Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1972)

Okay, so.... Godzilla vs Hedorah! It's been said that this is a Godzilla movie you either love or hate, so it's either a 10 or a 0. For me personally, this movie is a 5; right smack dab in the middle! It's not a shining gem or a smouldering turd, it's just kinda "eh" *gesture where you shake your hand with all the fingers flat out*So, the premise; rampant water and air pollution has spawned Hedorah, a sentient monster made of pollution that is like a mix of the Blob and a garbage dump! Hedorah is able to melt people to bones! The only hope for humanity, as always, is GODZILLAAAAA~!!!!Hedorah is a notable monster as he is the last monster of the Showa era that is acting on his own will, he isn't obeying anyone or under mind control, unlike Ghidorah, Gigan, Megalon, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus of the succeeding Showa films.This movie is different; there's bizarre animation, trippy montages, and drug innuendos a-plenty!!! Now, the animation shown isn't anime, it's just some bizarre animation straight out of Uncanny Valley. Hedorah is shown sucking on a smokestack from a factory and exhaling the smoke before showing his bloodshot eyes, a blatant reference to taking a bong hit.As someone who has taken a few bong hits before, I found this to be a clever little thing. The drug innuendos can be excused because this movie was made in 1971; weed culture was still in it's very huge first run!There are two or three POV shots from Hedorah's perspective.Also, no review of Godzilla vs Hedorah would be complete without mentioning the bizarre scene where Godzilla FLIES. This was a total WTF moment.All in all, if you watch this movie with a sober mind like I did, you'll either hate it or it'll just be "eh". If you watch it after smoking some weed or ingesting an edible, it'll be the best damn Godzilla movie you've ever seen!

The Godzilla movies just keep getting worse. This is some drug-induced hippie vision of Godzilla.They use trippy cartoons and pictures of constellations to explain the otherwise incomprehensible plot. Once again the star is a kid,I'm not sure if it's the same kid from the other movie but he looks the same. Hedorah is a shape shifting monster that feeds on smoke,sinks ships that park perpendicular to each other in the middle of the ocean and kills everyone that sees it with some sulfuric acid gas. Despite the weak story they still manage to have lackluster battles. This movie is bad from top to bottom. Don't waste your time.

One of the weirdest kaiju flicks ever created, this drug-fulled surrealist epic mixes in some very bizarre GODZILLA action with a plot that recalls the original '54 GODZILLA and experimental scenes to give it a very daft look. While not an easy movie to watch by any means, this unfortunately tends up being rubbishy rather than a work of genius, although it does have its moments and its never boring. The film's annoying theme tune is about saving the earth (yep, more unwanted environmentalist messages - nearly as bad as in Seagal's ON DEADLY GROUND) and resembles a Bond intro more than anything else.Things start off on a high note, as we witness the pollution of Japan's seas and the problems it causes. The "heroes" of the film are a very typical nuclear family rather than the investigating police force or intrepid reporters as in most of these films. Basically there are no other main cast members, just this family of four (five?). The scientist father discover that tadpoles taken from the sea now have the ability to merge together to create a bigger beast, and immediately decides that this is what has happened with the monster he calls "Hedora". After doing a bit of deep-sea diving to investigate, half of his face is burnt off by acid! Eventually Hedorah emerges from the ocean to wreak havoc as per usual, although he's rather more fond of murdering people than smashing buildings. As well as the acid rain he emits, he also spits huge globs of sludge, one of which goes on to attack people in a crowded nightclub in an unexpected homage to THE BLOB! It's not long before Godzilla arrives (here he has his very own theme tune) and engages the pollution-spawned fiend in a number of battles.Although Godzilla here looks like rather a tatty and disappointing monster, Hedorah more than makes up for his weakness. Hedorah is basically an animated pile of rubbish, complete with glowing red eyes. He's one of the more inventive monsters from the series and has to be seen to be believed. Unlike most kaiju films, there's a high death toll and we get to watch loads of people flashing and dissolving into skeletons as a result of Hedorah's carnage. Along with the slimy and disgusting Hedorah, this gives the movie a darker, more adult subject matter than before - but it's all so silly and obviously aimed at kids that you can't take it seriously anyway.The action scenes are adequate, but most of them are poorly-lit (perhaps to hide Godzilla's ratty appearance?) and there's nothing classic here as there was in previous multiple-monster bashes. The cast is instantly disposable, with the unfortunate exception of the annoyingly cute Japanese boy (in braces!) who leads it...it's a shame the acid sludge never gets him. What is most amusing in this film are the various experiments that director Yoshimitsu Banno tries out through it's running time. We have an unexplained black and white segment (complete with folk song!), weird animated interludes that make no sense, and the repetitive "save the earth" theme song that plays at various inappropriate moments. These bits certainly add to the "what the hell am I watching?" factor and make this a one-off kaiju feature. Although never boring, GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH is a hard film to watch and should be seen only by those who have very bizarre tastes. The final result is of some bizarre, cheese-fuelled nightmare.

For Godzilla's first entry into the 1970s, amateur director Yoshimitsu Banno was chosen to direct. Banno was a rather different breed of director, inspired by films such as Africa Addio and other exploitation and art-house cinema. Helping him create the story was veteran Godzilla screenwriter Takeshi Kimura, who read Rachel Carson's call to arms for the environmentalist movement Silent Spring as inspiration for his story treatment. Banno created an extremely unorthodox film, combining split-screens to show people's reactions to Hedorah's rampage with odd anime sequences to show random parts of Hedorah's attacks, as well as poetry in one scene. What is unique about Godzilla vs. Hedorah's story treatment is how the film parallels to the original 1954 opus. The scientist Dr. Yano (played by television star Akira Yamaguchi) is an eye-patched scientist, and the devastation wrought by Hedorah has elements unseen since the original namely on screen human deaths, depicted in rather graphic fashion by effects master Teruyoshi Nakano, who specialized in showing hideous injuries to both monsters and humans as well as pyrotechnics. Godzilla is portrayed as a hero for the first time in the series, an image which both benefits and harms the character. Providing the music for the series was Riichiro Manabe, a composer known for being Nagisa Oshima's composer of choice. His Godzilla theme, derived from a cue culled from the 1970 war film A TURNING POINT IN SHOWA HISTORY: THE MILITARISTS, is unorthodox, utilizing trumpets, light synthesizer work, and pipe organ. The films theme song, Taiyou Kaese, is sung beautifully by famed nude model and singer Keiko Mari(with backing from the male choral group Honey Knights, who also do renditions of the song in various points of the film), who also acts in the film. His score is very fitting for such an unorthodox film. The acting is well directed, with Hiroyuki Kawase being not that annoying as young Ken Yano. Also in a lead role is teen idol Toshio Shiba, who seems rather happy and carefree as Ken's uncle. Teruyoshi Nakano's effects are well done considering the restraints put on him time-wise. He filmed much of the scenes with director Banno, giving them a much larger scope. I recommend this film, it's bizarre and very avant-garde but very fun.