MONSTER MOVIE OF THE WEEK: GHIDORAH: THE THREE HEADED MONSTER (1965)

GHIDORAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER (1965)
Director: Ishiro Honda
Genre: Kaiju eiga
Country: Japan

THE MOVIE

Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is significant for several reasons. First it marks the point at which the Godzilla series starts its descent into camp with its fatal introduction of extraterrestrial elements into the movies (as if asking the audience to accept giant monsters wasn’t enough). Secondly it starts a weird trilogy of mid sixties Godzilla movies that feature roughly the same plot in which Earth’s monsters team up to fight an invading space monster. This trilogy of loose remakes concluded with Destroy All Monsters which is the most spectacular and monster filled of the bunch. Lastly, Ghidorah introduced us to one of Godzilla’s most memorable and popular foes, the golden triple headed space dragon, King Ghidorah, who is second only to Mothra in number of appearances in the series. Much like Mothra, he has been pimped out whenever Toho was feeling nervous about the box office prospects of their next movie hence his replacement of the lesser-known Varan in 2001’s GMK. Several versions of Ghidorah also appeared in two of the 1990’s Rebirth of Mothra movies.

As for the movie itself, it’s pretty typical mid-sixties Showa stuff. It involves a intrigue between Japan and a fictional foreign country, a missing princess claiming to be from Venus, and a mysterious meteorite housing a certain space monster. And it marks the start of silly season. There is even a conversation between Godzilla and Rodan that is translated for us by the Mothra larva and her twin fairy friends. In a little over ten years Godzilla had gone from a nuclear hell beast to a misunderstood kid fighting on a playground.

MONSTERS PRESENT

Godzilla
Mothra larva
Rodan
King Ghidorah



MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Until this movie, Toho’s monsters were always based on real creatures: Godzilla was based on a couple of dinosaurs; Rodan was based on a Pteradactyl; Mothra, a butterfly. King Ghidorah was the first truly original Toho monster, loosely based on mythic Asian dragons but ultimately the necessities of realizing the creature via suitmation gave Ghidorah his own oddly vertical form and structure. In his debut movie he is as much puppet as suitmation actor with his heads and double tails being controlled by wires (as famously glimpsed in the finale of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure).

As if three heads and wings weren’t enough to make Ghidorah stand out, he is also given beautiful golden scales all over his body and an unearthly chirping vocalization. Oh. And he shoots lightening from each of his three mouths. One can say that the success of creating this new monster from scratch gave Toho the license to create such outlandish alien characters as the avian cyborg Gigan and the beetle-like Megalon.



With the exception of his appearance in GMK, Ghidorah is one of Godzilla’s consistently evil and powerful opponents. He finally got his own (alternate) origin story and even his own mecha in 1991’s Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah. Funny that it took so long to have a movie with that title.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Recently released in a restored deluxe version with both the American and Japanese versions.



MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

Eh.

SEQUELS

Immediately followed by the very similar:

Invasion of the Astro Monster (1965)

and a few years later by

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

SEE ALSO

Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah (1991)
GMK (2001)

TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: The Black Scorpion (1957)

THE BLACK SCORPION (1957)

Directed by Edward Ludwig

Genre: Natural Horror

THE MOVIE

The Black Scorpion is notable mainly as having been worked on by the great Willis O’Brien, the animator behind the original King Kong. O’Brien here animates a bunch of giant scorpions. The movie is also unique in its Mexican setting, of which it only barely makes use. Otherwise, we have a pretty standard 1950’s giant bug movie.

Mexico clearly does not have the same level of monster preparedness as, say, Japan.

When a series of mysterious earthquakes strike rural Mexico, American Geologist, Dr. Hank Scott and his sidekick Dr. Arturo Ramos are dispatched to investigate. They discover a newly formed volcano and evidence of non-geological violence. The volcano erupts again and a group of giant scorpions are unleashed upon the countryside. After a recon trip into a fissure deep below the earth, the scientists, an annoying kid, and the Mexican military decide they can seal the scorpions under the earth by blowing up the fissure. However, the scorpions find a way to escape and the largest (and blackest) scorpion makes its way to Mexico City to wreak havoc.

