The fourth estate

It's been over a decade since we started making our way through the 250 (ish) films in the Mill Creek Horror Collection. At long last, we've arrived at the tail end of the box, with just two movies left -- two! -- that neither of us have ever seen before.

And what do they have in common, besides aliens and space and other science fiction tropes? There are a few options, like blowing up heavenly bodies (happens in both), teleportation (ditto), or ripping off established science fiction classics (that's a hat trick).

But we'll choose this: in both films, press conferences are held in which the very fate of the earth is called into question.

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Warning from Space (1956)

Grade: D

These last two films in 50 Sci-Fi Classics really do bring us full circle, as Warning from Space amply demonstrates. Even if we didn't have the literal (and adorable) "star men" seen above, its Japanese origins and style would certainly remind us of the Super Giant films we watched near the very outset of our 250-pack quest.

Once again the Mill Creek compilers show discernment by pairing Warning from Space on the same disc with They Came from Beyond Space. Perhaps we should have reviewed them together, as they really do share a lot of themes -- like having scientists as protagonists, and showing them in the field.

Or aliens who, in need of a spokesperson, choose to inhabit a human female body.

Or societies that conceive of themselves in terms of politeness and fair play, and that are left curiously defenseless against those who transgress those norms.

Or weird stuff that pops up from a pond, while the soundtrack uses a grating electronic tone to make sure we catch on to its "alienness".

Anyway, Warning from Space is basically Japan's version of When Worlds Collide with a dash of The Day The Earth Stood Still. There's a whole lot of looking through telescopes and firing off rockets --

--  interspersed with philosophical arguments, cultural activities, and the occasional dance number.

By deciding to make Japan their point of contact, did the aliens inadvertently guarantee that the rest of the world would drag their feet? There's a whiff of that in the film -- an aggrieved undertone of "Why aren't they taking us seriously? Why are they refusing our requests for help?" --

-- to which the events of 1931-1945 might be a plausible answer. (Just saying.)

Warning from Space might rate a notch or two higher if it weren't for the cavalier way it handles a crucial plot thread near the end. It cheapens the narrative, and would have been so easy to fix! And we can't blame the dubbing, since it's apparently quite faithful.

The fun is also dampened by scenes near the end that show various animals in distress. The intention is to evoke our compassion by reminding us of how they too would suffer in the oppressive heat, but can we trust that none were harmed in the making of this film? Probably not.

On the other hand, that alien chick has one hell of a serve. Naomi Osaka, watch out!

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Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977)
[aka War of the Planets, aka Anno zero - Guerra nello spazio]

Objective Grade: F

Plus WTF Withal: D

Cosmos: War of the Planets isn't quite the last film on the box set: that honor goes to Destroy All Planets, a Gamera film we already reviewed. But it's on the last side of the last disc, at least.

And boy, did Mill Creek pick a doozy to finish things up -- because War of the Planets is one bizarre, scattershot, fever dream of a movie.

There was always going to be some background weirdness since War of the Planets has the same director (Alfonso Brescia), and much of the same cast, as a film we've already seen, War of the Robots.

Heck, it's even got Aldo Canti as an unexpectedly friendly alien who joins the starship's crew late in the film -- playing almost the exact same role he did in Robots.

But War of the Planets is much, much weirder than either Robots or the other Brescia film we've seen, Star Odyssey. Those films at least made some attempt to present a coherent narrative (despite the swapped reel in Star Odyssey), but War of the Planets is just completely and utterly out-to-lunch from the start.

It's never a good sign when you can barely understand the film's opening scene, in which the crew seems to be on a collision course with debris from a stellar explosion. Their computer refuses to route around it, confounding the crew and leaving them headed for certain doom --

-- only to discover that the object hurtling toward them was, as the ship's computer tells us in an announcement whose beginning is obscured by the crew's cheers, merely "a refraction of a cosmic explosion occurring 10 million years ago."

And that's why it didn't steer clear: the object wasn't even there. Guess Compy knows best, eh, folks?

In the original Italian version of War of the Planets, the title sequence (which follows the scene above) had a song all its own. Its refrain:

We are not alone here in space

Because here in space we have brothers

It's as hilarious as it sounds, but given the singer's thick accent -- and habit of switching between English and Italian -- it's understandable that "We Are Not Alone Here In Space" was pulled for the foreign dub (though a fragment of it pops up at around 8:45, who knows why?).

