it entertaining? Also yes. The acting and dialogue could be better, but it's a nice little film with a memorable tree monster.
I had a paperback book once called Horrors from Screen to Scream (or maybe it was the other way around; I don't know which) and the review for From Hell It Came started like this: "And to Hell it can go." Pretty funny, huh?

Btw, have you seen the other bad tree monster film, The Navy vs. the Night Monsters?
I have not seen that film, but I'd like to.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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I am in the process of binging the 60's Godzilla films.

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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I saw a movie I hadn't seen in years available On Demand. It's a film called The Crawling Eye. It was pretty much as I remembered it, and enjoyed seeing it. I'll admit that Janet Munro is one major reason for seeing this movie, but it's also a standard sci fi monster film of the 50s with better acting than most. The aliens look best when showing close ups of them, as the models look cheap and stiff.
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Then expect something that's fiercer, more cruel, and deadly than anything that's walked the Earth.

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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edgaguirus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 10:16 pm I saw a movie I hadn't seen in years available On Demand. It's a film called The Crawling Eye. It was pretty much as I remembered it, and enjoyed seeing it. I'll admit that Janet Munro is one major reason for seeing this movie, but it's also a standard sci fi monster film of the 50s with better acting than most. The aliens look best when showing close ups of them, as the models look cheap and stiff.
I really like this movie, although it loses a lot of its character focus in the second half. It's a shame that the original TV version no longer survives.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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edgaguirus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 10:16 pm I saw a movie I hadn't seen in years available On Demand. It's a film called The Crawling Eye. It was pretty much as I remembered it, and enjoyed seeing it. I'll admit that Janet Munro is one major reason for seeing this movie, but it's also a standard sci fi monster film of the 50s with better acting than most. The aliens look best when showing close ups of them, as the models look cheap and stiff.
To think Stephen King thought it was terrifying as a kid and put the monster in IT.

Speaking of which, always found it funny King mentioned Rodan in the book, but It took on the form of a generic bird. I mean, was either King or IT himself afraid of being sued by Toho? Why not the Giant Claw instead?

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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The Crawling Eye is definitely a flawed movie but I enjoy the hell out of it. I was really happy to see that on TV again the other night, even if I ended up falling asleep well before the monsters show up.

Re, It: Both Rodan and The Crawling Eye were DCA releases, with the latter's poster boasting "A DCA release: the company that brought you 'Rodan!'" Interesting that King references both in the same book.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

Post by UltramanGoji »

Watched The Return of Godzilla today in Japanese, officially completing a lifelong goal of mine to have seen every single Japanese-made Godzilla film in its original language versions.

Much like G2K, I didn't really find this one to be any worse than it's U.S. edit, I actually kind of preferred ROG over G85. I like the former's more balanced take on the Soviet vs. US nuclear debate compared to G85's more villainous USSR (I didn't even realize the shot of the agent firing the missile was exclusive to the American version until now!).

Re-watching this made me re-evaluate it's quality a little bit, I can definitely say that I find a lot of it to be really half-baked, not necessarily bad but nowhere near as quality as I once made it out to be. I still really enjoy every angle with the Prime Minister character, especially Keiju Kobayashi's performance and the score by Reijiro Koroku still ranks as one of my favorites of the franchise. But I think the primary characters are fairly nothing special and some sequences tend to outstay their welcome (the Yahata Maru scenes and the high-rise rescue especially). This also has one of my least favorite Godzilla portrayals, it's a very sluggish performance from Satsuma with a distinct lack of energy or personality from the character. While overall I am a fan of the 84 design, the upturned eyes tend to make Godzilla look a little cross-eyed at way too many instances. Another scene that stood out to me was the train sequence. The way Godzilla picks up the train just looks awkward and having him do practically nothing with it...why? It's not often I call a special effects sequence "pointless" with these films but this...I can't think of any other word to describe it.

Anyway, I would probably place both ROG and G85 in a solid "B" tier placement with ROG a little higher. Movies with problems, but enough elements to make them good movies overall.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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Last night my daughter and I watched The Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. It's stupid, but a lot of fun. It has giant lizards and giant electric morays, and interestingly enough, the giant spiders are only set dressing.

Where the film shoots itself (or the series) in the foot in the final scene suggesting that the next film would be based on From Earth to the Moon. They basically committed themselves to adapting a story in which The Military-Industrial Complex are the heroes using outdated science to fire a capsule to the Moon from a cannon. They would've had to borrow liberally from H.G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon in order to make a movie in the same vein as the first two.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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Terasawa wrote: Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:08 pm The Crawling Eye is definitely a flawed movie but I enjoy the hell out of it. I was really happy to see that on TV again the other night, even if I ended up falling asleep well before the monsters show up.

Re, It: Both Rodan and The Crawling Eye were DCA releases, with the latter's poster boasting "A DCA release: the company that brought you 'Rodan!'" Interesting that King references both in the same book.
I've got The Crawling Eye on DVD from a series called The Wade Williams Collection. This release is the unedited European version and is called The Trollenberg Terror. Very good film and I loved the aliens and their design. A very atmospheric film.