THE MONSTER EFFECTS

If Ray Harryhousen is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of stop motion effects, then Willis O’Brien was the Yoda (or at least the Qui-Gon Jinn). The scorpions look and move beautifully in any long or medium shot but like many movies that feature stop motion creatures, The Black Scorpion relies on a larger puppet for close-ups. This particular puppet is pretty wacky looking with googly eyes and a drooling mouth. What’s worse it that it looks like the same painfully slow dolly shot is used EVERY time we get a close up. It must be repeated four or five times in the movie.

"Get back, man! Don't make me steeeng you!"

MONSTERS FEATURED

A group of scorpions and some other subterranean creepy-crawlies.

DVD AVAILABILITY

A bare bones version is available on Netflix.

Was also featured on an episode of MST3K.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

The cave sequence is particularly creepy.

"This senorita likes her scorpions like she likes her men..."

SEQUELS

None, but this film would be a good candidate for a remake with nice effects and that makes more use of the Mexican flavor.

SEE ALSO

Them! (1954)

TRIVIA

Another claim to fame that this film has is that spider and worm that were featured in the cave sequence were actually leftovers from King Kong That in itself is not that interesting as all the dinosaurs from that movie were leftovers from the earlier unfinished film Creation. However, the spider and the worm were featured in the infamous and lost “Spider Pit” sequence from King Kong. This was a sequence (with a counterpart in the 2005 version) that was supposedly filmed and then cut from the movie and misplaced and all that remains from it are a few reference photos. So the spider and worm give you a glimpse of a couple of creatures from that famous lost scene.

TRAILER

MONSTER MOVIE OF THE WEEK: OUTLANDER (2008)

OUTLANDER (2008)

Director: Howard McCain

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Historical Epic

THE MOVIE

Outlander is an intriguing mix of genres. It combines sci-fi and action with the historical epic, which in itself is interesting and deserves a rental. It is like Lord of the Rings meets Predator, or more accurately Alien3 meets Beowulf. It very much resembles some early concepts for the third Alien movie, which was to have Ripley and the xenomorph crash land on a medieval planet. Here, James Caviezel plays an interstellar soldier who crash lands into 8^th Century Norway, along with a dangerous alien stowaway, called a Moorwen. There are many connections here with the Beowulf story, as this movie was originally supposed to have been an adaptation of that famous English poem, but with the introduction of science fiction elements, it evolved into something else. Nevertheless, you will find various plot points and character names kept as homage, or at least the literary equivalent of a fanwank.

There are some very cool genre nods in the casting as well. You might remember the always-raspy John Hurt from when that creature that popped through his chest in Alien. Hellboy’s Ron Perlman makes an appearance as a rival leader, although he looks strangely like a biker. And he is very tentatively sporting some kind of Irish brogue (or something).

Why smoking and canoeing don't mix.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The somewhat Avatary monster in Outlander is given an interesting bit of backstory. Human beings apparently spread to its planet and wiped out all of the Moorwen population. The one that hitched a ride on the doomed ship was possibly the last of its kind. We are treated to an interesting montage of these creatures systematically being wiped out and the movie clearly presents this as a kind of genocide and leads us to sympathize with them to a degree and even implies that they are semi-sentient.

The Moorwen were designed by Patrick Tatopolous, and recall his work on both Godzilla and Pitch Black. The face and head resemble the American Godzilla but the sharp and skeletal body and multi-ended whip tails recall the creatures from the latter movie. The monsters are given the rather neat effect of being bioluminescent, a very eerie and cool effect as they will suddenly light up in da-glo shades of electric blue and magenta. Other than looking cool, I’m not sure what purpose this is supposed to serve.

Presumably not a stealth predator on its homeworld.

BEST SEQUENCE

The last quarter of the movie is pretty solid as our team of heroes descends into the very hellish lair of the Moorwen, complete with lava and stacks of decaying body parts.

SEQUELS

None! This movie tanked at the box-office, as it was only released for about a week with no marketing support. Hopefully, it will find a life for itself on home video.

I'd like my Moorwen extra crispy, please.

DVD AVAILABILITY

On DVD, with lots of deleted scenes and a commentary track. Blu-Ray should be out in the near future and I have a feeling this will be a good one to see HD. Put it in your Netflix queue!

SEE ALSO:

Alien 3 (1992), Predator (1987) Avatar (2009)

THE TRAILER