Instead, we get an extended sequence of avant-garde electronic patter, which accompanies long shots of asteroids, starfields, spaceports, and some amazing attempts at Anglicizing the names of the Italian crew.

Next, the film's protagonist, Captain Fred Hamilton (John Richardson), walks up to one of his co-workers, greets him, and clocks him for no discernible reason.

When Captain Hamilton is called on the carpet for his fisticuffs, and arguments ensue about "a bunch of notes from an electronic hunk of metal" vs. "the greatest brain ever made by man", we know we're dealing with one of those man vs. machine movies. And contrary to some other reviewers, we wouldn't describe this as a hidden subtext of War of the Planets, because it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Does a guy nearly get himself killed while doing a space-walking operation? And does the Captain need to fly to his rescue, after the computer's automated assistance isn't nearly fast enough? It's all the fault of those damn machines, machines, we built them to serve us.

Or does a couple engage in some sort of strange, alienated cybersex through a glass ball that looks kind of like the Death Star?

"How long?"

"Whatever."

(flips switch)

"Violent, or gentle?"

"You decide."

(flips switch)

Yep, it's the machines, machines, they're gonna be our bed.

Don't worry, some of us still know how to get it on properly. We don't even have to go to Tangie Town.

And some of us are named "Oko" and have overdubbed Asian accents -- who knows if that was in the original -- despite strong evidence that we don't hail from that neck of the woods.

The person who put together the soundtrack for War of the Robots really likes the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Eventually he caves in and just uses a recording of the Bach directly -- an excerpt at 23 minutes, and a long chunk around 51 minutes -- but it's present from the very first shot of the film, when the oscillations of a star are accompanied by a rapid-fire version of the Toccata's opening riff.

At other times, it's sped up even further and used as a sound effect for computer alerts and big banks of blinkenlights. And when we're not hearing the Toccata, we're hearing Switched-On-style synth tunes inspired by Bach (but without any of his chops).

The captain may hate computers, but his superiors happily take their orders from the supercomputer Wiz. When a mysterious interstellar signal disrupts communications on Earth, Wiz somehow knows that "behind this strange signal there's an alien intelligence that knows all", and "orders [them] to find the emission source and destroy it".

(Perhaps the wise Wiz could also have noted that the signal is just the freakin' Toccata lick sped up by a factor of 20. Haven't you ever played Dark Castle, Wiz?)

And guess who gets the job? OK, a mysterious woman has to persuade the Captain, though we get no backstory or explanation of why this Dr. Jane Frazier has such a sway on his judgment. Her appearance is so brief as to almost be a cameo, while the actress is uncredited and unknown to us.

It's yet another example of the seat-of-your-pants style of scriptwriting -- and direction, and editing -- that War of the Robots seems to favor. No narrative conventions needed, just full speed ahead at all times.

Soon enough, the captain and his crew get to the mysterious planet from which the emissions are coming. From there, things play out like a cross between War of the Robots and pretty much any episode of Star Trek where Kirk et al. encounter a "primitive" people. There's always someone pulling the strings, and if it's not a disembodied intelligence with godlike powers, it's usually a computer.

Meanwhile his bosses back on Earth are being hounded by "newspapermen" (though they're certainly not all men).

This prompts one of the only intentionally funny exchanges in the entire film. After the brass offer a reassuring explanation for recent events -- "I'm sorry for the headlines you had in mind, but Earth is not in any danger!" -- 

-- the reporters scramble away to the nearest phones, with one man specifically shouting "Earth is in danger!" to his editor. The two military men look at each other and deadpan:

Miller: Didn't buy it.

Armstrong: Nope.

The occasional chuckle aside, War of the Planets is a gigantic mess. It manages to both drag and rush, with botched transitions and sequences that go on too long. Characters talk over each other for no reason; scenes are interrupted mid-sentence; the action shifts from place to place, seemingly at random, leaving us uncertain as to what's going on or what's happened to whom. Seldom have we ever spent as much time glancing at each other and silently mouthing "WTF?"

In other words, both the editing and direction are atrocious. (And the prop department kinda phoned it in too.)

How much of the incoherence comes from the dubbing process is unclear, though seeing the Italian original would be the gold standard here. On a technical level the English dub is mostly decent (especially since some of the actors were speaking English anyway!), though we do get one or two gloriously ridiculous moments when a character takes a long, unnatural pause mid-sentence.

