304 - GAMERA VS. BARUGON

Possible Alternate Title: “Gamera vs. a Giant Puppy-like Lizard Thing”

Synopsis:  This, the second Gamera movie, opens with a recap of the first film that ended as Gamera was launched in a spaceship to Mars.  Gamera escapes the spaceship after it runs into a meteor and returns to Earth – just Japan, actually – where he can first destroy a dam and then hide in a volcano.  Now the movie forgets about Gamera for a while as it shifts to the story of a bunch of idiots – I mean men – discussing a secret plan.  One of the men, an older guy, tells the others that he hid a giant “opal” in a cave on a secluded island years earlier.  So he wants the three younger men – his brother, a goofy fat guy, and an evil, greedy guy – to go to the island on a fourth guy’s ship and retrieve the “opal.”  The three men travel to the island and are stopped by the natives who live there.  A hot-looking native babe and a doctor who has gone native both warn the men to stay away from the forbidden cave.  But the men go there anyway and do succeed, rather quickly, in finding the “opal.”  In the cave, the goofy guy is immediately killed, and not a moment too soon, by a scorpion and the evil guy double-crosses the young brother, collapsing the cave and leaving him to die.  Somehow, the natives rescue the brother and nurse him back to health.  They tell the brother that the “opal” is evil and so the hot babe will go with the brother to Japan to retrieve it.  Meanwhile, the greedy guy is back on the ship returning to Japan (no one seems to notice that his two buddies didn’t come back with him).  He leaves the “opal” under a heat lamp, which causes the “opal” to hatch – it really was a monster’s egg!  (I said these guys were idiots!)  The lizard-like hatchling grows up really fast into Barugon and destroys the ship, sinking it in a Japanese harbor.  The greedy guy gets off the sinking ship and runs into the older brother, who he soon kills with a gym locker.  The greedy guy then makes plans to retrieve the “opal” from the bottom of the harbor (this idiot just doesn’t get it).  As for the monster Barugon, he’s busy freezing model army tanks and jets with his frosty battering-ram tongue and blowing up model missiles with a rainbow-colored ray that shoots out of his back (who comes up with these powers?).  The rainbow ray attracts Gamera, who finally shows up in his own movie!  (What is it now? The halfway point?)  Barugon freezes Gamera and flips the giant turtle on his back, immobilizing him (hmmm, this didn’t work in the first movie, but it works here – inconsistent!).  The young brother and hot-looking babe start to implement a plan to use a giant diamond to lure Barugon into the water where he will drown because he can’t swim (hmmm, but how did he get off the ship in the middle of water earlier?  Inconsistent again!).  This plan is working until the greedy guy shows up and steals the diamond, giving Barugon a crunchy little snack.  But Gamera finally thaws out and shows up again to chew fireballs and kick some giant lizard ass, and he’s all out of fireballs!  After fighting it out a bit, Gamera drags Barugon into the water and drowns the monster.  The movie ends as the young brother mourns his older brother until he realizes that he may have lost a brother, but he did gain a hot-looking native babe for a girlfriend!  (So what if she’s a bloodsucker?)

Don’s Review:  This, the second of many Gamera movies, is actually a somewhat unusual monster movie because Gamera is barely in it, so there isn’t much in the way of monster fights.  But this is the only Gamera movie without an annoying short-shorts wearing kid who is pals with the big turtle, which is a huge plus and makes this, arguably, the best Gamera movie ever! (Well, best of the original Gamera series, that is – because the re-imagined ’90s Gamera Trilogy kicks some serious ass!)  This is also the movie that links the “bad” Gamera, destroyer of Tokyo in the first movie, to the “good” Gamera, defender of Japan at the end of this movie and the goofy protector of all children in later movies of the series.  Some great riffing highlights this episode, although it’s not on the high level that’s heard in the original Gamera experiment.  Add to that some good host segments (especially the opening segment on Macintosh vs. PC) and this is a great episode that repeats well.
Trivia Note: This is the second time that this movie was featured on MST, the first time was episode K04 during the KTMA days of the show.

Don’s Rating: 

Related Link:
   (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)