Ah, Gamera. One of the few kaiju franchises to pose a genuine challenge to Godzilla’s reign over the genre. For decades, this flying fire-breathing turtle competed with the King of the Monsters himself at the Japanese box office. He stands head and shoulders with the titans of the genre, and rightfully so.
Yet while Godzilla still thrives in both Japan and America seventy years after its debut, Gamera has fallen almost completely silent. Let last we saw of him was in ‘Gamera Rebirth’, a Netflix anime series in 2023. The last proper Gamera film was ‘Gamera the Brave’ all the way back in 2006. It seems Japan’s favorite turtle is to remain in hibernation for a while longer yet.
My knowledge on the Gamera franchise is very limited. I know a bit about the later movies, but even then, not much. I know especially little about the original film. Just how did Gamera begin? What was it originally supposed to be? I have no idea.
Let’s fix that, shall we? Today, we’re gonna go back to 1965 to watch where it all began: ‘Gamera, the Giant Monster.’
Right off the bat, I was struck by how good the movie still looks! Its miniature work, sets, and cinematography still hold up to this day! Sure, the Gamera suit itself can be goofy looking by today’s standards, but for the time, it was impressive! The only real weak point is the music; it’s all in one ear, and out the other. But on a visual front, it still looks really cool!
Almost cool enough for me to forgive the bland, cookie-cutter plot.
The story is simple. An expedition of Japanese researchers investigate the legend of Gamera during the height of the Cold War. When the US Air Force strikes down some unidentified aircrafts, the monster himself is awakened! Now humanity needs to find a way to stop him, tame him, or kill him. Beyond that, there’s really not much going on.
Like most kaiju films, the human cast in this movie is as dull as it is expansive. They’re exposition dispensers with little to no personality. Halfway through the movie, they don’t even bother with that; a narrator comes out of nowhere to start expositing information at you! Even if the character does show some modicum of personality, they never get the time to develop them; the movie swaps perspective so often and quickly that you couldn’t get to know any of them if you tried! The sole exception is the child character, and his single personality trait is being obsessed with turtles.
Oh, but his family hates this… because… uh… turtles are ruining his childhood?
Dull as the cast is, there is one positive note here: the English speaking characters in this movie are absolutely hysterical! It’s the perfect storm of so-bad-it’s-good filmmaking. A script written by someone who clearly wasn’t fluent in English and a group of actors so stiff they made wood seem flexible. The instant the Americans show up, this movie becomes comedy gold! Alas, they disappear after the first ten minutes, never to return. If they were the main characters, this might have become my favorite comedy of all time.
Now seems as good a time as any to address the film’s titular monster. For the so-called ‘Friend to All Children’, Gamera is pretty god damn sinister! He devastates the ecosystem and leaves cities engulfed in hellfire; he even tears rooftops off of buildings just so he can enjoy watching people burn! By the end of the film, he looks like a literal demon!
You can tell the Godzilla influence is strong in this movie. Whereas the big G represented nuclear horror, Gamera seems to represent natural disaster. Both monsters are driven to destruction by human actions, although of the two, Gamera is meant to be the more sympathetic by far. Sure, he’s a fire-eating monster straight from the mouth of hell, but he saved a child one time, so all is forgiven. Besides, the human characters are far worse; they literally point and laugh at Gamera’s suffering.
In terms of depth, I find this version of Gamera lacking. But in regards to pure visual spectacle, I have no complaints! The idea of it flying by spinning through the air is silly on paper, but on-screen, it looks amazing! Again: for a black-and-white film from the 60s, this movie looks great!
Just one complaint on that point: they clearly didn’t have his roar figured out yet. We only hear his true roar sound effect a few times in this movie. For the most part, the turtle kaiju lets out these ear-piercing shrieks that physically hurt my ears. I actually had to lower the volume because it was giving me a headache.
To conclude, let’s talk about the conclusion.
This ending is absolute nonsense. It’s so incredibly stupid that it becomes comedy gold again! The humans execute their plan to kill Gamera, a typhoon stops their plan (twice), but then a volcano erupts out of nowhere, and hooray! Gamera is dead! Except no he isn’t! The humans somehow built a super-mega sci-fi facility, lured Gamera into a trap, stuck that trap to the top of a rocket, and launched the demon turtle into space! Everyone treats this as if it was the best, most humane possible outcome, and not as though they’ve doomed the poor creature to slowly starve to death or suffocate in a claustrophobic steel coffin flying through the vacuum of SPACE! Even turtle-kid is perfectly fine with this idea!
I don’t know if I’m missing something. For all I know, I’m watching some cut-down, poorly translated version. That, or I’m completely missing the point. But I do know this: it was really fucking funny!
Overall, I have mixed feelings on ‘Gamera, the Giant Monster.’ It’s got some strong visuals and the monster himself is awesome. But the story is a blend of accidental comedy and boring, repetitive nonsense. I had a good time watching it, but I’m not sure if I’d ever go back to it.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll develop some nostalgia for this film as we get further into the series. For now, I’m excited to see where the franchise goes from here.
Maybe I’d like the movie more if I watched the MST3K version…
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