Varied Celluloid

	The Violent Years (1994, original air date)

Starring:

Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu

The Plot: Mike Nelson is trapped on the Satellite of Love with a group of robot friends who he has created. This crew of misfits are forced by the evil Dr. Forrester to endure many incredibly bad movies. The only thing that makes this process bearable is the fact that they riff and crack jokes during the entire ordeal. This week the group watch the Ed Wood written piece The Violent Years. In our story, Paula is the spoiled daughter of a very influential family. Her mother is a homemaker, but her father is the owner of a large newspaper enterprise. Although she has had everything she could have ever wanted in her life, Paula decides that her life simply isn’t filled with the excitement that she craves. She and her friends then turn to a life of crime, and begin robbing gas stations at gunpoint. As the police work to track her down, Paula remains oblivious to her parents who have no idea that their daughter is out every day committing horrible crimes. Will Paula and her gang of friends see the error of their ways, or will their violent lifestyle catch up with them?

	The Review

There is no name that is as infamous in the world of b-movies as “Ed Wood”. A figure so famous now for making bad movies that when his name is attached to nearly any project it immediately becomes ranked with the worst movies of all time. With the release of Tim Burton’s film, Ed Wood, came a new notoriety for the writer and director who brought us Plan 9 From Outer Space. Even the most generic of movie fans can usually recognize the name and maybe even spout off a few of his more famous titles. His legacy is that of a cross-dressing man who was overly enthusiastic, and overly confident, when it came to making movies. With this unwarranted confidence he then created some of the worst films of all time. Whether or not this is a a realistic depiction of Wood as a person, I can’t say, but what I do know is that his notoriety far exceeds any work that he actually did. Plan 9 From Outer Space shouldn’t really be considered the worst movie ever made, and anyone who made films that were as uniquely entertaining as this director did had to at least have something going for him. The notoriety that surrounds the name Ed Wood is the reason why The Violent Years made an appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000, despite the fact that Wood himself did not actually direct the picture.

The Violent Years is a bad movie, I will not run away from this fact. It was obviously shot on a shoestring budget and this fact continually shines throughout the entirety of the movie. However, I will say that director William Morgan actually manages to showcase a few qualities that make him seem at least slightly more visual than other b-movie directors such as Ed Wood. I have to give the film credit, it packs in a few very interesting choices throughout. The opening scene, in particular, is actually quite stylish. The camera is set up so that it may watch each of the “bad girls” walk up to a chalkboard, which has several lines about general decency written on it, and the girls all simply roll their eyes and walk off while the names of their characters read across the bottom of the screen. It is a fun little trick that establishes a sense of the unusual, and it actually tells us everything that these teenage delinquents are running from. If this were made in the feminist age, audiences could have likely found a lot to commend this film for, but unfortunately that doesn’t prove to be the case. Director William Morgan may have had a script by Ed Wood, but he actually shows he has an eye for tiny visual flourishes. Although the movie is shot in an amateurish way for the most part, using recycled footage and featuring several scenes with very static and boring camera placement, Morgan proves that he definitely has more visual promise than some directors of the era. Between some of the set decorations, interesting costume combinations, as well as the editing techniques employed, the movie at least seems competently handled. Even though it is most assuredly underfunded.

Unfortunately, and probably as expected, Ed Wood’s script isn’t very tight. I think the big gunfight during the third act is probably the greatest example of this. When confronted by the police while wrecking an empty classroom, these girls decide that their best chance lies in shooting it out with the police. It didn’t seem as if great detective work brought the police to this situation, and thus it seems that these girls instigate a gun fight over what could only be considered a misdemeanor at worst. The film really seems more than a bit confused about motivations in general. The entire reason for these women going into a life of crime remains a bit ambiguous. We know that Paula is a rich girl, bored with her lavish lifestyle, but the rest of the girls seem as if they are little more than eye candy with little to no background information. Even the little that we do learn about Paula doesn’t make her seem all that interesting. Without question, she doesn’t even become very sympathetic. In fact, she becomes far less sympathetic when we see just how gracious and respectful her parents are in stark contrast to her demeanor. However, the concept of a rich debutante becoming a heathen is actually somewhat interesting. It is one of the few plot-centered positive aspects that the movie has going for it, but it isn’t the only intelligent device in play. The fact that the movie starts with its ending, before such a concept was in vogue, is another conceptual idea that manages to give life to the movie despite all of the negative aspects working against it.

