Yog, Monster From Space

(Space Amoeba)

 

The movie starts off relatively slow. You get a glimpse of "Yog" and a short glimpse of
Gezora, but not much in the beginning. For most of the beginning it gives starts off the
story of something coming to Earth from space and sets up why the humans go to the
island and all in the movie. Overall the beginning does well to start off the movie.

The monsters are the more typical type of monster (giant animals) of the Showa era of
kaiju movies. The monsters are Gezora a giant squid, Ganime a lobster, and Kameba a
giant turtle. Though I usually don't like the aliens attacking Earth story, this one
modifies it enough that it doesn't affect how at least I viewed the movie. Each monster
is a mutated from contact with Yog, which is somewhat interesting factor in the how the
monsters are created.

The movie has the usually natives of the island that remind of those from King Kong vs
Godzilla or some of the Mothra movies. The movie could have done without the
chanting/singing/dancing native. Scenes like that seem more to waste time then to really
have any importance in the movie. Though even without a cityscape for battle you still
get to see people fleeing from the monster rampages.

The defeat of Gezora was a relatively good scene though it went pretty quick. Best part
of it was after Gezora retreats and the space being Yog goes and finds a new host to
inhabit.

The next monster to appear and Yog's next inhabitant is Ganime the giant lobster. It
looks like a copy of Ebirah from the Godzilla series. Its rampage was similar to
Gezora's, but this time there was no village to flatten.

The movie starts to pick up monster wise when Kameba and Ganime begin the first and only
battle. I really wish they had a battle a lot earlier in the movie. The battle is
completely a physical battle because neither monster has any special attacks. Even with
it being completely physical battle it was still done well, minus the bats that arrive
during the battle.

The very ending was completely stupid. The worst line in the film: "Who would believe
humans and bats would team up". Come on! The ending, the lack of battles, and the just
the all out lack in Ganime and Kameba's appearance detracted from this file. Gezora got
the most time out of the movie, while the other monsters who's names were also in the
Japanese title of the movie made a lot briefer appearances.

I had some high hopes for this movie when I went to watch it and I was really let down.
This is a good movie for the avid kaiju fan only.

 

 

Directed By

Ishiro Honda

 

Released

1970