Long before The Hostand Dragon Wars, South Korea had its very own giant monster, Yonggary.Much like Gamera and Gorgo, Yonggary is a pretty blatant Godzilla ripoff, that tells the story of a giant reptilian creature awakened by an atomic bomb and which goes on a spree of destruction in a major urban city.In this case, Seoul gets all the kaiju love.
While it is a little retro for the time in the fact that Yonggary has no monster opponent, there is the obligatory Kenny character.Kennys are characters in 1960’s and 1970’s Japanese kaiju movies who are always annoying little Japanese school boys in short shorts.Some of them have serious emotional problems.Yonggary’s resident Kenny, is an insufferably precocious smart alec who engages Yonggary in a kind of horrible dance off.Yes, you read that right.The two get down together to some ‘60’s surf pop.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Yonggary is a big dinosaur, much like Godzilla.His claim to fame is that he has a big glowing horn on his nose.The monster suit is actually pretty awful and cheap-looking with big, glassy eyes.He also breathes fire, which looks suspiciously like a lighter being held in front of an aerosol can.
As a creature, Yonggary has a couple of notable attributes.First is the nose horn, which glows at different points in the movie for unknown reasons.Second, is Yonggary’s behavior.Interestingly, the creature is seen actively devouring oil during the course of the movie.It’s actually rare in a kaiju movie to see a monster actually eating anything (other than the occasional person).Yonggary’s need to drink oil gives him an interesting motivation and suggests an intriguing biology.
This movie also makes me appreciate the craft that went into building the miniature cities and environments in the Godzilla movies.One can really see the difference in quality between the work here and in the earlier Japanese movies.The miniatures really do go a long way to making the rest of the effects work as well as they do and selling the scale of the whole thing.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
The dance off!But only because it sucks so hard.
SEQUELS
None, but a loose remake in 1999.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
On DVD, as streaming on Netflix as of this writing.
When TV first became popular and affordable for most people, the medium was seen as a serious threat to the motion picture industry. There was a time when, if you wanted entertainment, you went to the movies. And that was it. In the 1950's, TV offered people the option of being able to consume prepackaged entertainment in their own home. Why go out to the movie theater when you could watch TV at home? Movie studios began concocting different schemes to get people out to their cinemas, by offering experiences that could not be replicated on TV, thus 3D was born as a desperate attempt to lure people to their local movie theaters. Some things never change.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon was a standout monster movie from this "Golden Age of 3D" and introduced audiences to one of the most iconic movie creatures of all time, Gill Man. The creature also spun off into two sequels, and a truly staggering amount of tie-in merchandise. Gill Man is also a junior member of that elite club known as the Universal Monsters, which is sort of a monster Rat Pack.
The movie is also notable for its extensive use of underwater photography, which was far from common in 1954. The Creature from the Black Lagoon spends a surprising amount of time underwater. Gill Man is also the forefather of the numerous fish man creatures that have appeared in movies and TV over the subsequent years, such as Abe Sapien from Hellboy and Mer-Man from the Masters of the Universe franchise.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is inspired by a legendary South American fish-man creature. The producers decided to build a horror movie around this creature set in an Amazonian research station. The science team encroaches on the Gill Man's lair and are picked off one by one. Unlike many '50's movie monsters, the creature is presented in a fairly sympathetic way and there is a definite environmental message buried in The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Like many horror movies, The Creature has a beauty and the beast theme running through it. Gill Man takes a liking to one of the scientist's girl friend. One of the most memorable and even erotic moments occurs during an extended scene in which she goes for a swim with the creature swimming below her in the murky water, apparently enjoying her silhouette.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Gill Man is realized through a couple of different rubber suits, which are actually very photogenic. When I watch this movie, the phrase "Glorious black and white" comes to mind and the suit looks really great on film. I've seen images of the creature in color and he usually looks pretty awful, with rubbery dark green skin and often bright red lips. In the movie, though, he looks great. The creature even manages to look realistic in the movie's many underwater shots, in which Gill Man's various fins and flaps move in a fluid and natural way.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
Gill Man's synchronized swim with his would-be girl friend is a great moment. The kind of of lyrical, visually poetic moment is rare in genre movies like this.
SEQUELS
Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
There has been a lot of talk about a remake of this movie and one is tentatively schedule for next year.
Y’all remember the magic early summer of 2010?It was a time of classic movies like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Shrek Forever After.One of those great summer of ’10 movies was Clash of the Titans, a Greek mythological opus starring Sam Worthington, who is quickly becoming the go-to guy for action genre movies.In all fairness, Clash is kind of a mess.Rumor has it, that the movie was severely meddled-with in post production and that there is a longer, better cut of the movie out there somewhere. This seems to be an ongoing problem for French director Louis LeTerrier, who's pretty-good Incredible Hulk suffered from a troubled production as well.
One thing is for sure, mythology is the new vampires!Movies like Clash of the Titans, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and the upcoming movies Thor, God of War, and The Immortals show that Hollywood is once again turning to the classic stories of gods and heroes in search of the next big hit.Mythology hasn’t been this hot for millennia.
Clash of the Titans is also a loose remake of a cheesy ‘80’s movie of the same name, although here re-imagined as a summer CGI bonanza with a cast of heavyweight actors in supporting roles.Interestingly, the movie reunites Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, who last memorably starred opposite each other in Schindler’s List and here play the divine siblings Zeus and Hades.Pete Postlethwaite and Danny Huston also have smaller parts in the movie.
Clash is loosely based on the story of Perseus, the Greek hero tasked with defeating Medusa and saving the maiden Andromeda from Poseidon’s sea monster. Like many Hollywood movies based on Greek mythology, the story takes a lot of liberties with characters and story points.Like most of these movies, Hades is made into the story’s villain and his realm is depicted as fiery and Hellish, where as it was usually depicted in mythology as sort of dark, dull and dreary.