I hope to get a similar film someday from the Criterion Collection called Fiend Without a Face. It's mentioned in the liner notes of The Trollenberg Terror and it sounds intriguing.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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Watched Kong: Skull Island yesterday for surprisingly only the second time. Can say I really enjoyed the vast majority of the film. Kong was even better than I remember.

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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I'm not sure if you would call it a kaiju film, but I saw The Giant Behemoth last night. It's a British version of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, but is just as entertaining and effective. The Behemoth's stop motion effects are good, and the two leads are likable guys. I'm glad that they went with the radioactive dinosaur route instead of their original idea for the monster. It was first thought of as a big radioactive blob like mass, something like the mass that burned the fisherman, but much larger.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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I tried watching King of the Lost World (2005) the other day. I couldn't get through it. The acting and dialogue were bad, it blatantly tried to cash in on both King Kong 2k5 and Lost, and never featured any dinosaurs for a supposed adaptation of The Lost World. I'm gonna try to finish it right now.

EDIT: Other points
- Challenger's first appearance has little fanfare nor impact.
- Admittedly the first shot of the ape's footprint is neat.
- Similarly, the idea of sacrificing not to the ape, but creatures which deter the ape is neat - too bad nothing is done much with it.
- Also, the idea of people from outside the jungle forming a culture after all their planes crash there is also interesting, though again nothing is done with it.
- The ape only shows up at the end, and both it and its fight with the dragons (no really) is pretty stiff and bare.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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For its 90th anniversary, I'll be watching 'Dracula' 1931 tomorrow night, albeit twice with my second viewing being the version with Philip Glass' score (it'll be my first time seeing it). As much as it goes without saying, it's ironic how this movie was released on Valentine's Day of all days.

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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In preparation for 'Godzilla vs. Kong', I'll be watching the following triple features (consisting of one Kong movie and two Godzilla movies) throughout March:

'King Kong' 33
'Gojira'
'Godzilla: King Of The Monsters' 56

'Son Of Kong'
'Mothra vs. Godzilla'
'Destroy All Monsters'

'King Kong Escapes'
'Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla'
'Terror Of Mechagodzilla'

'King Kong' 76
'Godzilla 1985'
'Godzilla 2000'

'King Kong' 05
'Godzilla vs. Biollante'
'Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II'

'Kong: Skull Island'
'Godzilla' 14
'Godzilla: King Of The Monsters' 19

This will all be topped off with 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' on March 31st.

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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My even more simplified Honda reviews -

Vol 1
Spoiler:
Godzilla (1954) – My all-time favorite movie (next to Seven Samurai)

Rodan (1956) – First movie I ever remember scaring me (as a kid)

The Mysterians (1957) – My all-time favorite alien invasion film

The H-Man (1958) – Fun, spooky little cops and robbers/mutant blob movie

Varan the Unbelievable (1958) – I like the first half a lot (before Varan blasts off)

Battle in Outer Space (1959) – Cool space stuff, not so interesting humans/aliens

Mothra (1961) – All-time favorite fantasy/adventure/musical/giant moth film
Vol 2
Spoiler:
King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) – As far as charm and simplicity goes, 2021 has a lot to live up to

Matango (1963) – Best non-Godzilla Toho genre film

Atragon (1963) – GMK before GMK (similar themes I mean)

Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) – All-time greatest Godzilla sequel

Dogora (1964) – Fun, weird little cops and robbers/space jellyfish movie

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) – 2nd best Godzilla sequel

Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) – Favorite non-Godzilla Toho kaiju film
Vol 3
Spoiler:
Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) – 3rd best Godzilla sequel

The War of the Gargantuas (1966) – 2nd favorite non-Godzilla Toho kaiju film

King Kong Escapes (1967) – Fun live action cartoon with a great cast, both human and monster

Destroy All Monsters (1968) – The ‘Battle in Outer Space’ of Godzilla movies, for better or worse

Latitude Zero (1969) – Another live action cartoon, completely insane, very Hanna-Barbera

All Monsters Attack (1969) – An undervalued little gem, much like Ichiro’s vacuum tubes

Space Amoeba (1970) – Enjoyable but feels like it should’ve been directed by Jun Fukuda

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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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I'm resurrecting this thread, kind of like what happened in the last movie I saw. The British make great sci fi and horror films, and The Earth Dies Screaming is no exception. It is a short movie, but the images of a dead quiet city, the weird looking robots, and the blank eyed zombies make this a good entry into the apocalyptic and invasion genres.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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For its 40th anniversary, I'll be watching 'The Howling' tomorrow night.
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Re: What monster movie are you currently watching?

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Guyver 1991 - a guilty pleasure, love all the Screaming Mad George designed creatures and especially the humiliating body horror transformation that Mark Hammill is subjected to but my Guyver go-to is usually the Out of Control OVA and the 2-cor anime series Bio Booster Armor from 1989

Kong Skull Island - my 2nd favorite of the monsterverse movies

Beyond White Space - found out about this solid deep space creature feature by reading through one of the threads here at tohokingdom and I really think it's worth a watch


I've also been considering doing a fan edit of the two Godzilla monsterverse movies prior to watching GvK. I want to make a brand new narrative from both G'14 King of the Monsters footage, centering on Ford Brody and Serizawa but cutting out all other character arcs while recontextualizing battles between Godzilla the MUTOs, Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah.

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