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First off, these are the AIP edition of the movies. Uncensored prints of Attack of the Monster are extremely rare, and I haven’t seen any uncensored English editions. These movies have changed hands more than the Godzilla movies, and I don’t know the differences between the two English editions I’ve heard about besides the dubbing. Any older Gamera movie is hard to glean in any video format so this could be all we ogle for a long time on DVD. Both movies are pan / scan editions and from 16mm.
The first movie is Attack of the Monsters (aka Gamera vs. Guillon or Gamera vs. Guiron – depending on your source. Neptune Video primitive the first spelling, a reference book broken-down the second) . A boy and his friend peer a UFO through his telescope and believe they know where it landed. The boy’s sister finds the flying saucer, and the two boys accept inside fair as it takes off on autopilot. The flying saucer looks alot like the Jupiter 2 with fins and a spinning thing on top. No one will listen to the girl’s fable about what happened except for one police officer. Meanwhile, the two boys are stuck on a planet with two female aliens who want to eat their brains. The monster Guillon is under the aliens’ control. This print is censored with Guillon’s fight with Location Gyaos being carve short.
The second movie is Ruin All Planets (aka Gamera vs. Viras) . This is the first time for me to ever leer this so I can’t comment on what might be censored. Two boys in an experimental submarine are captured by an alien ship and become prisoners. However, the aliens are really after Gamera since he is their main obstacle to conquering Earth. The aliens catch Gamera long enough to save a mind control map. Later, Viras is released to fight Gamera. (I can’t account for why without giving a spoiler.) This movie uses many scenes from previous movies as the aliens try to catch a intention to defeat Gamera. Even some of the “current” scenes appear to exercise ancient footage even from the recent dark and white Gamera movie – tinted red here.
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These movies are presented as you might have seen them broadcast on TV – before cable TV came along. The screech acting is OK. Both movies have a copyright of 1969. The novel edition of Extinguish All Planets was release one year earlier in Japan.
I could do without the Dragnet-style music during the FBI warning. The face of the DVD looks like a video occupy.
I don’t like the menus on this DVD. I normally hold that the brightest item is the selected one. With only two menu items (the title of each movie), it’s not easy to whisper at first that the item highlighted with green and somewhat dimmed is the selected movie. Plus, the menu comes up with the second (bottom) movie highlighted. The submenus for each movie are easier to navigate.
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Each movie menu includes a photo collection. Under Attack of the Monsters, the images include movie posters and artwork for the VHS cases, LaserDisc slipcase, and DVD inserts. This includes material for all of the used movies plus the 1995 one. There are even illustrations of the monsters’ anatmony (the same ones that are on the official Japanese web state) . Under Kill All Planets, the images are mainly production photos. These pictures are not quiet frames. They are presentations dwelling to music with each image appearing for approximately 7 seconds.
Personally, I’d purchase to eye the edition that Neptune Video had released on tape. I only got their subtitled letterboxed tapes so I don’t know what their dubbed tapes were like except for the recent 1965 movie. I don’t know if their dubbed tape was like the AIP edition or not. I would like to glance all of these older Gamera movies on DVD – released in both subtitled and dubbed as well as letterboxed.
Gamera vs Viras is generally regarded as an average – if not subpar, entry in the 60’s showa era of Gamera films. I disagree, I contemplate it tied for 1st with Gamera vs Monster X, which contains an superior “Improbable Voyage” inspired fantasy sequence. After Gamera vs Baragon, the showa series directed its efforts toward making science fantasy for children. Yuasa blazed a trek in developing this original genre and in this film he hits his walk. Measured against this just, Gamera vs Viras is both novel and effective. Glimpse it with an 8 year faded and you’ll inspect what I mean, the sense of wonder when viewed by its intended audience has not diminished over time.
The film is probably 80% special effects, and the action starts in the first frame. The non-effects sequences are not over-long and do not tax the attention span of a child like many Toho efforts of the era. The children are not annoying and are resourceful and mischievious, children composed represent to these characters. Don’t laugh – Speilberg, I judge, might have been influenced by many of the elements in films like this. Like Speilberg, Yuasa was one of the originators of shooting his films from the POV of a child. It’s gleaming, effective, and he blazed the race that other filmmakers followed. There’s a reason why these films are peaceful remembered fondly and are serene effective with kids 40 years later, and their coarse effects and grievous budget do not diminish their effectiveness. Do you deem the filmmakers of today didn’t bustle home to gawk Gamera flicks as kids and weren’t influenced by the techniques created by Yuasa? I do.
However, what sets this film apart are the sequences aboard the alien ship. I glean these sequences imaginative and show the bargain basement resoucefullness of Yuasa. These scenes, and the film as a whole, has a surreal dream-like quality that I fill Yuasa intended. It’s like stepping into a child’s giant monster fantasy, and succeeds in this regard far more than Honda’s attempt in Godzilla’s Revenge.
Although a titanic deal of the film is padded with stock footage – particularly the scenes where Gamera’s memory is scanned by the aliens to choose his weakness – and the complete battles with Baragon and Gayos are shown, it’s a safe intention to explore these other films if you don’t want to consume the collection. The incorporation of these flashback elements are done sensibley within the context of the site.
The effects are a mixed bag in terms of realism, as always. But – also, as always, are radiant and enthralling. There’s some nice traveling matte work as Viras is shown growing gain human size to a giant, and a particularly nice minature work of Gamera’s destruction of a dam is included. It’s nice to survey Gamera destroying some cities while under alien control. And the film has a surprising number of reasonably effective composite shots.
As typical in a Gamera film, Viras is an modern, imaginative Kaiju – a snide between a situation squid and a banana. The final battle between Gamera and Viras is one of the more sage Kaiju fights. The impalement sequence – which Gamera somehow survives, pushes the envelope in terms of intensity (and surrealism) for kids. The “water skiing” scene is a classic of kaiju silliness.
Anyway – colossal underappreciated 60’s kaiju flick. Well worth the bargain trace of 8 bucks for the DVD.