Although The Violent Years is our main presentation, in true MST3K fashion we are presented a short film beforehand. This short turns out to be another Jam Handy production, a company known for their instructional videos that were often used on this show. The title of the short sounds like a gay porno, but Young Man’s Fancy is instead a fairly misogynistic display of male and female relationships. The short almost seems completely pointless for the most part, but Mike and the bots still manage to tear into it relentlessly. A fun short, the MST3K gang are on point with their wit. The riffing is razor sharp and the guys have most fun when picking apart the stuffy way that these older films ignore the very basis of sex. In the short we follow a girl named Judy whose brother brings home a stud named Alex, who she finds utterly dreamy. When the daughter actually describes her infatuation for Alex as making her “squishy,” Mike and company start to really lay into the unintentional sexual innuendos that the short seems to hammer home. The short also acts as the most unintentional display of anti-feminism you can imagine. The entire short, from what I gather, is about teaching young women to take their place in the kitchen and become better future housewives. After all, a woman’s very best hope is to find a young beau such as Alex who will someday marry her off and provide for her while she idly prepares the household for him.

	The Conclusion

Another solid entry into the Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXII boxset. Special features include two thorough interviews with the two most important loves of Ed Wood’s life. The special features on this box set more than make this set worth buying, but the episodes within are also quite entertaining. The Violent Years is another episode that borders between good and great. On the whole, I have to give it a three, but it has its moments where it ventures into the “4″ territory.

	MST3K: Mighty Jack (1991, original air date)

Starring:

Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy

The Plot: Joel Robinson is trapped on the Satellite of Love with a group of robot friends who he has created. This crew of misfits are forced by the evil Dr. Forrester to endure many incredibly bad movies. The only thing that makes this process bearable is the fact that they riff and crack jokes during the entire ordeal. This week’s film is the Japanese spy flick Mighty Jack! In our story, Q is a nefarious and evil organization bent on world domination. To combat this, the president (prime minister) of Japan enlists the service of a special group of men and women in order to fight for justice. This group is called Mighty Jack, and they are Japan’s leaders in international espionage. When top agent Harold Hatari goes missing, it remains up to Mighty Jack to find him and discover just what Q is planning. Their inevitable goal is world domination using a new form of ice that doesn’t melt at room temperature.

	The Review

Many critics who take their time out and review episodes of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 series will do so in a variety of fashions. Some will focus on multiple episodes in one sitting, some review the episodes instead of the movies, but sadly there are also many who are ridiculously condescending towards the original films being shown. I sometimes wonder if this isn’t because so many new viewers are not used to the magical world of b-cinema. Truly, if a film does show up on MST3K, it is most certainly because it is of questionable quality. However, if the viewer isn’t entirely familiar with the world of b-cinema, they may not recognize what type of b-movie they have just watched. You see, the world of bad movies packs quite the variety. Some films are just generally awful because the filmmakers didn’t know any better, such was the case with Manos: The Hands of Fate. Some are bad due to budgetary reasons and poor special FX, such as The Horrors of Spider Island. Then there are those which are bad only because of the poor treatment that the film received through North American distribution. Films such as The Magical Voyage of Sinbad and the Sandy Frank version of Gamera are prime examples of this. Mighty Jack, too, is a beast of the same variety.

