Nov 05 2008
Review: War of the Monsters (aka Gamera Vs. Barugon, 1966)
When a film is financially (and perhaps, critically) successful enough to encourage movie producers to have a sequel made, the idea of a film series (or franchise) is born. After the release of Gamera (aka Gammera: The Invincible, 1965), the giant, pre-historic turtle returned to the screen (in full color) to face his first adversary, Barugon (not to be confused with Toho Studios’ Baragon of Frankenstein Conquers the World, 1965), in War of the Monsters (aka Gamera Vs. Barugon, 1966).
Trapped in the head of a missile bound for Mars, Gamera is hurled through space. The voyage is interrupted by a collision with an asteroid, and Gamera is freed. Gamera heads back to Earth and returns to Japan in search of consumable energy (it is learned in the first film that Gamera is able to consume all sorts of energy as nourishment).
Meanwhile, three men travel to a remote, tropical island to find their fortune in a sacred opal. Through a series of events, the opal is revealed to be an egg; the egg is inadvertently exposed to an infrared heat lamp and hatches the dinosaur-like Barugon when it is brought back to Kobe, Japan. Barugon grows in size to rival that of Gamera.
As Barugon begins to destroy Kobe, Gamera arrives, attracted to a destructive energy ray emitted from Barugon’s back that resembles the electromagnetic spectrum. The “war of the monsters” begins, and Barugon defeats Gamera by way of a freezing mist sprayed from his long tongue.
Barugon continues on his path as the armed forces find ways of slowing him down (such as artificial rain dumped from aircraft, exploiting the creature’s weakness for water). Gamera revives and makes his final strike on Barugon, this time next to a lake. As the monsters collide for the last time, Gamera’s only hope for victory is to get Barugon into the water…..
War of the Monsters is the only film in the Showa series (kaiju eiga produced between 1954 and 1980) of Gamera films that was not directed by Noriaki Yuasa (Shigeo Tanaka directed War of the Monsters). It was the first film in the series that was shot in color and featured some graphic violence, including blood gushing from the monsters’ wounds (a forerunner to the modern “splatter” effects created by the horror genre’s leading special effects artists). In addition to some odd special effects sequences (where the suits of Gamera and Barugon are slung about the set against each other on wires in a clumsy fashion), an attempt at realism may have been more likely to provoke laughter from audiences; after Barugon’s siege on Kobe, he takes a short nap amongst the debris.
War of the Monsters was released directly to television in the US by American International Pictures in 1966 and was considerably shorter than the Japanese-language version. Television producer Sandy Frank re-released and re-dubbed the uncut version of this film as Gamera Vs. Barugon in the 1980s. The AIP version of War of the Monsters is available on several budget DVD labels and may interest the average kaiju eiga fan, especially due to its low price. The fact that the film led to several more Gamera films proves that a box office hit will not be left alone.