And the cinematography is fine -- nice, even -- though maybe we're just responding to the pretty colors and flashing lights, since we haven't hit the Pink Floyd show at the planetarium and we're jonesing.

As a side note, what on earth is this crucifix doing in a random explosion sequence? If there's a hidden Christian message in this film, it's buried pretty deep.

War of the Planets completely loses its marbles toward the end, when it veers wildly from ripping off 2001: A Space Odyssey to ripping off who-knows-what-they-were-trying-for (Planet of the Vampires gets brought up a lot in other reviews, but we haven't seen it).

But at least War of the Planets sticks by its core message: that humans shouldn't allow themselves to be too dependent on computers, lest we become weak, vulnerable, and alienated from our own humanity. Or something like that.

Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing timely or relevant about that message, right? Sounds totally irrational to us.

Don't you agree, Aldo Canti? You're everyone's favorite alien.

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Next up, the Umbrellahead Awards for 50 Sci-Fi Classics!

Creature Quintuple Feature

A few years back, the Sci-Fi Channel (Siffy, if you prefer) expanded their usual New Year's Eve Twilight Zone marathon to include every single episode from the original 1959-1964 series, aired chronologically. We thought, what the heck?



So, allowing for breaks during some of the episodes we'd seen before, we proceeded to take in the entire run. It took days, and we had to endure some tedious stretches (season 4's hour-long runtimes were a mistake), but now we can say it's DONE -- we watched 'em all.



And of course it wasn't just about being completists, though making our way through discrete sets of things is, well, kind of our thing. Now, years later, we can fondly reminisce about the time we rang in the new year (and then some) lounging in our pajamas, staying up through the wee hours to catch one kinda mediocre episode after another (they can't all be Lois Nettleton in "The Midnight Sun").

It was in the same spirit that we approached the the next five movies featuring Gamera -- a giant fire-breathing turtle who spins through the air like a massive self-propelled Catherine wheel and spends way too much time hanging around with small children.



Our beloved Mill Creek 250 Horror Collection has movies #1 (Gammera [sic] the Invincible), #4 (Destroy All Planets) and #5 (Attack of the Monsters); we figured why not track down #2 (War of the Monsters) and #3 (Return of the Giant Monsters) and complete the series?



Turns out #2 is on Mill Creek's Strange Tales pack of 20 movies, all of which also appear on the 250 pack, except for War of the Monsters. Huh; oh well, internet to the rescue. To our knowledge, #3 never appeared on any Mill Creek offerings, so it was off to the internet again.



We hadn't planned to binge all five, but with a free evening ahead of us and no obligations the next morning, it somehow seemed like the right thing to do. Thus, in the span of 16 hours or so (we broke for sleep -- what can we say, we're not as young as we once were), we did just that.



Admittedly it in no way approaches the scale of our Twilight Zone viewing session; and of course, there are plenty more Gamera movies that we'd need to watch in order to call ourselves completists (and that probably won't happen). But we can now turn to one another and say "remember when we subjected ourselves to that?" And, as a gift to our future selves, we're now spared the experience of pulling out the next disc and sighing "oh boy, another Gamera movie."

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Gammera the Invincible [aka Gamera, The Giant Monster] (1965)

Grade: D+



And so it begins.

Mill Creek's copy of this first foray into Gamera-land is apparently a re-edit of the original Japanese release (Gamera, the Giant Monster), with extra scenes added for the "benefit" of American audiences, and a superfluous m for good measure -- good job, guys.



Clearly it isn't good enough for Gamera to simply emerge from the Arctic ice, wreak some havoc on a scientific team, and fly off in the direction of Tokyo. What Americans desire above all else are a bunch of generals, pundits, scientists, and senators to bark, argue, insult one another, and hold Very Important Meetings to discuss at length the mere possibility of the existence of a giant, fire-spurting flying turtle.


'Cause little children have a way with G-A-M-M-E-R-A

Once that talky (and often shouty) diversion is dispensed with (and really, the scenes aren't all that bad; they just don't seem necessary), it's back to the meat of the Japanese original. Poor little Toshio; he just wants to hang out with his pet red-eared slider, but his dad and sister are having none of it.



When the über-chelonian lands at the family lighthouse, one has the inkling that this budding turtle whisperer might play some pivotal role in the proceedings.



And indeed, it's not the last we hear of the wee lad, who seems to be the only one championing the giant reptile. Even with his travels dictated by his long-suffering family -- not to mention a scientist channeling Reba McEntire's Colonel Sanders --



-- Toshio always manages to pop up his cherubic little face precisely where Gamera is doing his best knock-stuff-down act.



