X marks the Monster of the Week

just watched Monster X: Attack the G-8 Summit (2008) which I enjoyed (and would have liked even more had it been about an hour long).

it marks the return of one of my favorite monsters, Guilala.  his early appearances in the movie are mostly stock footage from his first movie (the awesome X From Outer Space (1967), but they look pretty good, considering the age of that movie.

the new movie is not funny enough to be a flat out comedy, but much goofier than the original to be a straight monster movie.  it also sports some of the worst gaijin actors of all time, and useless and rather stupid subplots abound.

I think this is an enhanced shot of Guilala spitting a fireball.  I think in the original movie they were blue-ish, and it doesn't look very blue-ish here.

it's such an endearingly outrageous design for a monster, how can you not love it?  the new suit looks pretty good as well- good enough that the Ladders used Guilala for a major tv ad a few years ago.  and those were some funny spots, I gotta say.  the "out takes" spots are pretty funny as well.

at the end of the movie there's a nice lengthy battle with Guilala fighting Take-Majin.  it's not a serious fight, but it's pretty entertaining overall.  there are some familiar sound effects as Take-Majin shows up, and a definite nod to Ultraman for the end to the fight.

poor Guilala though.