Attack of the Monsters: The Origins of Classic Movie Monsters

Starring:Nobuhiro Kajima, Miyuki Akiyama, Christopher Murphy, Yuko Hamada, Eiji Funakoshi, Kon Omura, Edith Hanson
Director: Noriaki Yuasa
Studio: Brentwood Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
This fourth entry in the Gamera series found the titanic turtle paralleling the cuddly direction of his competitor Godzilla. When two young, star-gazing children investigate a spaceship that has practically landed in their backyard, they are whisked away to Terra, our undiscovered tenth planet whose two "groovy spacegirls" are all that remain of a once-superior alien civilization. But the boys soon discover that their seemingly friendly hosts have sinister plans in mind for them. Never fear, for Gamera comes to save them, flying through space to battle the spacegirls' guardian Guiron, a giant, rhino-like beast possessing a razor-sharp steel blade for a snout. This movie is truly suited for young children, for older kids, and especially for adults will chortle at the unintentional humor arising from the cheesy effects, underplayed roles, and possibly the worst dubbing job in Japanese monster history. Taken as comedy, adults will find this a real camp gem--when the two boys witness Guiron slice 'n' dice a laser-spewing Gaos, one of them proclaims: "What a monster!" --Bryan Reesman

Attack of the Monsters: The Origins of Classic Movie Monsters
Average customer rating:

Who Knew That Gamera Lettered In Gymnastics?

gamera on dinosaur planet

Sad to see what became of our favorite giant flying turtle

Bad Science but Good Brains!

Silly

Attack of the Monsters: The Origins of Classic Movie Monsters
Starring: Nobuhiro Kajima , Miyuki Akiyama , Christopher Murphy , Yuko Hamada , and Eiji Funakoshi
Director: Noriaki Yuasa
Manufacturer: Brentwood Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00018WMSY
Release Date: 2004-02-03

Amazon.com

This fourth entry in the Gamera series found the titanic turtle paralleling the cuddly direction of his competitor Godzilla. When two young, star-gazing children investigate a spaceship that has practically landed in their backyard, they are whisked away to Terra, our undiscovered tenth planet whose two "groovy spacegirls" are all that remain of a once-superior alien civilization. But the boys soon discover that their seemingly friendly hosts have sinister plans in mind for them. Never fear, for Gamera comes to save them, flying through space to battle the spacegirls' guardian Guiron, a giant, rhino-like beast possessing a razor-sharp steel blade for a snout. This movie is truly suited for young children, for older kids, and especially for adults will chortle at the unintentional humor arising from the cheesy effects, underplayed roles, and possibly the worst dubbing job in Japanese monster history. Taken as comedy, adults will find this a real camp gem--when the two boys witness Guiron slice 'n' dice a laser-spewing Gaos, one of them proclaims: "What a monster!" --Bryan Reesman

Customer Reviews:

Who Knew That Gamera Lettered In Gymnastics?.......2006-08-29

This has got to be one of the silliest of all the Japanese rubber monster movies. Two Japanese boys discover a flying saucer, fly it to a planet inhabited by Guiron, a ridiculous monster with a knife-snout and throwing stars in his nostrils (watch and learn,) and two space babes dubbed very poorly. They uncover a plot that involves both head shaving (a theme introduced early in the film by helpful policeman and Jerry Lewis impersonator, Detective "Cornjob"...don't miss the practice with the disemboweling cutlass) and brain eating. Somehow Gamera (a friend to all children if you'll recall your Gamera history) learns of the kid's distress, comes to the planet, defeats Guiron with a missile through his nostril (really), and takes the boys back to Earth in his mouth.

If this sounds muddled, it is: it is one of the more ludicrous plots of the genre, and is definitely worth a few laughs for the unadulterated cheese factor. My favorite scene in the film hands down is the gymnastics routine Gamera performs in mid-fight (followed by the daintiest dance you have ever seen a giant turtle monster do.) This is all, of course, utterly ridiculous, but therein resides the appeal.

gamera on dinosaur planet.......2006-07-02

i wave seen three gamera movies so far this is my favourite one because it has the most monsters. the story has gamera a prehitoric monster fithg a huge dinosaur on a distant planet here aliens have kidnaptte two kids. this films have the monsters gamera the giant turtle gyaos a pteratactyle from space and of course guiron the intergalactic reptile monster.