It's the typical monster movie cycle: the beast destroys; the scientists and/or military come up with an improbable plan; the beast thwarts the plan and goes on destroying; somebody comes up with an even more improbable plan; and so on and so forth. (Sure keeps the scale model builders in business.)



Eventually all the world governments manage to come together for one final, desperate push, and we're left cheering Gamera as he's launched into space, never to return . . .

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War of the Monsters [aka Gamera vs. Barugon] (1966)

Grade: C

. . . until six months later, when a meteor hits his rocket and Gamera spins lazily back down to Earth.



Oops! Within the first five minutes, Gamera flattens a hydroelectric plant and busts open a dam, then blithely flies off to his lair, or wherever it is giant turtles like to chill out.



Then the movie takes a bit of a left turn, as we don't see Gamera again until the 52 minute mark. Instead, we're dropped into a plot by a cadre of Bad Guys (and one not-so-bad guy) to retrieve a giant opal from a remote Pacific island cave.



Turns out monster eggs look a whole lot like valuable gemstones, and after an unintended stint under a conveniently positioned heat lamp --


Aren't all ship cabins equipped with those?

-- out hatches Barugon.



With a colorful array of rainbow death rays shooting from his back -- not to mention the long, stiff tongue shooting gouts of freezing liquid -- Barugon is certainly one of the more Mazovian monsters we've come across.



Gamera, perhaps annoyed that there's another game in town, drops in to investigate.



As the monsters rumble and the scientists and military (ineffectually) plot, the baddest of the Bad Guys is still determined to retrieve his "opal," dropping bodies along the way and just generally making a nuisance of himself.



More fighting, more rainbows, more thwarted military plans, and eventually Gamera prevails and everyone's happy. Hooray!



War of the Monsters is a bit of a black sheep within the Gamera film family -- all sorts of close-range death, human-on-human violence, evil plots, greed, theft, scorpion stings, knife fights, quicksand, the works.



No "friend of children" narrative here. And what it lacks in youthful frivolity it more than makes up for with gleeful carnage, destruction, and beat-downs.



But really, who misses the kiddos when we've got festive monsters and mustachioed scientists with comically oversized cordless phones?

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Return of the Giant Monsters [aka Gamera vs. Gyaos] (1967)

Grade: C-

After War of the Monster's tale of murder, intrigue, treasure hunters, and exotic islanders, it's time for a movie about . . . road construction!



That's right, a handsome foreman and his work crew are trying to get a new highway built, and the local yokels are brandishing signs and blocking their way.



Riveting stuff. At least it's a bit more complex than innocent peasants vs. big bad government, as the villagers are protesting mainly as a tactic to get more money for their land.



And they would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling monsters! You see, there's an active volcano nearby, and in that volcano lives Gyaos -- a pterodactyl-looking thing so badass that at one point it cuts off its own toe to escape from Gamera's clutches.


Is toe jam good on rice?

Gyaos accomplishes this feat of self-amputation with the ol' laser-shooting-from-the-(adorably-triangle-shaped)-mouth trick.



It's a formidable weapon, and one used to comic effect when Gyaos manages to slice a car so cleanly in two that its occupants just keep driving along in half a vehicle.



A plane gets bisected as well -- the consequences of which are rather more grim to consider.



Luckily there's a kid doing a bit of meddling too -- that would be young villager Eiichi, who was first on scene at Gyaos' emergence and keeps feeding the scientists reasonably plausible ideas on how to destroy the creature.



Most usefully, Eiichi manages to endear himself to Gamera so completely that's he's ultimately able to summon the giant turtle back from his lair for the coup de grâce.



Overall, it's the same basic format as the last Gamera film -- the new monster destroys stuff, scientists try (and fail) to thwart it, Gamera swoops in at various points to help. and a murky subplot ties it all together.



We're realizing how reluctant a hero this Gamera has turned out to be. Like a kind-hearted introvert who's endeared himself to a much more active (and trouble-prone) crowd, he simply doesn't have the heart to say "no" when he's called out of his cozy home to join the monster party.



As the responsible one of the group, he spends all night taking care of everyone and making sure the entire place doesn't get (too) trashed.



Maybe he even has a little fun in spite of himself. But, as soon as his perceived obligation is fulfilled, he gets the heck out of there and heads for safety and comfort of his underwater lair.

