Near the end of World War 2, a team of Russian soldiers find themselves battling an army of reanimate corpses turned into horrific killing machines built by the deranged descendant of Victor Frankenstein.
Actually, the plot is simpler than that, it's basically a slasher film where the killers hack their way through soldiers rather than fornicating teenagers. With the added bonus of a mad scientist ranting towards the end. Plus, the monsters are actors in costumes, which unfortunately feels like a novelty these days.
If you love all things horror, then this movie is pure fun with a side order of imaginatively scary monsters. If you like plot and story however, it's a bit thin in those departments. Even worse is the film's use of shaky cam. It doesn't make the movie feel any more real, as if it was footage released from old Soviet archives. No, it just gives me flashbacks of playing Wolfenstein 3D as a teenager. Filmmakers who may be reading this please take note: skaky cam is a perfectly fine filmmaking technique that should never be used again. EVER.
What's that? You say "But I have a legitimate reason to use shaky cam..."
No. No you don't. No Shaky Cam.
Despite these shortcomings, I enjoyed this movie. It's the perfect type of movie to watch late at night with a bunch of friends with the lights out. Or if you can't decide between watching Enemy at the Gates or Hellraiser.
The Simians have returned and they still want Earth for their new home. Unfortunately, like the last time (Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla). Godzilla stands in their way. Their solution? They pose as human and put together a project to build a new Mechagodzilla with which to battle Godzilla (the previous one was destroyed by Godzilla, and the beginning of the movie has a recap of that battle).
Now, the more astute of you may be asking,"But that sounds kinda like their last evil world domination plot?" Apparently also recognizing this flaw in their plans, the Simian's leader, Mugal (Goro Mutusumi) enlists the help of mad scientist, Dr. Shinzo Mafune (Akihko Hirata) and his cyborg daughter, Katsura Mafune.
Dr Mafune has a normally peaceful giant aquatic dinosaur, the Titanosaurus, under his mind control. Dr Mafune shares the Simans' goal of destroying humanity and loans them the use of his Titanosaurus. Actually he seems to be more eager to destroy humanity than the Simians as he unleashes Titanosaurus on Yokosuka. And at this point we can ignore the actions of the non-kaiju characters and enjoy the carnage as Godzilla battles Mechagodzilla and the Titanosaurus in Yokosuka and the Japanese country side.
This movie was the last of Toho's Showa era Godzilla movies, they wouldn't make another one until 1984 when they rebooted the series with The Return of Godzilla. It was also the last movie directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed not only the original Godzilla in 1954, but a series of interesting tokusatsu films from the 50's through the 70's.
I'd recommend this movie to any Godzilla fan, and if you wanna see more in this vein, I'd suggest also watching Destroy All Monsters, and King Kong Escapes.
Near the end of World War 2, a team of Russian soldiers find themselves battling an army of reanimate corpses turned into horrific killing machines built by the deranged descendant of Victor Frankenstein.
Actually, the plot is simpler than that, it's basically a slasher film where the killers hack their way through soldiers rather than fornicating teenagers. With the added bonus of a mad scientist ranting towards the end. Plus, the monsters are actors in costumes, which unfortunately feels like a novelty these days.
