Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967) Review

Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967) Review

The second Gamera film, Gamera vs. Barugon, was retitled War of the Monsters for its North American release, which was misleading because I wouldn’t exactly classify the fight the two monsters had as an all-out war, and it hides the fact that it’s a Gamera movie. The American title of the third Gamera movie was Return of the Giant Monsters, which again omits Gamera from the title, and is partly misleading, because while Gamera did return from the previous film, Gyaos had never been seen before, although I guess technically he was returning to earth’s surface after millions of years of slumber, but now I’m getting off track. The literal translation of the Japanese title is Giant Monster Dogfight: Gamera vs. Gyaos—now that is an awesome title, and, thankfully, completely accurate!

Mount Fuji erupts and Gamera shows up, presumably to consume the flames caused by the flowing lava. He crawls into the volcano and disappears, but he isn’t gone for too long. Then, a research team checking out the mountain is shot down by a strange beam that shoots out of a cavern, and as a young boy and a reporter discover when they climb the mountain in search of Gamera, the eruption has woken up another ancient kaiju, the winged Gyaos! The reporter is eaten by Gyaos and it seems the boy, Eichi, is the second course, but then Gamera shows up to save him. Twenty minutes in, and we already get the first battle between the monsters (and it’s a pretty good one).

The plot is quite different from Gamera vs. Barugon, and a bit more balanced. There’s the boy, Eichi, with his Gamera obsession, then there are also road workers who are trying to put in a roadway near where Gyaos’ lair is, but locals living there are protesting and refusing to move. This one also stars Kojiro Hongo, now as the foreman of the road workers—he played a different character in the previous Gamera movie: one of the smugglers who took Barugon’s egg from the cave in New Guinea. The kid is a bit annoying, but not much more than the one from the original Gamera, and among all the road worker drama and monster drama they still manage to have the obligatory scenes of scientists in board rooms explaining the monsters. I know these kinds of scenes are cliché, but sometimes they're essential, especially in this case, with how weird Gyaos is. They explain he has two spines, can shoot supersonic rays from his mouth, and can’t turn his head. There’s also a great moment when the boy, Eichi, tells the scientists he named the monster Gyaos because of the sound he makes. They don’t question him, they just go with it.

This is the one where the special effects get really hilarious. The first laugh-out-loud effect is when Gyaos shoots his supersonic ray from the volcano and it cuts right through the research team’s helicopter. The helicopter parts like the Red Sea, perfectly sliced, and yet everyone inside somehow avoided injury. They topple out and plummet to their deaths as the two halves slowly separate. In the first battle between Gamera and Gyaos the giant turtle sustains serious damage from the supersonic rays, but he manages to save Eichi from being eaten by catching him in his hand, then somehow reaches backwards and deposits the child on the back of his shell. Eichi rides on Gamera to safety, and then Gamera goes to the bottom of the ocean to recover from his wounds. The seeds were planted in the first two movies, but this time it is clear: Gamera is all about saving kids from evil monsters.

At first, Gyaos seems like he’s a direct rip-off of Rodan from the Godzilla series. I mean, c’mon, Gamera himself is a rip-off of Godzilla, Barugon was a rip-off of Baragon, surely this flying monster is just a pterodactyl like Rodan. Well, he’s actually a giant vampire bat, and has a taste for blood, hence why he ate the reporter and tried to eat Eichi as well. Gyaos also seems to be nocturnal, and the combo of military and scientists try to stop him, but he flies away from his mountain lair and attacks a nearby city. His flapping wings topple buildings, he crushes them with the claws on his hands and feet, and he fires supersonic rays like crazy. Some reporters in a car try to get a picture of Gyaos and their car gets split in half, but the driver keeps driving half a car for a few seconds! It seems purposefully cheesy and comedic, but Gyaos himself is pretty freaky, especially with his taste for human blood. Gamera comes back and the monsters fight again, even flying up into the air for the dogfight the title promises. The sun begins to rise and the crest on Gyaos’ head turns bright red. Desperate to escape, he shoots his own foot off, which is in the jaws of Gamera.

The scientists discover Gyaos can be harmed by ultraviolet light, so he pretty much is a literal giant vampire monster. They set a trap for him, and by this point it’s become a Gamera tradition to try to get rid of the problematic monster by using some creative yet totally outlandish plan. They construct a giant vat of artificial blood and put it on a spinning platform that makes Gyaos too dizzy to fly away, but a mechanism breaks and it stops spinning, letting him escape back to his lair, so it’s up to Gamera to finish him off. The road workers ignite a huge fire to force Gyaos out and lure Gamera in. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Gyaos can also suppress fire by expelling stuff that looks like mustard powder out of vents on his sides, which he used to blot out Gamera’s jets earlier, and he uses it again to put out the forest fire. Gamera still arrives and battles Gyaos one more time, in the end dragging the giant vampire-bat-monster into the mouth of Mount Fuji, where the lava burns him up. Gamera flies away into the sunset, and a ridiculous song plays over stock footage of Gamera while the credits roll.

Gamera vs. Gyaos is one of the best entries in the Showa Era. It does get dull in some of those road worker scenes, but overall is better paced than either of the previous films, has ambitious special effects that are pretty good for the time and for the genre (but still pretty funny), and more of what you want to see: Gamera fighting another weird monster. It cemented the Gamera formula, for better and for worse, and proved the series was worthy of more entries.