308 - GAMERA VS. GAOS

Genre: Japanese Monster (1967, Color)

Synopsis: As this, the third Gamera movie opens, the giant flying turtle has returned to Japan (when did he ever leave?) and hides in a volcano.  Meanwhile, volcanic disturbances are disrupting the building of a new road as well as the attempts to buy out the farmers in the road’s proposed path. (Building a road through a volcanic mountain? That’s city planners for ya!)  A helicopter sent to investigate the volcano is cut in half by a laser beam that shoots out of the mountain.  The mountain then begins to glow with a green light, so a chubby kid in short-shorts named Itchy tags along with a reporter to investigate.  When the ground starts shaking, the reporter abandons the kid and runs outside, where the vampire bat like monster Gaos eats him as it pops out of the mountain. (Why, he tastes just like chicken!)  And, just as Gaos is about to also eat Itchy, Gamera shows up and saves the annoying little brat. (Damn you, Gamera!)   In a standoff, Gaos badly cuts Gamera’s arm with the laser beam that shoots out of his mouth.  So Gamera puts Itchy on his back and gets the hell out of Dodge!  Gamera drops his pal Itchy off and then retreats to the ocean to heal up.  Now that he has taken the forgotten – and probably committed – Kenny’s place as Gamera’s pal and spokesman, Itchy is given a prominent position at a meeting of Japan’s highest officials, in which they try to discover what Gaos really is (my theory: a man in a rubber suit) and how to destroy this new monster (my theory: sit back and let Gamera take care of the problem).  An air force assault is launched against Gaos, but it fails as he just kicks back and slices & dices the jets with his laser beam.  Meanwhile, Gamera is just hanging out underwater, waiting for his arm to heal.  Itchy, of course, figures out that Gaos can only come out at night (that monster sounds like some friends of mine) and so the mountain is safe during the day.  And, the next night, after repelling yet another military attack, Gaos flies out and has a bit of Japanese food for dinner, consisting of bits of Japanese.  Finally, the healed-up Gamera shows up and fights with Gaos again.  This fight ends when Gamera bites off part of Gaos’ foot.  So, while Gaos retreats to his mountain cave to grow a new foot, scientist discover that sunlight destroys the old foot and will, presumably, destroy Gaos as well.  A plan is hatched to lure Gaos to a revolving restaurant, where he will eat from a huge, misting vat of blood and they can spin him around and around until he is really dizzy, allowing the sun to kill him.  But the revolving restaurant breaks down, so this plan fails as well.  Finally, the mountain is set on fire to attract Gamera, and the big turtle shows up again.  In this fight, Gamera succeeds in plugging up Gaos’ laser-shooting mouth with an excellent throw of a rock (he should pitch in the majors!) and, as the sun comes up, the G-turtle drags the dying Gaos into the volcano where it is destroyed.

Host Segments:

• Prologue:  Crow and Tom are raspy-voiced celebrities Lucille Ball and Harvey Fierstein, Joel soon joins in
• Segment One (Invention Exchange):  Gypsy also joins in on the raspy impersonations;  the Mads invent ready-to-wear printers that capture a person’s self-image;  Joel invents a Fax machine / Kleenex dispenser
• Segment Two:  Joel is making an arts-and-crafts Gaos, but the ’Bots show up and mock him while giving kids at home some bad arts-and-crafts instructions
• Segment Three:  Extremely short Gameradammerung Opera skit
• Segment Four:  Crow is pretending to be Ed Sullivan while Joel is Gaos the Great, a plate spinner
• Segment Five (End):  The ’Bots slam the movie, so Joel asks them to come up with better ideas for offing Gaos, leading to the “Ways To Off Gaos Contest”;  the Mads then come up with their own ideas before pushing the button

Stinger:  Goofy Guy’s back who, after a weird sound, turns around with a goofy look on his face

Don’s Review:  The Gamera movie in this episode features the most evil opponent the big turtle has ever faced – in the triangular-headed, vampire bat like guise of Gaos – a monster that eats humans and has an insatiable thirst for blood.  The highlight of this movie is the scenes of the two monsters as they fight, although Gaos tends to just sit back and let his mouth laser beam do all of the work, so the fighting seldom gets down and dirty. The human scenes, though, are rather tedious, as a pointless story about farmers playing hardball in selling their land to road developers drags on and on, while the road developing crew is apparently run by Japan’s answer to the Three Stooges (although these guys are a lot less intelligent).  And then there’s Itchy, the most aptly named of the Gamera kids, because he is just as irritating and annoying as a bad itch.  Either this kid is some sort of genius or the adults are a bunch of idiots (my theory), because Itchy figures out everything: that Gaos can’t come out during the day, that fire is the best way to fight Gaos, and that Gamera is the only way to defeat Gaos.  The little brat even gets to name the new monster Gaos!   This Japanese Monster experiment, though, features some great riffing by J&tBs. (Crow, in particular, is in top-form throughout.)  And the host segments have some amusing bits, but are either somewhat weaker than the segments from the previous few episodes or just underdeveloped (like the brief, one-joke Wagner-influenced Gameradammerung skit).  But, overall, this is a very good experiment featuring an already fun-to-watch movie (although I admit that I do have a soft spot for these goofy Japanese pictures, so your mileage may vary).
Trivia Note: This is the second time that this movie was featured on MST, the first time was episode K06 during the KTMA days of the show.

Don’s Rating: 

Related Links: 
   (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
   (2) BadMovies.org (Movie Review)