Godzilla vs The Sea Monster (1966)

In preparation for my viewing of the new movie Godzilla King of the Monsters I decided that I wanted to first see an actual, honest to goodness, cheesy, awkwardly dubbed, Japanese Godzilla movie of the middle of last century. I'd never seen one before, only portions on episodes of Mystery Science Theater and the American cut of the original 1950's Godzilla, the one where they edited in Raymond Burr. Those don't count, I wanted the complete genuine article, and I got it in Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster, alternately titled Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.  Released in 1966 I believe Sea Monster was the 6th of 7th movie in the Godzilla series and it just kind of drops you in. Like the Marvel or Medea cinematic universes there is a lot of history and a lot going on, and sometimes not knowing everything is more entertaining then coming in fully briefed.

I liked the scale of this movie, it was something of filler in the franchise, there were no big city skyscraper attacks in this one. The bulk of the action is set on Letchi island, a fictional landmass on which a terrorist organization called The Red Bamboo is attempting to construct nuclear weapons. The island is isolated and guarded from intruders by Ebirah a giant lobster/prawn creature, who the bad guys get around through the aid of a solution made from native fruit that repels the sea monster, they simply spry the stuff from their boats when coming and going from the island. However a boat not so equipped, and ignorant of Ebriah is capsized and the four men aboard wash ashore on Letchi. The four men are a charmingly odd grouping, a young man trying to find his brother who disappeared in the nearby waters, a professional thief, and two rejects form a dance competition (it was the 60's, the temptation to work a dance competition into this movie was apparently too great). I wont bother explaining here how those four ended up on that boat together, but suffice it to say it was entertaning.

The group notice the presence of the terrorists, decide wisely to hide from them but soon are joined by woman named Daiyo (Kumi Mizuno, apparently a horror film regular in Japan at the time). Daiyo had escaped from Red Bamboo after being abducted with a number of others from nearby Infant Island, the terrorists had been using the abductees for slave labor. The four men decide to help Daiyo. Infant Island however is the home of Mothera, who the natives worship as a god and who protects them when she is not sleeping, which unfortunately is most of the time. So of course Mothera eventually shows up, as does Godzilla who was apparently hibernating on the island after the events of a previous film. There is also a giant condor creature who stops by for a fight.

I want to see more of these Kaiju movies. Godzilla vs The Sea Monster is charmingly odd and quirky, I really enjoyed it. It's silly and 60's, plays it just straight enough but still tongue in cheek. I'm not sure camp is the right word, its probably a shad or two shy of that, it's kitschy but really endearing, which is more then I can say of the newest Godzilla movie which will be the subject of my next review. ***