Curse of the Demon (1957)

easily one of the best of the 50s genre movies, "Curse of the Demon" almost always get viewed here at Xeno-Central on Hallowe'en. the story of witchcraft vs science here is just so well done and scary and suspenseful one can't help but watch the whole thing through.

01 Rock!

not many superheroic postings here yet, so here's a few from on of my favorite shows- Kikaida 01, the sequel to Kikaida (natcherly). here are our heroic brothers, lamenting the fact a villain got away.

memories of Godzilla vs the Thing (1964

after posting two articles about Gamera (sorta, I know) I realized I had not written a thing (pun intended) about Godzilla at all. so I am rectifying that right now, with the best Godzilla movie ever made. not my favorite, but it's the best one- acting, effects, music, even the dubbing is all top notch here.

however, let me tell you a little story. I believe the first time I saw this was in about 1978. odd to some as it may seem, back when I was a kid there was no video on demand. it was up the gods as to what movies you would see. I was in WV when this showed up in the tv guide. the capsule review promised "four super monsters battling for world domination". I knew from pictures Mothra would be in the movie, but two more monsters? how great would that be?
in 1976 I saw Godzilla vs Megalon, which also had four titanic beings battling. it's funny now, but that's the kind of Godzilla movie I thought they ALL were. I was ready for a monster bash that Saturday afternoon! I also knew Godzilla would probably be the villain, but wasn't sure just yet. at age 11, I definitely preferred my Godzilla as hero.

For reasons that escape me now, I came in about a half an hour late. regrettable, but still it was better than nothing. who knew when I would get to see this movie again?

so I watched, enjoyed Godzilla and the effects. and I waited for two other monsters to show up. and waited. then... with Mothra dead, the Shobijin hatched the egg and two grubs appeared. grubs? GRUBS? these are the last two titanic super monsters?

now I know it's the tv guide that lied to me, but then I was extremely disappointed. how could anyone think grubs (larvae) were any kind of monster, Mothra's offspring or not? and how could they be a match for this rather evil incarnation of Godzilla?

OK, so they worked it out pretty well. but by the end of the movie I was far from satisfied. I don't think I saw the movie again for about ten years or so, on cable. I liked it more then, since I got to watch all of it, and was a bit older. it came out on VHS not long after that.

now, with the perspective of knowing more about the movie than I ever thought I would, I can recognize it for the work of art it actually is. it's still not my favorite Godzilla OR Mothra movie, but I do enjoy it a lot.

and it will always be Godzilla vs the Thing to me, no matter what Toho or anyone else says (is it redundant to say 87% of user comments on IMdB are ridiculous?).

"Astro Boy" (2009)

oddly enough, I don't have much emotional connection with Astro Boy, despite writing about him a bit these days. never saw the cartoon growing up at all.

so with this remake/version, I'm didn't have too many preconceptions. it's pretty good, and at 94 minutes (at least 5 minutes of closing and BORING credits) it's just about the right length of time.

it is another retelling of Astro's origin, but done in about the same time as the original cartoon did it. it's set in the further future than "the year 2000", which is also fine. the rest of the story revolves around Astro finding his purpose in life. it gets a little cutesy with the introduction of the orphans, but right when you think it's gonna be sidetracked it brings it altogether for a pretty satisfying finish.

the CG characters look pretty good, but as none of Tezuka's original work was designed to be 3-D, they still look a little weird, especially Dr. Elefun. it's OK, but I kept thinking how much better a real cartoon would have looked. it was nice to see a few of Tezuka's characters there, including Hamegg. Mr. Moustache was in the credits, but I didn't remember seeing him in the movie at all.

so it's worth a look. it's apparently not making ANY money, but I think it will find a life on DVD, since it's pretty good. alas, they didn't use the original Astro Boy theme song, not even over those long extensive credits.

oh yeah, and Astro himself barely spent any time looking like his comic book counterpart- he was always in blue jeans and a shirt. weak.

brought to you by Dolly Madison

remember when CBS would have a notice about special programming during the start of any holiday season? "the regularly scheduled program will not be seen tonight" or something to that effect. do they even do that now, in the age of everything being available on DVD?

