Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		1.5
Audio		1.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie Review

A monstrosity.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 6, 2014

By 1965, giant monsters, radiation, and Cold War backdrops were nothing new to the cinema landscape. American cinema was literally bursting at the seams with B-grade giant monster movies throughout the 1950s, matinee favorites that attracted a younger crowd born or raised (or both) into the post-war nuclear age fears of radiological disaster and MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Movies like Them! and Tarantula infested theaters and scored big money at the box office (and were smartly and comically parodied in the brilliant overlooked gem Matinee starring John Goodman). On the other side of the world, Japanese cinema, likewise, had fallen under attack by its own nightmarish, oversized, irradiated foe, Godzilla. Released more than a decade prior to Gamera and the franchise home to a handful of films by the time the giant monster's screen rival debuted in theaters, the Godzilla franchise had already established itself as a powerhouse of Japanese cinema and a staple of disaster-themed motion pictures. It was inevitable that a copycat would come along at some point -- that's just the nature of the beast, no pun intended -- but a giant turtle? It's not exactly a hero in a half shell -- not in this film, anyway -- but it does its duty admirably enough as it ambles around the screen while humans try to figure out what to do with it.

En fuego!

Deep in the arctic, at the height of the Cold War, Japanese scientists spot unidentified aircraft flying overhead. The American Air Force is called in to investigate. When the mysterious planes refuse to identify, they are destroyed. A nuclear explosion results. Out of the irradiated ice climbs Gamera, a 60-meter tall, fire-breathing "Mammoth Chelonian" turtle bent on destruction. Its appearance baffles the scientific community and all efforts to stop the creature fail. At the same time, an uptick in the sightings of unidentified flying objects go on the rise. Now, the military and scientific communities must join forces to carry out a daring plan to rid mankind of Gamera forever.

1965's Gamera works well enough as a cheap Godzilla knockoff, "cheap" being the operative word. The film simply doesn't have the budget, the muscle power, or the technical wherewithal to stand up to the better pictures of its era and its brothers-in-radiation. Like its title creature, it's a fairly slow, lumbering, poorly paced behemoth that's never really much fun -- outside of the ample opportunity to laugh at the sluggishness, the cheapness of the miniatures, and the general lethargy with which the story plays out and the monster attacks -- but certainly a curiosity in a classic "so bad it's good" sense of the term. Indeed, there's an underlying charm to it all, from the poor visual model effects to the humorously bad English dialogue and delivery. Somewhere in between is a straightforward story populated with throwaway characters, recycled dramatic content and scientific babble, and precious little feelings of danger and pending doom. The film works well enough as a lifeless time killer, but fans of classic monster movies should't expect to be fixated on much of anything other than the extreme level of monotony at play.

Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gamera: The Giant Monster's 1080i transfer runs afoul of plenty of bumps in the road. The 2.27:1-framed image does retain a bit of a natural grain structure, but it's hardly an attractive film-like presentation. Details can be adequate; the transfer occasionally has some nice clothing and facial features to reveal, but more often than not it's flat, slightly soft, and just not much of a looker. To make matters worse, it takes on a very processed, digitally artificial look about it. The transfer suffers from a fair bit of compression issues and combing is frequently bothersome, though generally only in subtitle transitions. The grayscale is unimpressive, particularly at the ends. Blacks are flat and overly bright, while whites and lighter shades of gray can look blown out and indistinct. In short, a fully unattractive image from Mill Creek.

Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gamera: The Giant Monster rises onto Blu-ray...and immediately sinks back into the depth with a puny Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 lossless soundtrack (note that the Blu-ray player reads it as an English track, but it is indeed in Japanese with short English bits; of course, optional English subtitles are included, and forced Japanese subtitles appear on the screen during the English language bits). The track is terribly shallow and completely absent any sort of aggressive posture. Most every sound effect is weak and wanting, whether fighter jets zipping in the sky, cracking ice, or general monster mayhem. There's practically no presence at all, just a flat, dull, cursory-at-best signature to every effect. There are infrequently light audio dropouts and a low but perceptible underlying hiss. Music is mushed and muddled, and dialogue rarely fares much better. The track is just good enough to get the listener through the film, but it does absolutely nothing above the bare minimum requirements of creating identifiable sounds in the order the film requires.

Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Gamera: The Giant Monster contains no bonus content.

Gamera: The Giant Monster Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Gamera is no Godzilla, but if it walks like a Kaiju and destroys like a Kaiju, it's a Kaiju. Gamera: The Giant Monster is the first installment of the Godzilla rival series and, truth be told, a comically bad effort that does little more than impersonate the bigger and badder Godzilla and set the stage for the parade of sequels that would follow. This debut film is a clunky, poorly paced one that lacks excitement and really works only as a comical diversion within its genre (it was, in fact, the subject of a popular episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000). Mill Creek Home Entertainment's Blu-ray release of Gamera: The Giant Monster features substandard picture and sound. No extras are included. Check it out for a laugh.