S03E04 - Gamera vs. Barugon

Plot

A gang of treasure hunters travels to the South Pacific to search for a cave where a giant opal was hidden years earlier. The natives that guard the cave warn them not to take anything, but the giant opal is found and taken back to Japan. On the way, the opal hatches to reveal that it is in fact an egg containing Barugon, a monstrous lizard, which immediately goes on a rampage across the country. To make matters worse, Gamera has escaped from the rocket he had been sealed in and has returned to Earth.


Movie Review

Agh! A Gamera movie! Keep it away! Keep it away! Don't let Kenny speak, please...oh, Kenny isn't in this movie? That's excellent news, because it means the quality of the film is automatically bumped up by several points. Unfortunately, it still doesn't fix some major flaws with this film that prevent it from being silly but enjoyable flick in the vein of Godzilla vs. Megalon.

As alluded to in the previous paragraph, Kenny is joyfully absent in this installment in Daiei's ripoff of Toho's famous giant lizard. In fact, Gamera vs. Barugon is apparently the only film in the series that doesn't feature any annoying kids running around, making it more "adult" than the other films. However, the movie is still rife with issues aside from an irritating kid protagonist, one of the biggest being it can hardly be called a Gamera film. I mean, since when is the titular creature in the movie only present for a grand total of ten minutes of screen time?

Yes, the giant turtle shows up in a few scenes at the movie's beginning, briefly in the movie's middle, and then in the eponymous brawl at the end. Aside from that, Gamera vs. Barugon's story is about a group of jewel thieves, a South Pacific tribe, and their interactions with the giant monster Barugon, who should really have the top billing in the movie since he appears far more than Gamera. In fact, Gamera's appearance in the movie feels shoehorned, as if the movie makers decided that the people vs. Barugon conflict wasn't good enough and said, "Screw it, put Gamera in." And that's just what happens right at the end: when all hope is lost Gamera appears, defeats Barugon, and then that's the end of the conflict. Whoopee.

Special mention has to be made of Barugon here, since he is the primary monster featured in this movie. Another Daiei ripoff (this time of Toho's similar Baragon monster), Barugon is a giant lizard that can shoot cold from its tongue and a deadly rainbow from the scales on its back. This itself isn't worth discussing, since this is a kaiju flick, after all, but the suit used for Barugon is incredibly bad. The lizard's back legs are especially fake-looking, since they don't look like lizard legs at all but human legs - it's actually sad to see the human actor in the Barugon suit crawl on his hands and knees so obviously.

Beyond the fact that this Gamera movie is really not a Gamera movie and the other monster looks terrible, there really isn't that much else to say about this movie. The dubbing is, as expected, terrible. The human side of the story is contrived and dull with a bland love interest forced in. The lone highlight from the human portion of the tale comes from when the bad guy gets eaten by Barugon, though it's hardly enough to offset the rest of the dullness. And the final monster fight is barely worth the five minutes that it lasts and actually ends up being more boring that Gamera's lone rampage through Japan in the first film Gamera.

Though Gamera vs. Barugon doesn't have the vile Kenny or his ilk, it remains a bland piece of cinema with little going for it and doesn't even have the goofy charm of some other kaiju films.


MST3K Review

After three straight home runs this season, there was bound to be a strike in the episode quality eventually, and this movie ends up being that strike. While the jokes are funny and amusing, the writing and delivery isn't up to part with the previous episodes and the riffing comes across as muted. Perhaps having another Gamera film riffed so closely after the first one had drained Joel and the bots' creativity, which had happened with the season two Godzilla flicks. Though the riffing isn't as disappointing as that found in Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, it's still not up to the standards that the show has set up so far.


Stinger Review


For this film's stinger, a scene involving one of the opal hunters laughing crazily is selected. A bit of a disappointing selection, as it isn't really that memorable despite being a little awkwardly presented. A better stinger may have been the scene where the main girl protagonist sucks blood out of her male companion's arm wound, an act that looks entirely non-innocent with the selected camera angle.