Friday, October 22, 2010

GAMERA Super Monster / Daiei - 1980

Hi everbloody an' welcome to 'nother Halloween edition of Friday Night Drive-In, here at The Dungeon! Tonight we gots a really great rarity from 1980. Daiei was hoping this flick would save the company, but unfortunately it was a box office failure and Daiei filed for bankruptcy the next year! Stock footage was used for all scenes featuring Gamera's monster fights from past movies.

The music is by the awesome Mr. Shunsuke Kikuchi, who has 153 composing credits which include these cool Japanese live action and anime TV shows!.. TIGER MASK, IRON KING, HANG IN THERE, ROBOCON!, GETTA ROBOT, GETTER ROBOT, G-MEN '75, UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER, SPACE IRONMEN KYODAIN, SPACEKETEERS and DRAGON BALL!

The clock on the wall sez it's time for lil' Dungeon freek, Ralphie The Tarantula, to push that big red 'GO' button over there and start our Eariffic Earclip rolling along, on it's merry way to yer earifices! Push that button, Ralphie!!.. THE GAMERA MARCH!

The basic storyline is that these three girls are secretly on Earth to fight against an invasion from outer space.

Let the flashbacks begin! Remember when Gaos shot his slicing ray at this copter filled with world dignataries! *Did you know that a flashback is a psychotronic element?

Nice shot of Gaos as he buzzes the air tower!

I swear, Tabonga digz Space Chix!!

Gamera finally shows up and after some battling, he kicks Gaos's ass!

Here's the Bad Old Space Lady spying on our heroes and reporting their every move back to the big boss, out there!

Classic sea monster Zigra in one of his forms, a giant shark!

Time out for a commercial, here's The Space Chix Dollhouse for all you monster kids out there in the ether... net!

Zigra 2.0 - Giant Pentapuss!

Then, Monster X enters the scene and does this to these Army guys with his light ray!

I think they're saying that Godzilla's a pussy!

Space Chik 1 hops onto Gamera's shoulder to disarm a control device being used on him.

Two nice shots!

Portrait of Guiron, aka Guillon.

It's stuff like this that put Gamera in a league of his own!

The weird city on Guiron's planet.

Is our hero gonna make it, or not?

No, Tabonga didn't put the pic upside down, this is a Gamera flick, remember?!

The last monster featured in this extravaganza is Barugon, what was in the very first Gamera sequel.

The big boss is fed up with his Earth spy, she turns good, so he shoots her from space! Nice guy!!

Gamera gets pissed so he flys into space and plows straight into the boss's Star Wars space cruiser. You see the results!

Hooray, Halloween's safe for at least another year!!

Ghoulnight Everbloody!!..

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I felt very sorry for the director. he was so happy to bring the big turtle back, but when he saw the budget he was allocated, he then knew he had no choice but to make it a stock footage film.

Christopher said...

whats the one where they tie GAOS to a big Merry-go-round and give him a ride?..

TABONGA! said...

Hi C - That movie has a total of 11 different titles, but you're thinking of either GAMERA vs GAOS or RETURN OF THE GIANT MONSTERS.

Prof. Grewbeard said...

i've actually seen this one more times than i've seen most of the first Gamera series- probably because of the Space Wimmen! i love the bit where the kid gets to dust off Mach Fumiyaki's butt after she fights the bad Space Woman(also a nice scene). thanx so much for this particular soundclip, been wanting this version of the Gamera theme on my mp3 player for some time!(cry for help...)

P.S. Return Of The Giant Monsters was my first Japanese monster movie, saw it when i was eight!...

Prof. Grewbeard said...

P.P.S. the "Gojira" standee that Gamera knocks over in the film has an in-jokey title, it actually says "Dojira", which might translate to "Dogzilla"!...

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