Another annoying convention of movies set in antiquity is to cast British actors, as though people speaking ancient Greek are best represented by crisp English accents.It’s even more illogical and inconsistent in this movie because of Liam Neeson’s Irish brogue and the distractingly Australian Sam Worthington, aka Krakendile Dundee.Seriously dude, learn some more accents.Russell Crowe can do it, so can you.
This movie is also notable for two other reasons:It introduced a hilarious new catchphrase into the public lexicon, “Release the Kraken!” which is applicable for lots of different situations involving sex or pooping.Secondly, Clash of the Titans illustrated the limits of using 3D conversions as a quick cash grab to charge more for tickets.While Clash was not filmed or conceived for 3D, it was apparently given a fast and cheap conversion to the format and the movie’s 3D was widely panned.Clash of the Titans helped usher in a backlash against 3D movies that snowballed over the summer of 2010 and has gone a long way towards undoing Avatar’s hard work in showcasing the power of 3D.Ironically, Worthington starred in both movies.No doubt, James Cameron will give him a good kick in the ass when they start filming Avatar 2.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Was it Return of the King? Pan's Labyrinth?
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The Greek myths were filled with cool creatures and Clash of the Titans does not stint on monsters.There are some very cool giant scorpions that grow out of the blood of a cursed warrior.There is the Medusa, which is well designed and has a unique and interesting way of moving, but suffers from very subpar CGI.There’s even a Pegasus for the ladies.The real star of the show, is the Kracken which looks a bit like a cross between the Rancor from Return of the Jedi, Orga from Godzilla 2000, and an octopus.The Kraken is a colossal kaiju-sized monster with a toothy, gaping maw and lots of horrible tentacles.This is one of the great movie monsters but sadly is not around very long before being dispatched.Every once in a while I see a monster in a movie and I’m like “That needs to fight Godzilla!”That’s how I felt when I saw the Kraken.It’s a great improvement over the silly looking monster from the original Clash of the Titans which looked like a four armed version of the creature from 20,000,000 Miles to Earth.
Speaking of movie trends, I think Krakens are coming back in.After all, we just had a Kraken not too long ago in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.Prior to that, I don’t remember seeing a lot of Krakens, except maybe the tentacle monster in Deep Rising.I would keep my eye on Krakens.I think they are going to be big.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
“Release the Kraken!!”
G'day! Name's Peh-seus.
SEQUELS
Surprisingly, considering the largely negative reactions to the movie, a sequel is planned.
HOVE VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Available on DVD and Bluray.
Kraken: Released.
TRIVIA
The movie carries the misnomer from the original.There are actually no Titans in this movie, as the term “Titan” refers to the generation of gods before Zeus and his siblings.A more accurate title would be “Clash of the Olympians.”
PITCH BLACK (2000)
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Director: David Twohy
THE MOVIE
Pitch Black owes a lot to the James Cameron movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of the 1980’s such as Aliensand Predator.Much like the classic Schwarzenegger flicks it is a vehicle for its star, Vin Diesel, and was one of the muscled actor’s first breakout roles.It also has a hard sci-fi edge that characterized many of the action films of the ‘80’s.Creature design is handled here by the very competent Patrick Tsatopolous-who is hated by fanboys for his work on the American Godzilla movie but a decent creature designer in his own right.Pitch Black is also the start of a series of movies and multimedia projects featuring Diesel’s character Riddick and was followed with the spectacularly nerdy and self-important The Chronicles of Riddick as well as an anime movie and a well-received Xbox game, and an upcoming theatrical sequel.Pitch Black is the only entry to actually heavily feature monsters.
Pitch Black is a story of survival in which a cargo/passenger ship en route to the “Tangiers” system is struck by a meteor shower and goes down on an uninhabited desert planet. There's already a lot going on here and you can see that there is an extensive and convoluted back story, which thankfully is left for the sequel to explore. The ship is also carrying prisoner Richard Riddick and his bounty hunter captor.After the crash, Riddick escapes into the desert but the survivors have other problems to worry about in the form of carnivorous hammer-headed creatures called Bio-raptors.The good news is that the creatures are solely nocturnal and cannot survive in the light of the planet’s three suns.The bad news is that the ship crashed prior to the planet’s once-every-twenty-two-years eclipse cycle.The few remaining survivors team up with Riddick-who has a bad attitude and practically has the word “Anti-hero” tattooed across his giant pectoral muscles so you never forget: HE’S NOT A GOOD GUY-and try to escape the creatures.
At the end Riddick learns the true meaning of Christmas.
Pitch Black is a decent creature feature, with good special effects and a stylish presentation.The special lighting and filtering effects to convey the other worldliness of this tri-solar desert planet are particularly cool.Diesel is a good action hero and a worthy successor to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers of yesteryear but he needs to learn to control his nerdy indulgences.David Twohy is a talented writer director who has a real eye for visionary and vaguely gothic sci-fi and horror.He had previously done the very cool sci-fi film The Arrival and was one of the dozens of writers to have worked on Alien 3 and Waterworld and the well-received thriller A Simple Getaway.
THE CREATURES/EFFECTS
These “Bio-raptors” are distant cousins of Giger’s Alien, but that’s okay; about a third of movie monsters from the last 30 years are as well.Patrick Tatopolous gives a unique twist to what could have been a total Alien clone, with some truly bizarre looking creatures with weird crescent-shaped heads and hammerhead protrusions on either side of their faces.The effects and design are all good if a little too slick for my tastes.
