909 - GORGO

Genre:  Giant Monster (1961, Color)

Don’s Synopsis:  In this British take-off of Godzilla, an underwater volcano begins to erupt off the coast of Ireland and it kills off dozens of fake rubber fish.  Soon, an awakened 50-foot-tall pre-historic monster is terrorizing an Irish coastal town.  Two British men, Sam (William Sylvester) and Joe (Bill Travers), agree to go and capture the beast at the price of a gold vase and, soon after, they do just that – capturing the monster and transporting it to England.  A young Irish boy named Sean stows away onboard and insists that they let the monster go (I guess he’s the Irish/English equivalent of Kenny, friend to all Japanese Monsters).  The men don’t listen and so they name the monster Gorgo and put it on display in London.  But a scientist studying the creature somehow discovers that it’s only an infant and that there could be a bigger Gorgo out there.  (So what does that make the infant monster?  Little Gorgo?  Gorgo Jr.??  Gorgo-zooky???)   Soon, the Big Gorgo appears out of the sea, heading to London to retrieve his/her/its offspring.  The British navy tries to kill the bigger monster, but everything they do fails.  Of course, the smart thing to do would be to release the Little Gorgo – but I guess then there wouldn’t be much of a movie, would there?   So, soon, the Big Gorgo is in London and, before retrieving its kid, it decides to first do some sight-seeing.  (After all, when will it ever be in London again?)  The first sight it sees is Tower Bridge... which it promptly destroys.  Then it goes to see Big Ben... and it destroys that too.  (Hey, while you’re there, Gorgo, take out Parliament too!)   And then Big Gorgo zigzags across London again and takes in the Broadway/Time Square of London, Piccadilly’s Circus... and, of course, Gorgo destroys it too.  Tired of all the tourist spots (Gorgo skipped checking out the Changing of the Guard – smart move, it’s pretty boring), Big Gorgo finally goes to the exhibition where Little Gorgo is locked up.  And so, after the little one is released, the whole Gorgo family heads back out to sea, never to be seen again (a monster movie without a sequel, imagine that).

Don’s Review:  This British monster movie, obviously inspired by both Godzilla and King Kong, really isn’t that bad.  It does start off rather slowly but once the first monster shows up, it really is fairly entertaining in a cheesy way, although without as much goofy charm as the Japanese monster movies.  But the riffing on this was rather weak, with only a few genuinely funny lines here and there.  And the host segments were, for the most part, rather forgettable as the SOL segments were all over the map and the Mad segments just deal with Pearl visiting Leonard Maltin for help in picking a movie for this experiment (Maltin who, not surprisingly, gave Gorgo three out of four stars, really does a surprisingly decent job with his lines here).  So, although the monster movie itself is reasonable enjoyable, the weak riffing really marks this episode a bit low in the laugh department.

Don’s Rating: 

Forrest’s Synopsis:  This film features Heywood Floyd.  It does.  Trust me.  Anyway, there’s this creature.  This creature is named Gorgo.  Gorgo is made into a circus freak.  His mother gets mad, and comes to rescue him, taking out all of Tokyo – er, London, with him/her.  There I outlined the whole frickin’ film.  You want more?  Heywood Floyd is in it?  What do you think about that?  Oh, and it’s also neat to note that there is not a single woman in the entire film.  More?  Look what do you want from me?

Forrest’s Review:  3 stars for Squirm!, 2.5 stars for Laserblast, 3 stars for Devil Doll, 3 stars for The Undead, and of course 3 stars for Gorgo raves Leonard Maltin.  So, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is just as good as most of the films mentioned above?  Roger Ebert, watch out man, it looks like Maltin may out three star you (if that’s remotely possible).  Gorgo to be honest, is not that awful a movie in the MST realm.  It may very well be the best film in Season Nine (though the competition isn’t very impressive).  It has one or two interesting camera angles.  It has a bit of cheesy charm.  The acting isn’t breathtaking, but it’s not all that bad either.  The film actually has a plot.  It’s no Creeping Terror, but Jesus, Mr. Maltin, it’s not better than Amadeus you dope! 
      This was a good episode all around.  The enjoyable, cheesy film was actually a relief, as this season features some of the worst movies in history, like Werewolf and the baddest of the bad, Hobgoblins.  The riffing, started out really, really slow and the riffing in the first theater segment was a bit of the dud, the movie was slow and boring, and the riffs were uninspired, but then, boom, 5 CROW riffing in the second movie segment.  I was laughing my ass off!  It did slow down in the third and fourth movie segments, but there were still plenty of big laughs.  The host segments were only okay.  Kinda lame in some cases, and then kinda amusing in some cases.  The best were actually the MAD segments featuring Leonard Maltin, who is called “Siskel”, “Roger” and “Leonard Ebert” by Pearl, which inspired some good laughs.  The movie featured here was a favorite monster film of mine as a kid (and like most cheesy monster films, this one doesn’t age with you), but cheesy as it is, it is not as much cheesy fun as Godzilla vs. Megalon, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow.  But the riffing is good enough for me to give this episode a good rating.

Forrest’s Rating: 

Related Links:
    (1) Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews (Movie Review)
    (2) DVD Cult (Movie Review)
    (3) Attack of the 50 Foot DVD! (Movie Review)