Mill Creek Review #5- Gammera the Invincible

After a long absence I am back with more public domain movie reviews. When I first bought the 50 movie packs I was expecting something wonderfully awful on every disc. For the most part I was right, there are some pretty cheesy, laughably bad movies. However, what I wasn’t expecting, at least for the most part was actually really fun movies.

Sure I knew Night of the Living Dead was going to be good. I knew Nosforatu and Phantom of the Opera were going to be good, but who knew how much fun Gamera the Invincible would be.

As I mentioned in my previous review, Gamera was Daiei Motion Pictures answer to Godzilla. And much like Godzilla, as the movies moved on they got much cheesier.

 

Yes, that much cheesier.

However, like Godzilla, Gamera started out as a genuinely compelling story.

The Giant Turtle was created when a nuclear bomb is accidently set off by American’s trying to attack Soviets who are invading American airspace. (I think Americans in foreign action movies are about as clumsily evil as all of mankind is in a Disney nature movie.)

Gamera immediately starts attacking a Japanese research ship and the fun is on. He of course attacks Tokyo and the Japanese fight back, they freeze the Giant Ninja Turtle and try to blow him up. They are able to knock him onto his back which should be the end but then…

Oh shit he can fly!

While all this is going on Gamera is befriended by a young boy named Yoshiro, who of course LOVES turtles. This is how Gamera developed his “friend of children” moniker.

Now this is the synopsis of the Japanese version. When World Entertainment Corp released the movie to America, they added American actors who add to the movie with their own scenes.

The ironic part of this is, while in this movie the Americans are tacked on, they do have a purpose, and make sense to the overall plot, unlike Tom from Attack of the Monsters, who, even though he was in the original Japanese movie, seemed REALLY out of place.

If you like monster movies, if you like crazy kids movies and if you like just pure disaster and destruction movies, Gamera is definitely a movie you should check out.