Gamera: Super Monster (1980) Review

Gamera: Super Monster (1980) Review

After a steady pace of one new Gamera movie every year for seven years, the giant atomic mutant turtle disappeared from movie theaters, only to return suddenly in Gamera: Super Monster, which was a partial reboot and partial conclusion to the Showa Era. Unfortunately, it was not the triumphant return the monster deserved.

It begins in space, with stars and planets and spaceships, and the images are still images…and it’s not clear if it’s supposed to actually look like painted images or if the shots are intended to pass as “visual effects” but then it cuts to a shot of a spacecraft moving through space, and the shot is literally a copy of the opening shot of Star Wars (1977) with a spacecraft that looks almost exactly like a Star Destroyer. Even the music is comparable to the John Williams score. Then, we cut to three women on earth who are actually superheroes in disguise. They use silly little arm motions to transition into their costumed forms and they can even turn a van into a flying vehicle. The simple version of the plot is this: the evil alien Zanon (in the knock-off Star Destroyer) is trying to take over earth, and Gamera has to fight the revived enemies he’s fought before to save the world and stop Zanon.

It sounds like a pretty typical Gamera movie for the most part, aside from the Star Wars and superhero stuff. The reason for those elements is simple: this movie was made three years after the original Star Wars (with Empire Strikes Back coming out the same year) and two years after Superman: The Movie (with Superman II coming out the same year, too), and it was trying to copy what was popular and groundbreaking at the time. It was also the first Gamera movie to be made in nearly a decade because the studio Daiei had gone bankrupt after Gamera vs. Zigra was released, and Gamera: Super Monster was their low-budget solution to getting out of financial debt. Armed with that knowledge, it’s pretty clear why the final product came out the way it did.

After the first half hour of discount Star Wars and Superman content, Gamera shows up and it gets into what this movie is most famous for: stock footage. At first it’s mostly from Gamera vs. Gyaos—it’s not that the monster Gyaos just inexplicably shows up again and the destruction scenes and action scenes are re-used, it’s that the monster inexplicably shows up again and they re-use monster effects shots and other effects shots, such as the helicopter getting sliced in half from early in the movie and the car on the highway getting sliced in half later on, too. The next fight scene to be recycled is from Gamera vs. Zigra, then Gamera vs. Viras, and so on. Every time Gamera goes to do battle with one of his previous foes we get a subtitle telling us who the monster is. They don’t leave anyone out. The worst part about these recycled fights is that Gamera: Super Monster was shot in a different aspect ratio from all previous films, so the stock footage is cropped and every re-used shot looks worse than before. They are also re-scored with new annoying music. The few new shots of Gamera look terrible, with poor compositing and the least amount of animation in his expression/body ever seen. If only the repeated use of stock footage was the worst aspect of this movie…

In addition to the three superwomen, there’s a young boy named Keiichi, and let me tell you, this kid is by far the worst adolescent character in the whole series. He reinvents the “Gamera March” music and plays it on a piano while singing, and it is bad enough hearing it once, but then he plays it again for the superwomen, in full! He is also obsessed with Gamera like most of the kids in previous Gamera movies, and gets a turtle from a pet store that he’s convinced is Gamera. It’s very reminiscent of Toshio from the original film, Gamera, the Giant Monster, but like I said, he’s far more annoying than any kid before him. It’s really unclear if Keiichi’s regular-sized turtle actually does turn into the real Gamera, or if the kid just thinks that’s what has happened, but it’s also unclear if the real Gamera has been missing prior to the invasion of Zanon since Gamera vs. Zigra. Does it matter, though? Not one damn bit.

As far as new highlights, Gamera: Super Monster has very few. There’s a funny moment when Gamera is destroying the city (made up of mostly recycled footage from Gamera vs. Barugon) and the camera zooms in on a poster for a monster movie that is clearly supposed to be Godzilla. Not long after, the superwomen pull up an artists’ rendering of Gamera without his skin to observe why he’s attacking the city, and the picture shows his insides, which looks pretty neat. One of the superwomen has a cheesy fight scene with the evil spacewoman sent by Zanon near the end, but that’s about it for highlights.

Gamera flies into Zanon’s ship at the end and destroys it, but in doing so also destroys himself in a heroic sacrifice. It’s a completely underwhelming death/conclusion, and it’s unfortunate that the movie feels like it’s trying somewhat to be a celebration of the Gamera series and the best conclusion to the series that they could make given their limitations, but the characters are a total drag and it’s a tedious affair what with the lack of new worthwhile content. Some of the outer space shots were recycled from Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999, which aren’t even Gamera films. The stock footage use really is egregious—a movie made today would never get away with doing this.

Unless you really want to see Gamera fly head-on into a Star Destroyer, there’s no reason to watch Gamera: Super Monster. I didn’t have any expectations for this one, and I almost feel bad concluding my review this way, but it is without a doubt the worst Gamera movie ever made. You could argue that it’s a good way to see all the best monster fights from past movies all in one ninety minute feature, but I don’t think it’s even worth seeing on those grounds. If Gamera: Super Monster was good for anything, it at least reminded people of the past greatness of the giant atomic mutant turtle during the absence of Godzilla. At the time it was released, there hadn’t been a new Godzilla movie in five years, and there wouldn’t be another until 1984. Gamera would remain dormant after this final entry in the Showa era for fifteen years, but when he returned for the start of the Heisei era, it proved an even more epic return than Godzilla’s own.