Gamera, everyone’s favorite giant turtle is back in his fourth film adventure. This time out, Gamera fights a spaceship that looks like a bumblebee. But before it blows up, it sends an SOS alert to it’s home planet and they send another spaceship to Earth to kidnap a duo of annoying cub scouts and hold them as leverage so Gamera won’t attack them. (Gamera is the friend to children after all.) But the kids (who are pretty adept miscreants given their abilities to sneak onto submarines and pilot them) somehow get the ship’s teleporter working and escape. The aliens then send out their caged beast Viras (who looks like a cross between a giant squid, a lawn dart and a can of Coors Lite) to exact revenge. In the final monster battle, Gamera makes Viras his bitch by riding him around Tokyo Harbor like a jet ski before chucking him into the sea for good.

Although the flick is perilously low on hot monster on monster action (Viras doesn’t get out of his cage until the last ten minutes), the American distributors remedy that by putting together a “best of” montage of Gamera’s greatest monster mashes in the middle of the film. No unassuming viewer will probably give a shit, but fans of the big guy will definitely enjoy it. I mean it’s got everything a Gamera film should have. Annoying Japanese brats? Check. Gratuitous use of stock footage? Gotcha. Silly looking monster battles? Uh huh. The classic Gamera theme song also makes a token appearance, albeit in instrumental form.

The American producers changed the title to Destroy All Planets to cash in on Godzilla’s hit Destroy All Monsters.

AKA: Destroy All Planets.

Gamera, the original mutant ninja turtle returns in his fifth film. A duo of trouble making boys (one of whom is American) stow away on an alien spaceship and end up on a strange planet. A pair of alien women shows up and wants to eat the kids’ brains and it’s up to Gamera to save them. The aliens also keep Guiron, a giant monster with a Ginsu blade for a head as a bodyguard which means Gamera and Guiron are gonnna go mano y reptilo. The best scene is when Gamera performs some impromptu gymnastics on an enormous chin up bar.

Even though the Gamera movies were always kid friendly, this one is even more so. Gamera helps the boys out of trouble numerous times and even gets his own catchy theme song. There’s a lot more monsters in this flick which means a lot more monster mashing. Not only do we get Gamera and Guiron, but Gaos also makes a cameo and promptly gets carved up like sushi by Guiron. The high monster count and cool theme song makes this the best flick in the series and a must for Japanese monster fans.

AKA: Attack of the Monsters. AKA: Gamera vs. Guillon. AKA: Gamera vs. Devil Beast Giron. AKA: Gamera vs. Giant Evil Beast Guiron.

An evil female alien captures some kids (who are obsessed with having a Coke) from Japan under orders from an oversized shark monster named Zigra. You see on Zigra’s planet, “Creatures from the sea eat the creatures on the land”, and since they’ve run out of food on their planet, they want to eat Earthlings and they have a hankering for Japanese. Fortunately the giant turtle Gamera is there to save the day. By this time (like the Godzilla series before it) Gamera was a “friend to children” and had his own catchy theme song. It’s slightly better than average for a Gamera flick thanks to the ecological theme and an extremely goofy monster.

AKA: Gamera vs. the Deep Sea Monster Zigra.

In the third movie of the Gamera series, the friendly giant turtle does battle with Gaos, a goofy looking pterodactyl that was awakened when Mt. Fuji erupts. Gaos has an awkward triangular head and shoots lasers out of it's mouth that can cut things in half. After Gaos defeats Gamera in round one, Japan tries to figure out a way to get rid of him. Their plan? Lure him with vaporized human blood (his favorite snack) onto a giant rotating disc to make him DIZZY!

It's amazing that Japan can make a tiny radio that fits in my pocket, but are clueless when it comes to getting rid of a mutant pteradactyl.

Luckily, Gamera finally comes out of his shell (no pun intended) to kick his butt.

The scenes of monster carnage are cool, but the requisite annoying kid and the negligible human drama is pretty grating on the nerves. Gaos, who was probably Daiei's idea of a Rodan knockoff, is a pretty cheesy villain, even for Gamera's marginal standards. Gamera returned in Gamera vs. Guiron.

AKA: Return of the Giant Monsters.

In Gamera the giant turtle's second film; three explorers steal a giant opal from a tropical island. The opal turns out to be an egg, and when hatched, the giant lizard Barugon emerges and attacks Japan. Barugon uses his battering ram tongue and freezing breath to level the country and nullify the army. Barugon also has the goofiest power ever possessed by a giant monster in the history of the silver screen. When cornered he can unleash a killer RAINBOW!!!

What were the Japanese thinking when they came up with this one?

Gamera, freshly escaped from his prison in space, comes back to Earth to go lizardo y lizardo against Barugon. In the final battle Barugon, who can only be killed by water (like any giant rainbow slinging reptile would be) is drowned by Gamera, who lives to fight another day.

It's slow going at first, but there's enough silliness for any fan of Japanese giant monster movies to enjoy. This was released in America as War of the Monsters. Gamera returned in Gamera vs. Gaos.

AKA: War of the Monsters.

After Godzilla became a smash hit for Toho, many Japanese studios scrambled to release the next great monster movie. Daiei Studios' effort was the Gamera movies.

Gamera is a giant turtle (!) who is awakened when a plane carrying atomic weapons crashes into the icy banks of an Eskimo village. The pissed off overgrown turtle uses his fire breath, spinning attacks and rocket boosters (!!!) to reign destruction on Japan. When Gamera isn't busy causing massive property damage, he takes the time to befriend a whiny turtle obsessed boy named Kenny. Meanwhile, Earth's top scientists come up with the "Z Plan" in which they capture Gamera in a giant capsule and blast him off into space.

Despite the pretty cool opening scene, and lots of man-in-a-suit-stomping-on-a-model-city action, the flick really bogs down whenever the big turtle isn't on screen. The annoying kid doesn't help matters any either. Like Godzilla, American theater goers got a dubbed version (titled Gammera the Invincible) that had scenes of American actors (Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker) edited in. While the Godzilla series originally were serious and only later became geared towards children, the Gamera movies were aimed at kids from the start and usually featured juvenile protagonists. Many sequels followed as well as a new series that was launched in the 90's.

AKA: Gammera, the Invincible.