ATTACK
OF THE MONSTERS was part of the Gamera series, and is probably the
wackiest of the lot. This time, some young boys find a flying saucer and
climb in before it takes off for another planet in Earth's orbit on the
other side of the sun. Once there, the boys find the planet inhabited
only by a pair of comely women in green
tights. These space-women plan to devour the children to incorporate
their knowledge and then move to Earth! Gamera flies to the rescue, but
must contend with a knife-faced monster which guards the alien city.
Wow. Words really can't describe it. For some reason, this has probably
been the entry which has seen the most play. AIP-TV released the film to
US television where it became a staple of UHF monster shows. In the
80's, Sandy Frank released a different version of the film as "Gamera vs
Guiron" to home video. This version was used on Mystery Science Theater
3000, where it became a favorite episode of many. The film finally made
it to DVD in a scope format which offers both dubs, as well as the
original Japanese language track. Wacky stuff, even by Japanese monster
standards!
From
the I Have No Idea Why It Has Such A Bad Reputation file, the wonderful
pulp science fiction adventure THE GREEN SLIME was an international
co-production between America, Japan, and Italy. It manages to capture
the distinct taste of all three nationalities at the same time, making
for a surreal but quite enjoyable viewing experience. A massive body is
headed on collision course with Earth, and
man-of-action Robert Horton leads a team to plant explosive charges on
the approaching satellite. (This part of the plot was basically remade
by competing movies back in the 90's. One was the more somber and
ultimately listless DEEP IMPACT. The more successful film was the
gung-ho ARMAGEDDON, which drew the ire of critics for being too much in
line with public tastes -which right there sums up the main problem with
film critics.) While on the alien body, a living green slime is
discovered. This substance is unknowingly carried back to space station
Gamma 3, where it grows into a hideous army of electric monsters. In a
sense, the film is a space-bound version of THE NAVY VS THE NIGHT
MONSTERS. The title's pop immortality was assured by the extra-groovy
theme song. A life-long favorite of mine.
