Gamera vs. Viras (1968) Review

Gamera vs. Viras (1968) Review

The fourth Gamera film begins with a weird spaceship made of five orbs coloured like a bumblebee flying through space, and a voiceover explains the alien race aboard wants to take over earth, but Gamera flies in to stop them. We don’t even get to the opening titles before the giant turtle comes busting in to defend his home planet, but this great opening soon gives way to a bunch of boy scouts in Japan, and two in particular, Masao and Jim, give their scoutmaster lots of trouble. Their scoutmaster is played by none other than Kojiro Hongo—that’s right, he’s back as yet another character. The Gamera series has pretty good continuity when it comes to the monsters, but not when it comes to the humans, which shows where their investments lie, and good on them. Speaking of investments, unfortunately this one didn’t have the same kind of budget invested in its production compared to Gamera vs. Gyaos, and it starts to show pretty quick.

Masao and Jim swap around the controls on a brand new mini submarine that the scout leaders are going to demonstrate for all the scouts, so reverse is forwards and forward is backwards. During their scheme, Masao’s hat is blown off his head and gets stuck on a pole, so Jim uses his trusty lasso to get it down. These two moments are heavy foreshadowing for what’s to come. When the scout leader and scientist from the Ocean Research Institute can’t control the sub easily, Masao claims he is capable, and his sister (a girl scout) backs him up, demonstrating his technological brilliance with a wristwatch walkie-talkie he made for her to keep in contact with him. The scout leader convinces the scientist to let the two boys try it out, and on their little voyage they encounter Gamera! The giant turtle is just swimming alongside them, when suddenly a force field descends on them and traps him and the sub. Gamera lifts the edge of the force field and lets them out, but he remains stuck for eight minutes.

During Gamera’s imprisonment, the alien spaceship that put the force field (called the “Super Catch Ray”) over him probes into the past to learn how he can be defeated. What we get is a compilation of scenes from the previous movies, mainly the fight scenes from Gamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gyaos. The footage goes on a little long, but this use of stock footage doesn’t bother me too much, since it’s all the best parts of the monster scenes from before. It’s a little awkward when we see Kojiro Hongo’s character from Gamera vs Gyaos, though—gee, he sure looks similar to that scout master, doesn’t he? Maybe they’re related? After the recap ends, the spaceship narrator concludes Gamera’s weak point is “his unusual overpowering kindness to children” and so the ship beams Masao and Jim aboard, then announces to Gamera that if he attacks their ship the boys will be killed, so Gamera backs down (apparently he understands them?) and Masao and Jim poke around on the space craft. They find a weird squid-like monster that they think has been imprisoned by the aliens running the ship, but find out later that it is really the mastermind behind everything, and the other creatures on the ship disguised as humans are its subordinates. The disguised aliens decide the kids are getting too troublesome and restrain them.

While they have the kids trapped on the ship, the aliens shoot a mind control device onto the back of Gamera’s neck, and command him to destroy Japan. He starts with wrecking a dam, which uses stock footage again, this time from the beginning of Gamera vs. Barugon, then he moves on to Tokyo, and footage from the original black-and-white film is shown as if it’s current. This stock footage use is a lot more deplorable than the earlier flashbacks, especially with the black-and-white footage used amid scenes in colour as if they’re happening at the same time. This part of the film drags, and it feels like less of a build-up to the big finale and more of a waiting game. Masao and Jim aren’t too annoying, and it works having the kids as the main characters, but they certainly aren’t as cool as Gamera.

Gamera vs. Viras does not directly rip-off as much from the Godzilla series as previous Gamera films, but it still imitates the common Godzilla-isms of the time, such as having invaders from another planet and using stock footage, but the U.S. title was Destroy All Planets, which seemingly reflects the title of the Godzilla film released the same year, called Destroy All Monsters. Not only is Destroy All Planets a completely misleading title since not a single planet get destroyed, the Japanese title is also a bit inaccurate, since Gamera and the space monster Viras don’t fight until the very end, but it is worth the wait.

The boys escape the space ship thanks to Masao being so tech savvy—I guess alien technology isn’t much different from the technology of earth? They take two big triangle shapes out of a wall and swap them around, and somehow that reverses everything, making the Super Catch Ray no longer trap anything, the mind control on Gamera no longer work, and the ray that beamed them up puts them back on the beach. The aliens shed their human skin and reveal themselves to be the same type of squid creature as the one in the cage, then they all combine to turn into the giant-sized Viras monster which battles Gamera. The giant turtle roughs up the giant squid alien, and swims with it in his grip as the “Gamera March” theme triumphantly plays—until Viras’ long pointed head sticks into the sand and Gamera flips head over shell onto the beach and the music abruptly cuts. It’s one of the funniest moments in the whole movie.

After Gamera’s little surfing flub, Viras flies up into the air and uses its head to impale Gamera in the stomach! Repeatedly! You’d think this would be a fatal wound, but Gamera isn’t even fazed by it. He flies so high up into the air with Viras still stuck in his stomach that the alien monster freezes, and then he spins around so fast Viras is released. Viras slowly falls back down and lands on the ocean surface so hard it gets destroyed. I can’t believe it: 2008’s Iron Man copied Gamera vs. Viras. “How’d you solve the icing problem?” The boys cheer as Gamera flies off into the sunset, victorious once again. Earlier in the film the scout leader threatened that they wouldn’t get any supper because of the practical jokes they’re always playing, and right at the end, they’re told they still don’t get supper that night. After all they went through? Damn, that’s harsh.   

Gamera vs. Viras isn’t as good as Gamera vs. Gyaos, but it still has its merits. I liked it more when I saw it as a kid and was less familiar with the series—now I find the stock footage usage more annoying and the scenes of the boys trapped on the spaceship duller. Still, the enemy monster is weird, the final battle is fun, and it continued many of the Gamera traditions, while also starting a few new ones, such as the purposefully cheerful and fun “Gamera March” music, which became a recurring theme in future sequels.