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Destroy All Planets [aka Gamera vs. Viras] (1968)

Grade: D-

We took a break before #4 to get some sleep; we're committed to this project, but not (for the most part) gluttons for punishment. A night's rest left us bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to tackle the last two movies of our mini marathon.



It's clear from the first scene that Destroy All Planets takes a much different tack than the previous three. The title gives it away -- this is space, and Gamera has moved beyond mere terrestrial threats to help defend Earth against alien invaders.



But, after a relatively quick battle in which Gamera (kinda) prevails, we're brought back down to earth to a most wholesome scene: a joint US-Japan seaside scout camp, complete with a kumbaya song circle and everyone kitted out in full uniform.


Moonrise Kingdom, eat your heart out.

Soon we're introduced to the real stars of the film: Masao and his American friend Jim, who are clearly the resident mischief-makers in the troop.



The lads cleverly sabotage a research submarine (yellow, of course) to play a prank on their scoutmasters; this leads to their own underwater adventure and close encounter with Gamera, who manages to find trouble of his own.



It seems those aliens are back, and they mean business.



All this in just the first 15 minutes -- not a bad start! Then . . . as we watched  . . . we were suddenly hit with . . .



A clip show! And not one of those fake ones the Golden Girls did where the flashbacks were new; this was solid twenty minutes of material grabbed straight from the three movies we had just plowed through and were hoping to put (far, far) behind us. They even stuck black and white scenes from #1 among all the later color stuff!



Sure, the stock footage fit the context of aliens doing their "research" into Gamera and his habits and abilities (as THEY watched . . . ), which does figure into the plot. And maybe we could pretend that the filmmakers didn't do it to save money, and simply wanted to introduce the younger audience to Gamera's prior exploits, seeing as those other films were more PG, as compared to Destroy All Planet's kid-friendly G-ness.


No A rating, thank you.

Well, maybe except for the head slicin' . . .



. . . or Gamera impalin'. . .



. . . but heck, they did the same thing to Ursula, so who are we to judge what counts as kid-friendly violence?



Stock footage aside, this Gamera outing wasn't so terrible.The set designers and prop masters clearly had an absolute blast -- both the interior and exterior of the alien ship are chock full of stripes, patterns, shapes, flashing lights, and general space-age awesomeness.



There's mind control, puzzle solving, questionable food, and a few twists and turns to keep things interesting. And Viras, who only assumes his true form at the very end, is certainly fun to look at and a worthy adversary for Gamera.



Ultimately though, it's a movie about kids, for kids; a fun enough romp, but only if you're in a gee whiz kind of mood.

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Attack of the Monsters [aka Gamera vs. Guiron] (1969)

Grade: D



"Oh boy, another Gamera movie." -- Everyone at this point, including us.

Hey everyone, have you seen Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? Yes?  Good. Now, how about we do this:

For Earth kids Billy and Betty, substitute Akio and Tom (again with the American friend!)



They're out playing, find a spaceship, and you can guess the rest.



This time don't fly to Mars, but head to undiscovered planet Terra. It orbits directly opposite Earth, you see, which meant the Earthlings couldn't.



Instead of the bumbling Martian henchmen, trade up to Barbella and Florbella -- two spacesuit-clad bombshells with special plans for their young captives.



Crazy space sets, rocket ships, freaked-out parents, fighting among the villains, and an extra helping of golly gee kiddo action -- don't change a thing, you're doing great.



And finally, instead of dear old Santy Claus, have our hero Gamera swing in to save the day.



THERE.
DONE.



OK, fine, Attack of the Monsters deserves a teeny bit more credit. It isn't simply a clone of SCCTM (thank goodness) -- there are the monsters, of course, and not just two, but three! There's our pal Gamera to start, then Space Gyaos -- as you might imagine, it's simply Gyaos from #3, just painted a different color.


Totally not the same thing.

Finally the most formidable foe: knife-faced, shuriken-wielding Guiron -- who, as another blogger pointed out, is a dead ringer for the San Jose Sharks mascot, S J Sharkie.



With talk of cannibalism and an unsentimental euthanization, things are also a bit darker here than in Santy land.



But overall, the look and feel are just about the same. Bad effects, bad dialogue, too many kids, not enough teeth.


Or too many teeth. You get the picture.

And that, ladies and gentlemen and assorted canines, concludes our Gamerathon. Thank freakin' goodness.