Growing up, I was never a Gamera fan. It wasn't that I didn't like the movies; I just never had a chance to see them. WDRB-TV 41 out of Louisville was the only source for Japanese monster movies at the time (this being the years before cable and VCRs), and they showed a definite bias toward the Toho films. So Godzilla, you betcha. Gargantuas, oh sure. But Gamera? No dice. I'd never even heard of the giant flying turtle until high school, and I didn't watch my first Gamera film until college -- where I learned that sidling up to a foxy young woman in a bar and saying, "I just had my first experience with Gamera, friend to all children. Perhaps you'd like to share in it with me?" isn't really all that effective as a pick-up line.

Gamera didn't really win me over at that late a stage in the game, though I did appreciate certain things about the movies that are embodied in Attack of the Monsters -- specifically that they were garishly candy-colored and spectacularly violent. Kids films now may be restricted to movies where people are shocked by the stinkiness of baby poo and precocious tweens have to foil spies by driving around in go-carts, but there was a time when children's films included drunken jig dancing and a giant turtle being lacerated by a monster who shoots throwing stars out of his nose, causing blood to squirt out like mad. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Actually, when I mentioned drunken jig dancing, I was thinking of Darby O'Gill and the Little People, one of my favorite kids' films that also features Sean Connery punching people in the face, but now that I think about it, Attack of the Monsters has some drunken jig dancing in it as well, performed by none other than Gamera himself.

The story is pretty simple: two mischievous young lads in hot pants find a flying saucer in the woods and do what any young boys would do in such a situation: bang on the controls until the thing flies into space. The benevolent Gamera saves them from an asteroid belt, then rolls his eyes endlessly, presumably in some sort of warning that they should quit farting around in strange spaceships, but mostly it looks like he's just about had it up to here with being the guardian of the children. Unfortunately for the boys, the spaceship is too fast even for a turtle that flies by spinning around with flames shooting out his legholes like a cheap July 4th firework -- from back in the days when you were allowed to purchase such things, before someone's mom got bored and decided to mount a crusade to have them banned "to protect the children." Look lady, Gamera lets us have cheap fireworks, and if they're cool with a twenty-story tall giant flying turtle, then they oughta be cool with everyone.

The spaceship lands on some crappy planet where a Gyaos, the pterodactyl-like monster from one of Gamera's most popular adventures, gets his legs graphically chopped off by Barugon. Then some sexy space ladies show up and make all nice to the kids, even though the plan is to eat their brains and maybe drink their blood. I lost track of the menu at some point. Will Gamera save the wee lads from this horrible fate?

Attack of the Monsters isn't particularly good, but it's still fun just because it's hard to believe a kiddie film is packed so full of gushing blood and brain-sucking space women. They don't make 'em like they used to. I'm sure had I grown up with a movie like this, I would have liked it more than Godzilla's Revenge. The action kind of falters in the middle, when Gamera is lyin' at the bottom of a lake and our two young protagonists are carrying the weight of the film, but once the monster shenanigans kick into high gear, the fun begins. The effects are extremely shoddy and a glaring example of how far the miniatures and man-in-a-monster-suit craft had sunk post Eiji Tsubaraya. But what the hell, right? It's a giant flying space turtle fighting sexy brain-sucking space girls and a monster who shoots ninja stars out of his head. If I was a kid, or if I had a kid, I'd make sure this was in heavy rotation.

Oh yeah -- this is also the movie that has Gamera go-go dancing and spinning around on some gymnastics equipment, a scene that is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. It ranks right up there with Godzilla's world famous tail slide and his Irish jig dance on Planet X.

Labels: Set: Sci-Fi Classics