The Series Project: The Summer of Godzilla (Part 3)

Destroy All Monsters

Release Date: 1^st August, 1968

New Monster #1: Gorosaurus

Description: A pretty run-of-the-mill Tyrannosaur

Origin: Appeared in King Kong Escapes (1967)

Destruction: Gorosaurus lives

Actor(s): Unknown

Description: A cave-dwelling, amphibious hissing sea serpent

Origin: Appeared in Atragon (1963)

Destruction: Manda lives

Ancillary Monsters: Rodan, Anguirus, Kumonga, Mothra (in larva form), Minilla, King Ghidorah

Monster Cameo Appearances: Varan (from Varan, The Unbelievable!, 1958), and Baragon (from Frankenstein vs. Baragon, 1965)

Monster Actors: Haruo Nakajima, Teruo Nigaki, Yu Sekida, Little Man Machan, Susumu Utsumi

If you count Varan and Baragon (who only appear on screen for a few seconds each), Destroy All Monsters has eleven monsters in it. Eleven. This is a record, and the Godzilla series will not see a monster mash of this size ever again. I should perhaps note that while Toho studios was busy making the Showa Godzilla movies (The Showa era – also called the Toho era – was the first cycle of Godzilla movies before the first series reboot in 1984), they were also building a canon of other monsters in other movies at the same time. Godzilla was certainly the champion of the genre, but other kaiju films were being released all the time. Rodan had his own movie. Mothra had one by this point (and would have three more solo outings in the ’90s). King Kong would get another movie. Frankenstein’s monster would appear in a few kaiju films as a giant version of himself. Toho, in what I think might have been intended to be a grand finale for the series, decided to gather most all of their monsters, and cram them all into a single movie. Watching two monsters fight is a pleasure, but watching six or seven on screen at the same time? That’s something that a little boy would simply not be able to handle. Destroy All Monsters is well-regarded and well-beloved for this very reason: There is six times the monster.

Also, since Ishiro Honda is back (along with the original composer), the story is now back to the large-scale weird-ass 9-year-old fever dream plotting that we’ve come to love. In this film, a race of evil aliens (and thank goodness they’re back) have appeared to Earth, claiming to be from the planet Kilaak. The Kilaaks (led by the calm and insidious Kyoko Ai) are human-looking, very evil, and talk very casually about how they are going to destroy Earth with their monster-control technology. Japan has – perhaps unwisely – chosen to capture and store all of their monsters on a single island off the coast of Tokyo. The island is called Monster Island (or merely Monsterland in the English-language version), and each monster is kept in check with one of various super-technologies. Rodan is kept in place with magnetic fields. Mothra (now a larva again) is kept in place with a fence, etc. Godzilla is, I presume, the king of Monster Island.

The Kilaaks release the monsters, and begin to control them with the same sort of brainwave technology that the Xians used in Invasion of Astro-Monster. Godzilla, Rodan, and Manda make short work of Tokyo. Seriously, the city is totally wiped out. Luckily a team of brave astronauts (led by the handsome Akira Kubo) has been trekking to far-off locales looking for the secret Kilaak homebase. The Kilaaks have been launching their flying saucers from somewhere. There are many cool scenes of spaceships and other craft flying through space, landing in deep craters, and exploring other worlds. The ship effects were all achieved with miniatures, and most of the effects look great although obviously fake (rocket smoke drifts up in space; that sort of thing). The climax of the film will be a double climax with a giant monster brawl on one hand, and a race to blow up a Kilaak base on the other. If that doesn’t sound amazing to you, I don’t know how to please you.

And just when the Kilaak base is blown up, a pod is broken open, and King Ghidorah – the one peerlessly evil monster in the Godzilla canon – springs out! Oh no! More monsters! Lots of roars and fires and electricity breath, and waving heads! The other monsters (including Kumonga the spider, Minilla, and the spiny-backed Anguirus) must team up to beat up King Ghidorah. Godzilla does the most damage in all the fights, and is seen in this film relentlessly stomping on King Ghidorah’s head over and over.

I could go into more detail on Destroy All Monsters, but I would rather you discover the film yourself. Plus the film is so convoluted, it would take to long to cover every plot point. In terms of filmmaking and storytelling, Destroy All Monsters isn’t as good as Invasion of Astro-Monster or Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, but this is the best monster mayhem we’ve seen so far, and I think that we’ll ever see from the series. At least until a later era, or when Godzilla faces the mechanized version of himself (which we’ll get to next week).

But then, after this grand finale monster mash with eleven monsters and a brawl to end all brawls, the series will take a totally bizarre and totally cheap turn. Let’s nosedive with…