I highly recommend picking up the Shout Factory box set, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXII, even if you do it only for the excellent special features. Amongst the two featurettes on the disc is an excellent introduction by Japanese film expert August Ragone. I’ve been familiar with the man for a while now, but before he started popping up on these Shout Factory! discs I had no idea he was such a charismatic speaker. He, yet again, fills the audience in on the background information surrounding Mighty Jack, and all of the history that went behind this series. You begin to wonder if there’s any aspect of Japanese culture that Ragone isn’t familiar with. Apparently Mighty Jack was another, like Time of the Apes, expansive series that Sandy Frank condensed into a quick ninety minute version. Originally thirteen one hour episodes, somehow Sandy Frank’s company was able to compile all of this footage into one small portion. Unlike Time of the Apes though, this movie severely suffers from the transition. Confusion is everywhere once Mighty Jack begins, and if it weren’t for the MST3K crew then this would be entirely too difficult to sit through.

Mighty Jack, if one were to come into it unprepared, would have to easily rank as one of the most decidedly infuriating spy movies ever made. Although Joel and the bots continually riff on the film for not making sense, I have a feeling that if you watched the movie without commentary, and took notes on every single character, then it could perhaps make some form of logical sense. In the format that it is now though, it is a boring and tedious film with very few good qualities. This is what happens when you take a very intricately plotted spy television series and cut it down from thirteen full hours into just one and a half. The plot becomes almost impossible to follow without creating flash cards in order to keep your memory constantly refreshed over just what is happening. In fact, the film is so confusing that it only takes the MST3K crew about five minutes into the movie to flatly admit “I’m lost.” On top of this poor editing, the film is packed with many wordy scenes that are filled to the brim with expositional information, but due to the poor audio mix on the original film it is more than likely that audience members will miss out on much of this vital information.
If the movie is completely and utterly a drag, at least the riffing done is of a high quality. Joel and the bots were, at this point, very well versed in the world of poorly treated Japanese dubs. This can be seen in how they incorporate numerous in-jokes from throughout the MST3K series at this point. Running gags are the norm here, including the resurrection of the famous “toy boat, toy boat, toy boat” line originated in the previous Gamera episode. This classic line also gets a twist when it transforms into “toy diver, toy diver, toy diver” when the filmmakers obviously try to use a miniature in place of an actor who is supposed to be diving underwater. Another inside joke from previous episodes is the classic “Sandy Frank Theme Song,” which made its debut during the Time of the Apes episode, but is only sung in small sections here and isn’t given the full backup vocals. Overall, the quality of riffing during the Mighty Jack episode is actually very well done. Considering the fact that this film feels like an endless series of individual short movies, with no connection to one another, the guys actually manage to create a much more humorous narrative than what Sandy Frank could have ever envisioned.

	The Conclusion

Overall, when the movie is this puzzling it is hard for the episode to really raise too high above expectations. With what they were working with, the MST3K gang did a very good job. A solid, but not spectacular, episode, I give Mighty Jack my go-to rating of three out of five.

	MST3K: Gamera vs. Zigra (1991)

Starring:

Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy.

The Plot: Joel Robinson and his robotic friends Crow and Tom Servo are stuck in outer space aboard the Satellite of Love where they are forced, by the evil Dr. Forrester, to watch very bad movies. The crew try to make the most of the flicks that are presented to them by continually cracking jokes while the movies play on for the audience at home. This time out the crew take on their very last Gamera film! The giant turtle doesn’t seem interested in going out quietly however, as he invites along the gigantic water monster Zigra along for the ride! The plot revolves around Zigra, the aforementioned water-based creature from outer space who looks to enslave all of mankind. Zigra has the ability to hypnotize any creature it comes in contact with and after kidnapping a female astronaut from the moon, the monster heads to the earth and looks to use this brainwashed young woman in order to further his goals of world domination. While this is going on, a group of kids based in a water park that best resembles Seaworld are soon on the case and look to put an end to Zigra’s nefarious plans! Their secret weapon? The one and only Gamera, friend to all children!

