312-Gamera vs. Guiron

Film Year:  1969
Genre:  Kaiju, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Director:  Noriaki Yuasa
Starring:  Nobuhiro Kajima, Christopher Murphy, Miyuki Akiyama, Yuko Hamada
MST Season:  3

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

“Brother!  You are naughty!  Mother will scold you!” – Little Tomoko as her brother highjacks a space ship

Our latest Gamera flick has a couple of brats sneak aboard a space ship and highjack it so they can get away from all the wars and traffic accidents on Earth.  They land on a distant star…er, planet where they meet two space babes who want to eat their brains.  Our favorite giant turtle flies to the rescue (because obviously he has a sixth sense whenever children leave the stratosphere…why wouldn’t he?), but first he needs to get past massive guard dog Guiron!

This is definitely the funniest of the Gamera movies, not just on the show, but outside of it (save perhaps Super Monster Gamera, with its flipping superheroine alien chicks).  Not only is the story mind numbingly stupid, but it has quite possibly the worst dub job in the history of film adding to the cheese factor.

And what to say about Guiron?  Guiron is pure acid trip in monster form.  He’s a living butcher knife with ninja stars that shoot out of his head.  You can’t tell me you don’t want to see that after reading it.

Let’s face it, this movie is a MSTie fan favorite for a reason.  I’m not inclined to disagree, though I’m forced to give it a low rating due to the amount of brain cells I lose while watching it.

The Episode

“THE TURTLE’S PLAYING CHICKEN!”

Gamera vs. Guiron is certainly a sizable improvement over Gamera vs. Gaos in the riffing department.  The question is how good is it?  I always felt this was a funny episode, but I never really thought it was anything special (at least I’ve enjoyed Gamera and Gamera vs. Barugon more).  One thing that should be noted about my previous experience with this episode is that it was usually in the middle of watching all the third season Gamera episodes in a sitting (which I did when I first saw them, and a second time when the Gamera DVD set came out).  Viewing the episodes like this, I find myself tuckered out on Gamera at this point, especially after the limp note of Gamera vs. Gaos.  When watching this episode for this review, separate from the other episodes, I find myself laughing pretty damn hysterically.  So color me converted!

The movie just simply gives them so much to play with.  The wonky theme music for the children forces our crew to come up with their own lyrics, which they ride for quite a while at the beginning, but are incredibly creative nonetheless.  And what can be said about our Japanese equivalent of Harold Lloyd (not quite) Cornjob?  Nothing needs to be, because he speaks for himself!  The dubbing is atrocious, with stilted voice acting that pauses in the oddest of places, which they are all keen on noticing.  When the plot gets out there, so do Joel and the bots, who are ready for anything this movie shoots at them.

“You know guys, it just dawned on me how weird this film is.  It’s kinda goofy.”

And of course, we have the introduction to Gamera’s theme song, which they immediately come up with their own lyrics to in their first host segment.  Gamera is really neat!  Gamera is filled with meat!  We all love you, Gamera!

Speaking of host segments, they’re serviceable, but not really impressionable.  I enjoy the lunch box opening and Joel’s magic act, but I don’t really find a laugh in either of them.  The Richard Burton segment has highs and lows (I like Crow’s Burton impression if nothing else), but it goes on too long and really just bores me.  The invention exchange is cute, with the better of the two being the Mads’ pretty hilarious Rorschach Centerfolds.

Even in the sparser KTMA season, Gamera vs. Guiron was a movie that delivered the crew pretty much everything we could have asked for in an MSTed movie.  Back in that season the episode stood out, so updating it when the show was in full swing should have been a home run.  It is.  Though I could knock off points due to weak host segments, there’s too much going right in the theater segments for me to justify it.

Plus it has:  “I’m Tom!  Spank me!”

Classic

The DVD

Another entry from Shout Factory’s excellent Volume XXI:  MST3K vs. Gamera set, and another solid video and audio presentation.  Having exhausted just about everything that could be discussed from the Gamera series on the previous discs, this disc primarily hosts a group of MST Hour wraps featuring Mike as Jack Perkins.  A Japanese trailer for the film is also included.