"Gamera vs.Guiron"(1969)d/Noriaki Yuasa

This one is dedicated to Doc,Randy,and Chris,three guys who appreciate small Japanese men smashing up miniature sets while buried in a latex monster suit as much as anyone I know."Godzilla's Revenge"(1968) is arguably the lowest low in the Toho series(though Godzilla vs. Gigan(1971) comes awfully close),and geared towards six year olds.Rival studio Daiei took their franchise kaiju,Gamera,and one-upped them,or one-downed depending on your viewpoint,a year later with today's film,which is geared towards retarded four year olds.Gamera vs. Guiron makes Godzilla's Revenge seem like Strangers on a Train,if you replaced the psycho-socialite looking to commit the perfect murder, with a bumpy cat-monster with a saggy ass,that laughs all the time and shoots electrical shocks from his fingertips.We'll examine those particular rubbery hijinks at a later date.Today,we've got a real fucking doozy to tear into.Even if you were stoned to the bejeezus belt going into this feature,you'd still think it was the epitome of childish stupidity.And for the record,I,in NO way,shape,or form,resembled Christopher Murphy,the American kid with the affinity for powdered donuts in the movie,as a kid.Well,maybe a little...

"We will win your trust with those powdered donuts over there,then eat your brains."
Akio and Tom(guess which one's the European),manage to glimpse a spaceship touching down in a nearby field through their trusty telescope.Akio is obsessed with finding a "star"(he's tired of planets,apparently),that unlike Earth,will have no wars or traffic accidents.He's one of the many Japanese kids who wear tiny,skin tight vasectomy shorts in these movies.Maybe Japan's space program would take his suggestion into consideration if he wasn't walking around dressed like a West Village weenie genie from the waist down.The boys venture out to find the interstellar craft,with Akio's sister Tomoko following close behind.In a field,they stumble upon the ship,which resembles a Detroit-built sedan from the 1950's,with fins all around.The inquisitive boys climb aboard,and after pressing buttons and toggling switches,it takes off into the heavens with them in it,while Tomoko,still grounded on Terra Firma,tries vainly to convince officer Cornjob(Blame the dubbers,droogies) that her brother and his friend are in space.Meanwhile,as the spacecraft whirls through the stars,on a collision course with a meteor,Gamera,the jet-powered giant turtle who's friends with all children(I felt awfully strange mouthing those words as I typed them),saves the day.He tries to catch up to the spaceship to return the boys to Earth,but the turtle's...ahem,shell-rockets are no match for the 351 V8 Cleveland under the hood of the saucer,and he eats their space dust.Luckily,they weren't racing for pink slips.Or unluckily,for us,otherwise we wouldn't be tortured by anymore assinine Gamera movies...

Ron Popeel's combo Ray Gun/Dome Shaver came in handy for the brain-eating space bitches of planet Terra.
Welcome to the planet,Terra,which is run entirely by computers,inhabited by two groovy alien chicks(who happen to be Japanese,odd),terrorized constantly by Space Gyaos(that'd be a regular Gyaos,with a thin coat of silver paint slapped on him),and protected by Guiron,which is basically a giant knife that crawls around on its hands and knees.Guiron slices one of these Space Gyaos to bloody pieces(cut from the AIP-TV version),then kicks Gamera's monkey ass,as we discover that the groovy chicks just wanna sup on the kids' brains,after knocking them cold by feeding them poisoned powdered donuts and milk,then shaving their heads with a brightly colored plastic combination raygun/razor.The cannibal chicks' computer-based control of the knife-monster goes awry(they must have been using Internet Explorer),and the grotesque ginsu begins destroying their city around them.That is,until Gamera springs back into action,utilizing a piece of alien architecture as a makeshift parallel bar,and breaking Guiron in half,after jamming him into the ground,nose-blade first.He then returns the mischievous boys back to Earth,spaceship-in-mouth.Tom's mother apologizes for not believing Tomoko's outrageous space story in the first place,with officer Kondo(Cornjob)hilariously proclaiming,"Remember, the next time, if you are naughty again, I'll shave your heads!" That empty threat probably would have little effect on a rascal like me.

If you ever wondered what a living knife that psychokinetically shoots throwing stars from its nose and crawls around on its hands and knees might look like,Daiei proudly presents Guiron.
Daiei threw all sorts of ridiculous rubbery kaiju opponents at their turtle-hero over the years;flying space sharks,giant chameleons with rainbow beams of destruction,space octopi,you name it,and it has probably crawled on its hands and knees into a cheap Japanese movie to wage war on the half-shelled defender of children.Of course,the second wave of Gamera movies,starting with "Gamera:Guardian of the Universe" in 1995,is an entirely different story,incorporating amazing special effects,and outdoing the rival Godzilla movies on occasion.Young B.W. lookalike Christopher Murphy went on to score supporting roles in films like Valley Girl(1983),and The Abyss(1989),though it remains conjecture as to whether he got paid in powdered donuts or not.It's no wonder he chooses to omit this title from his body of work at imdb,though.Despite much spit and polish from kaiju-nerds worldwide,it's still a massive,cheap,ridiculous,juvenile turd.Eat the annoying little kids,Gamera,and you'd be in for a much easier time of things.

Luckily,the entire universe is guarded by a turtle...with a jet-powered shell.


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