Sad to see what became of our favorite giant flying turtle.......2006-05-05

This was a rather sad entry into the Gamera series of movies. The plot, such as it is, is two young boys, Akio and Tom find a spaceship and go inside to explore. The ship takes off and lands on a planet that is in our solar system but is directly on the other side of Earth so we never saw it. The only inhabitants left are two attractive women and their monster, Guiron. Guiron is basically a lizard with a knife for a head. The women read Akio's mind to find out information and then plan to eat the boy's brains before flying to earth. But of course, Gamera, the friend of all children, comes to the rescue. He defeats Guiron and takes the boys back to Earth safely.

The dubbing in this movie is absolutely horrible. The monster fight scenes were comical. In fact, Guiron's whole look is ridiculous. Akio, one of the young boys, is obsessed with living in a world without traffic accidents and keeps calling planets "stars". Back on Earth the adults won't believe Akio's sister that he took off in a spaceship, except for one policeman, "Cornjob".

These Japanese monster movies are always fun to watch, but some of them also had at least a semblance of quality. This one has none. A very strangely written script, beyond terrible dubbing and lower than low-budget effects.

Bad Science but Good Brains!.......2006-04-19

I love zombie movies. Especially campy ones like Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Creeps. Imagine my pleasant surprise to find *brain lust* in a Japanese monster movie! And they're two of the cutest brain eaters you'd ever want to meet! So sad they never got to dine on Akio. Basically, a UFO lands lands on the outskirts of a Japanese village...two kids decide it would be an excellent idea to take a joyride while the alien's away...they race a giant space turtle...then land on a star(?) inhabited by the aforementioned ladies...the girls have a monster with a head shaped like an exacto knife named Gurion...Gurion cuts off a pterodactyl's leg with a laser beam...he also fights Gamera the space turtle a few times...the alien babes die and the kids return to Earth to spread the message of world peace and...ending traffic accidents! Boy is this film ridiculous. The science is so flawed you'd think one of Bush's cronys at NASA wrote the script. Landing on a star! Stopping traffic accidents! Come on guys..but you really can't go wrong with hot brain craving japanese girls and giant rubber monsters smashing each other up, can you? Recommended

Silly.......2006-01-23

It seems like Japan is visited by more monsters and aliens than any other location on earth; a sort of Bermuda triangle of monsters. I have to believe that someone has generated at least one college paper based on the incredible coincidence of monsters and Japan. This time we have three children looking through a low-power telescope when an alien spacecraft lands nearly in their backyard. The obvious choices for the children would seem to be, a) tell their mother, b) call the police, or c) climb aboard the spacecraft and journey to another planet populated by brain-sucking babes. You can guess which answer wins.

On the way to the other planet Gamera shows up and, other than breathing nicely and making growly monster noises in the vacuum of outer space, tries to keep the spacecraft from landing on planet Terra (do not be confused with our planet named Terra - I am sure you can see the immediate distinction between names).

Once on the planet, Tom and Akio (Akio's little sister had to stay behind because she was too little) immediately encounter Guiron and Gaos. Unfortunately, this early scene generates a huge laugh when Gaos's foot is lasered off. Seriously, this scene is unintentionally funny. The movie continues a downhill slide from here.

The boys soon encounter the only two inhabitants of planet Terra, two females hungry for boy brain. The movie never explains why boy brain is a delicacy on Terra. Through a variety of machinations and Gamera, who clearly was preparing for the summer Olympics (in yet another hilarious scene) the boys and Gamera are able to escape back to the earth and the end of this film, thereby ending their movie career.

It is usually at this point where I point out the redeeming values of this movie and explain how much you should watch it. The problem is that this movie is a cheesy monster movie with horrible costumes for the monsters. Gamera is too rubbery in some scenes. You can see one of Guiron's seams in one scene. Another problem is that it seems each version of the movie has been edited differently from the other versions, so there are different scenes in each one. I am guessing that someone was trying to keep this movie as oriented to children as possible, and so the edits were done to reduce different aspects of the violence. Sad to say, as bad as this movie is I will probably watch it again one of these days.

For those into trivia, according to imdb this movie has been known by a bunch of other titles:

"Attack of the Monsters"
"Gamera VS the Giant Evil Beast Guiron"
"Gamera Vs. Guillon"
"Gamera vs. Guiron"
"Gamera vs. the Devil-Beast Giron"

I am guessing that similar cheese can come in different titles.

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