this is one of my favorites. I've watched it every year that I can remember.
not quite as meaningful as the first Charlie Brown special, the Christmas one (we'll see that in a couple months) but probably funnier. what really gets me is the facial expressions of the characters. the animators really outdid themselves on this part.
Lucy seems to have issues with dogs. there's a new set available and it has the first 6 specials they did. looks great. and I miss the Dolly Madison ads. Zingers haven't tasted the same since Hostess bought them.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

just started watching this direct to DVD movie, based on the comics of the same name, and it's pretty darn good. of course, hearing the proper voices for our heroes (and our villain) is just great. add to that seeing several other heroes and villains in action is a lot of fun as well, though I didn't recognize that many of them in the big battle scene. well, the villains, I mean. the heroes are pretty easy to make out. President Luthor frames Superman and Batman, which results in lots of fights. add to it impending doom from a huge green kryptonite meteor bearing down on Earth.

I dislike Metallo as a transformer/borg/T-1000 clone, but I sure love the composite Superman at the end. there's also a great camaraderie between Batman and Superman that has been sorely missing from comics for about... 20 years or so?

I really like this one, it's far better than Doomsday, Wonder Woman and especially the Dark Knight anime thing. more info here.

check it out!

as promised... Guiron!

here's the titular monster, as promised from the last post. Guiron. now, according to the late Noriaki Yuasa (best director of Gamera movies) his name is supposed to be "Guillon" as in "guillotine". due to an understandable translation error, we got Guiron. which sounds more monsterish to me.
here he is in action, slicing off one of Space Gyaos' wings. I forget if this part was in the US version, since they trimmed him carving Gyaos up like a salami. us kids back then weren't as tough, I guess.
he looks pretty pleased with himself, doesn't he?

thanks to my pal Ted Johnson for making the great looking DVDr of my VHS copy, where these frame grabs came from!

Attack of the Monsters (AIP-TV, 1969)

or as it's known by a few other names, "Gamera vs Guiron" and "Gamera vs Guillon". I have a confession to make, this was my first ever Gamera movie, and I also wrote the liner notes for Neptune Media's VHS tape for the English dubbed "Gamera vs. Guillon". so take that into consideration.
Gamera flies after two boys who are kidnapped by a flying saucer from the planet Terra. It's located on the far side of the sun, so we on Earth never see it or know it exists.
here is a one of the monsters on the planet, Space Gyaos. he's not really from space, but he's white, as opposed to "our" Gyaos who is not. say what you will about the Gamera monsters being rather unrealistic, but they look otherworldly and cool, far more than the 90s updates do. even if Gyaos is the overused monster that he is.


one of these days I will figure out how to position the pictures correctly. and it appears I don't even have a picture of Guiron, the titular foe of the movie. I think I'll just post another one with him in it, as this is getting picture heavy as it is. here we see the alien villainesses, before preparing to eat the boys' brains to learn everything about Earth.

and next to it is the Neptune Media title. it was bad timing for them to release the VHS versions of the three Gamera movies they had, since DVD had just started to hit it big, making the VHS versions more expensive and less desirable- you had to spend almost $45 to get the dubbed and subbed version of each movie. I'd like to post my liner notes here sometime. I wonder if I have that Gamera article they came from.

this is the AIP title. somehow, the movie is believed to be PD (public domain) with this title, and there are a ton of cheapo versions of it around. in fact, the first four or five Gamera movies are easily found online.

I'm not sure what happened with Neptune Media. the rumors are the owner is in Iraq, serving in the military. he has the rights to the first four Gamera movies, but only was able to release three (the first movie, this one and "Gamera vs Zigra" almost the worst of the lot). here's hoping he gets done with his tour and can look into giving us some nice DVDs of these movies, as they look pretty great letterboxed.

dinosaurs!

OK, so two are pterosaurs, and not dinosaurs. this is from Carel Zeman's "Journey to the Beginning of Time" an excellent movie.

Johnny Sokko on Hulu... free!

thanks to the the good people at Monster Island News! enjoy the show, and keep hoping for it to show up on legit DVD some day.