There's a
statistical theory floating around certain intellectual circles. It goes something like
this: 96% of everything utterly sucks. With giant monster movies, I'm beginning to
think that the number is more likely to be somewhere around 98%.
For every Godzilla there are at least five Black Scorpions. And for every one of those there's at least one Godzilla's Revenge. But let's not talk about that...thing. Not yet. I have to really psyche myself up for Godzilla's Revenge. And my pain centers have to recover from this flick, first.
The story of how I found Gappa the Triphiban Monster is short and not very interesting. Pretty mundane, actually. But, hey, my review, so I can kill time anyway I please.
I don't get sick very often, but when I do it's always a whopper. I get the kinds of colds that make you hallucinate. I'm one of those people who walks through colds in a trance, bleary eyed and unshaven. Viruses make me look even more like a criminally insane then I already do. So I tend to stay indoors when I'm sick, lest some concerned citizen mistake me for a Mad Bomber and call the Men In White Coats on my sorry ass.
So I'm trapped inside with a head cold to bring empires to their knees. And I'm (coughing, hacking, wheezing) channel surfing when, what to my wondering eyes did appear? Right there on Showtime Beyond. Gappa the Triphiban Monster. 85 minutes of literal monsters badness. Just the thing to kill the time.
Or so I thought.
Gappa is an instructional video. No, really. Its full title is Gappa the Triphiban Monster, or, How To Make a Monster Movie Suck. The sheer amount of wrongness here is staggering. One would think there are limits on human stupidity but some Universal Flaw removed those limits in 1967. Mind you, this is also the year of Son of Godzilla.
Things begin in the South Pacific (and you can't get more original than that). We meet our Designated Heroes, Kurosaki (Some Guy), the Intrepid Reporter; The Chick (Some Girl), Kurosaki's photographer; and Tinoko (Some Other Guy), our Intrepid Leader. Tinoko will spend the rest of the movie ignoring common sense and kowtowing to Kurosaki. After all, Kurosaki is the leading man.
This particular Scooby Gang is trucking through the Pacific searching for rare and exotic animals. You see, these people are puppets for the suggestively named Playmate Magazine (Playmate-the name that screams "porno!"). Playmate's Publisher, Mr. Evil (Yet Another Person of the Male Persuasion), has just begun construction on Playmate Land, his own little zoo/park/restaurant/hotel/casino/strip joint/okay, that last one was mine, but you get the point. Unable to send qualified game hunters, Mr. Evil decides to send three idiots. Plus one more; the Odious Comic Relief. I didn't write down his name because, well, I didn't give a crap.
Stopping at a volcanic island just for the hell of it, our gang finds the Obligatory Natives who worship the Obligatory Angry God. Their god, Gappa, is angry, making the ground shake and the volcano erupt. Our party tries to civilize the heathens with tales of wondrous Japan, but the natives aren't impressed. I wouldn't be, either. Their island may be volcanic, but at least it's Godzilla-free.
Or maybe I spoke too soon. A little native boy (I'll just call him Kenny), informs Intrepid Reporter that Gappa isn't a god. Oh, no. "He fly," Kenny says. Gee, thanks kid. Real useful info.
Kenny makes the mistake of leading Kurosaki and The Chick to a giant cave guarded by a bigass stone idol. Inside the cave, Mr. Intrepid finds some fossils and a giant egg that hatches like magic once they come across it. A giant, rubbery-looking bird/lizard/some-other-damn-thing pops out, which The Chick immediately labels "cute." Against Kenny's warnings, they truck the hatchling back to Japan.
Christ, this is so pat I can barely keep my eyes open. Yes, it is a hatchling and, yes, Mamma bird and Papa bird are very pissed indeed. Breaking free of the volcano (they've been using the front door on the other side of the mountain all these years but, sometimes, you're just so mad you have to break something), the matting pair lays waste to the Native Village and takes off for Japan.
An aside: Gappa is not a Toho production and, once the giant monsters show up, this becomes painfully obvious. The adult Gappas are ungainly things, even by giant monster standards. With hawk beaks, stiff necks, bow legs and square little bodies, these things look (surprise) like stunt men dressed in rubber suits. Compounding matters is the fact that the monster footage is shot in real time instead of the normal half-speed that gives the illusion of scale. And the flying scenes...ugh...
Gappa does, indeed, fly. And watching these scenes is painful because I know, somewhere, there's and FX director who saw these scenes and thought they were perfectly fine. Nope, nothing wrong here. And that just makes me sad. It's hard to laugh at things that are so...pathetic.
So the Gappas fly. They fly to Japan and start breaking things. These scenes fall so flat I can almost hear the thump. These are 100% free of drama, certified by the USDA.
After the Obligatory Plans That Fail to Stop the Monsters somebody says, "...and now they're headed directly for Tokyo." This line is the signal for someone to come up with a plan that actually works. Intrepid Reporter manages that feat when he suggests something that I've been shouted at the TV for the past half-hour: "Just give 'um their damn baby and they'll go away!"
The Gappa reunion at Tokyo's Airport is a masterpiece of crap special effects. There's a Gappa Group Hug, a Baby Gappa Flying Lesson and (I swear) a tear falling out of Mommy Gappa's eye. Aww...and, as always, this scene comes to you 100% drama free.
Things ends with Our Designated Hero's pining away for all the destruction they've witnessed. It was, after all, all their fault. But Japan is a very guilty culture so, for once, the Designated Heroes admit guilt. Still doesn't stop them from standing around and looking relived while the Gappas fly off into the sunset. Kurosaki doesn't even pause before he goes chasing after The Chick. Oh yeah, real penitence there.
Gappa is the cinematic equivalent of McDonald's Chicken Nuggets. You can bite into it all you want, searching for some small modicum of flavor. If you strain hard enough you might just taste it, too. Or you'll start hallucinating.
Have I become jaded? Have I watch the goodness that is Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe too many times to sit back and enjoy this bout of old school monster mashing? Or is Gappa's plot really that contrived? Is its script really that hokey? Does its dubbing suck that hard and it's dialogue blow so strongly? Are the monster scenes so dirt poor? Am I asking all these rhetorical questions instead of giving real commentary?
The answer to all of that is a big, "Hell yes." We've been here before, we've seen this before. Hell, we're already bought this on DVD. This is what a complete lack of talent will do to a monster movie. Look upon it, ye mighty, and tremble.
