Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)

GODZILLA VS. GIGAN

Aka "Godzilla on Monster Island"

Gigan is hands down my favorite monster of the “Godzilla” series but the sad statement is that 2 out of the 3 entries he appeared are the worst in the entire franchise. As you can tell this first entry to feature my favorite monster is hardly an improvement over the previous “Godzilla vs. Hedorah” and is actually a step backwards as the filmmakers decided to utilize a ton of STOCK FOOTAGE and if you read my review for “All Monsters Attack” you’ll know nothing makes me more pissed than when films sloppily utilize tons of stock footage to pass off as a new film.

Some capitalistic pigs decide to build a Godzilla theme park (because nothing says FUN like sliding down a slide from a mock monster known to have killed hundreds of people) but their goal is not to bring recreation to the masses. They are actually an evil race of coach roach aliens that use their cybernetic monster Gigan with the help of King Ghidorah in order to kill Godzilla and take over the world.

Gigan is an interesting monster, definitely one of the strangest in the Godzilla franchise. He’s like a cybernetic bird with hooks for ands and a buzz saw on his chest. His look is perfectly capped off with his single eye which looks like a rad pair of red sunglasses. Ghidorah however has never looked worse. No effort went into his suit as he just looks like stiff flying piece of shit. That brings me to the Godzilla suit, which has been utilized in so many films that the damn thing is wearing out and one can physically see the suit falling apart in many sequences.

All that still isn’t the worst part! I mentioned the usage of stock footage before but I can’t emphasize how haphazardly it’s spliced into the film. First of all no effort was taken to match the new footage with the stock footage and scenes filmed at night are connected with stock footage filmed that takes place during daylight. The second worst aspect of the film is that the filmmakers decided to actually have Godzilla and Anguirus talk… you read that right… actually talk as in talk in English and not the ‘monster language’ previously seen in “Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster”. This laughable aspect is made worse as the audience can’t even understand what the monsters are saying as they mix it over an annoying rewind sound in the background. Apparently in the original Japanese version they even included cartoon talking bubbles coming out of their mouths (?!?!).

Godzilla is falling apart at the seams!

So in final thoughts; Gigan = cool, movie = bad. The overall final product of this film is just cheapjack filmmaking and an embarrassment to Toho studios. This second rate treatment of Godzilla is insulting with its embarrassing suits and sloppily spliced in stock footage. Also whose bright idea was to have the monsters actually speak in this film? Godzilla needs to light an atomic fire under that guy’s ass. Another subpar sequel yet to come….

Godzilla will return in "Godzilla vs. Megalon"

 Written By Eric Reifschneider