Reliving my youth with collections of movies from the Fifties and Sixties has generally been a blast. However I was never really a fan of the Japanese monster genre other than Godzilla, and perhaps "Attack of the Monsters" plays a big part of the reason. For this one, you'll have to leave all common sense at the door. It will also help to try and view it with the mind of a nine year old, since that seems to have been the intended audience.
That good old boy Gamera is the monster hero in this one, the retro rocket flying turtle that blasts through space with those flame jets out his leg holes. There's an upright version of Rodan named Gyaos with an oddly shaped flat head and wings seemingly fashioned from aluminum foil. But my favorite has to be that goofy Guiron, whose appearance is anything but menacing. Seeing him for the first time reminded me of the candy gram shark on those early "Saturday Night Live" bits. For sheer lunacy, there's nothing better than Gamera's defeat of Guiron as he lands nose down in the dirt.
Most of the action takes place on 'Terra', a planet directly opposite the Earth on the other side of the sun. Terra's inhabitants have been reduced to a pair of space babes who for some reason aren't even listed in the film credits. One of their names sounded very similar to Barbarella, while the other came across as something like Ploda. At some point when I can compose myself, I might try going back to confirm those names, but it's not a high priority right now.
The human heroes are Japanese boy Akio and his American friend Tom. Unfortunately, Akio's sister Tomoko was left behind as the boys commandeered the alien space ship, knowing just which buttons to push and how to maneuver their way to Terra. Of course Gamera helped them out owing to his reputation for helping children in distress.
Somehow, "Attack of the Monsters" conjures up a much larger mental picture of havoc and destruction than actually presented here, with the film's feature creatures going at it one on one instead of en masse. Don't let that worry you though, in it's own way it's a fun film that attempts to, but never does answer the question, "What were they thinking?"
That good old boy Gamera is the monster hero in this one, the retro rocket flying turtle that blasts through space with those flame jets out his leg holes. There's an upright version of Rodan named Gyaos with an oddly shaped flat head and wings seemingly fashioned from aluminum foil. But my favorite has to be that goofy Guiron, whose appearance is anything but menacing. Seeing him for the first time reminded me of the candy gram shark on those early "Saturday Night Live" bits. For sheer lunacy, there's nothing better than Gamera's defeat of Guiron as he lands nose down in the dirt.
Most of the action takes place on 'Terra', a planet directly opposite the Earth on the other side of the sun. Terra's inhabitants have been reduced to a pair of space babes who for some reason aren't even listed in the film credits. One of their names sounded very similar to Barbarella, while the other came across as something like Ploda. At some point when I can compose myself, I might try going back to confirm those names, but it's not a high priority right now.
The human heroes are Japanese boy Akio and his American friend Tom. Unfortunately, Akio's sister Tomoko was left behind as the boys commandeered the alien space ship, knowing just which buttons to push and how to maneuver their way to Terra. Of course Gamera helped them out owing to his reputation for helping children in distress.
Somehow, "Attack of the Monsters" conjures up a much larger mental picture of havoc and destruction than actually presented here, with the film's feature creatures going at it one on one instead of en masse. Don't let that worry you though, in it's own way it's a fun film that attempts to, but never does answer the question, "What were they thinking?"