Review of Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) by Matthew O — 18 May 2014

Godzilla vs. Gigan was always one of those Godzilla movies I always avoided, due to all the negativity surrounding it, but recently while traversing Wal-Mart I found the blu-ray for eight dollars and thought "Why not? It'll go well with my copy of Godzilla vs.

Hedorah." Once I started watching it I knew that was eight dollars well spent. This is one of the Godzilla movies of the so bad, it's good variety, and it serves that title well. There's goofy characters, an insane plot involving space cockroaches, some really crummy suits, and Godzilla talks.

Eeyup, he talks, and in a voice akin to Yogi Bear in slow-mo with some record scratching in the background. It's that kind of movie. The previously mentioned human characters are also strangely memorable for a Godzilla movie, with a cast consisting of a clumsy comic book artist, his black belt girlfriend, her brother, a hippie, and his female companion.

These guys are possibly more unintentionally funny than the monsters, with some weirdly delivered dialog, several campy moments, like eating bananas while discussing a plan and corn mistaken for a gun, and one heck of a fashion sense.

The new monster, Gigan, fits with the humans just as well. He's looks like a bird with visor eyes, claws for hands, and a blade on his stomach, just weird enough to fit with the rest of this thing.

He doesn't talk though, which is honestly kind of a let down. Sadly the entire movie isn't Pink Panther rejects and talking kaiju, there's also a fair amount of shameful stock footage, which really bog down the fight scenes.

They're insanely noticeable, the time of day changes at the drop of a hat and the suits change quality drastically. This does give some extra cheese factor, but I'd much rather have my camp in the form of new, crazy bouts than stuff we've seen before.

To end on a bright note, while it's not as fun and crazy as other b-movie type G-flicks, there's still a lot to laugh at here, and definitely unique enough to stand on it's own as a classic film that any monster movie fan with a taste for the strange should check out.