Honorable Mention (Hey, it’s a giant monster movie. We cover giant monster movies) There is a useful rule of thumb about giant monster movies: Most of the time you are better off ignoring the bits between the giant monster battles. Now I’ll admit this is somewhat unfair: after all, Kong is a great adventure film, […]
Read more "Uktena, the Horned Monstrosity (2021)"“It’s uphill work. The only word they know is ‘grunt’ and they can’t spell it” Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy This is one of those movies I never thought I would see. It’s rare — at least, outside of Korea — and I never could find any way to get it except perhaps […]
Read more "Tirannoui baltob [Tyranno’s Claw] (1994)"I haven’t thought about this one in a long time. It is actually one of the movies I own, as it was part of my Dad’s old collection, but it has been some time since I watched it. But clips of the film showed up in a Mexican horror film I watched not too long […]
Read more "Unknown Island (1948)"Let’s see if we got this right: An Ultraman film debuted in American theaters back in 1987. It starred (among others) Adrienne Barbeau and actually ran on the big screen in Japan two years later as “Ultraman USA.” Oh, and it was made by… Hanna-Barbera. Right. Now, I will point out that Tsuburaya was heavily […]
Read more "Ultraman: The Adventure Begins (1987)"I didn’t think much of this one the first time I saw it. I admit that. But, I don’t know. I enjoyed it this time around. I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for giant monster movies. Give me a guy in a latex suit stomping on Tokyo any day. It’ll make any movie better, even […]
Read more "Zarkorr! The Invader (1996)"One of the basic truths about any franchise that’s been around as long as Ultraman is that eventually you reach the point where you have no idea what to expect. That may seem contradictory: we tend to think such franchises sort of…ossify after a while and start doing the sort of thing Monty Python does, […]
Read more "Urutoraman sâga [Ultraman Saga] (2012)"Honorable Mention This one is strange. And rather disturbing. A young man keeps having these weird seizures where he howls and jumps about uncontrollably. It’s as if something is taking him over and it keeps getting worse. Then he starts transforming — at first just an arm or a leg — during these fits into…something. […]
Read more "Henge [Metamorphosis] (2011)"A lost Godzilla film from the peak of the Heisei era? A precursor of the animated Godzilla: Monster Planet? A little known Godzilla short film? Well…not quite. It was in fact filmed for a Godzilla theme park ride, but does feature a wild final battle between Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra, shot old-school by Toho with men […]
Read more "Kaijû puranetto: Gojira [Monster Planet of Godzilla] (1994)"(aka Raiga: God of the Monsters) This is one of those films that is a decidedly mixed experience. On the one hand we have a lot of reasonably well done giantsuitmation scenes of Kaiju Eiga destruction — far more than one expects from most giant monster movies, with three main battles (and a flashback battle) […]
Read more "Raiga: The Monster from the Deep Sea [Shinkaijû Raiga] (2009)"
rivets on the poster 