	The Review

This review marks our final foray into the world of MST3K vs Gamera, the box set from Shout! Factory that celebrates the brilliant gatherings between these two parties. As has been previously discussed in these reviews (starting with Gamera, then followed by Gamera vs. Barugon, Gamera vs. Gaos, Gamera vs. Guiron and finally our film today), the history that Mystery Science Theater shares with this gigantic turtle is actually quite immense. The beast has been around since the inception of MST3K as a show and has lead to some of the most memorable moments in this show’s history. Who could forget the Gamera theme song? Or Gamera spinning on that bar like an Olympic athlete in the show’s opening? Gamera vs. Zigra is treated as a celebration in this final episode, as the cast and crew make it a point to announce that it would be their final Gamera episode (something they are very excited about!), and they go out on top. Unfortunately, Gamera vs. Zigra is most certainly another lackluster Gamera outing.

The Gamera series, as it evolved, seemed to continue in a spiral (either for the positive or negative, depending on your point of view) into a world of progressive strangeness. Each subsequent film after Gamera vs. Gaos seemed to find director Yuasa taking the series into as strange of waters as he could. During Gamera vs. Gaos when you saw the giant blood-filled bird feeder make its appearance, you knew you weren’t dealing with a series concerned with following the rules of conventional filmmaking. At least this time, as opposed to the situation with Gamera vs. Guiron, Yuasa decided to keep this movie based on planet earth. However, in placing his film around a Seaworld-esque location Yuasa does manage to craft a rather wacky childlike feeling for the majority of the picture. Gamera has long been said to be a series dominated by a fanbase of children, and the setting for Gamera vs. Zigra reinforces this feeling. It’s as if the entire world that Gamera lives in is a theme park just waiting to be wrecked. Like most Gamera titles though, there is more fixation on the children characters than there is on explosive rubber suited monster action. As always though, the final act doesn’t let us down.

The kids are, as always, the focus here and these characters are every bit as annoying as the other children that have popped up in these American distributions. It’s funny that even though the child actors are dubbed over completely, we still get the idea that they can’t act. Although I’m sure it’s slightly more tolerable in the Japanese language, the performances from the children (especially the smallest child) show no kind of emotional reaction to anything going on around them. The older child of the two that we are saddled with through the majority of the picture is actually dubbed over as “Kenny”, which is the same name given to the young boy from the original Gamera. Despite this fact, I never picked up on any references made towards that original character and when Gamera first shows up it doesn’t turn out to be a reunion. Sure, Gamera does ultimately go pretty far out of his way to save these kids throughout the movie, but the last time we saw him he actually traveled to a distant planet for two lone earth kids that he most certainly did not know!

Zigra as a villain is a bit weak, in my opinion. Sure, he gives Gamera a hard time for most of the picture but all bad guys in these movies do that! Honestly though, a fish monster? Did the Gamera series really need this? I do like the fact that he is able to brainwash his enemies and sends human beings to do his bidding, but overall he’s the sort of character that you expect Gamera to crush quite easily. As we watch Gamera going into battle with this oversized Goblin Shark, we as an audience expect Gamera to take him and suplex this fish-monster into a mountain. While the overall design is well done and the plot is handled well enough that I found myself engaged by the back and forth plotting of Zigra, the lack of monster mayhem really hurts the movie. Thankfully we have the MST3K crew along for the ride providing some really fun commentary. Although their work isn’t as on-point as it was in the Guiron episode, this is another fine outing for the guys (or guy and robot, as it were).

	The Conclusion

Sure, it doesn’t go out with a bang, but it is a fun way to end a fantastic series. The episode features a watchable monster movie and many great laughs. Certainly worth a look and just another reason (of many) to pick up this fine collection. A three out of five, check it out!

	Mystery Science Theater 3000: Gamera vs. Guiron (1991)

Starring:

Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy

The Plot: Joel Robinson and his robotic friends Crow and Tom Servo are stuck in outer space aboard the Satellite of Love where they are forced, by the evil Dr. Forrester, to watch very bad movies. The crew try to make the most of the flicks that are presented to them by continually cracking jokes while the movies play on for the audience at home. In this episode the crew tackle yet another Gamera movie: Gamera vs. Guiron. This time out we focus on two young boys who notice what seems like a spaceship crashing into earth near their home. When the two go out and find this mysterious aircraft, they accidentally hijack it and steer it toward its very strange homeplanet. As the family of the two boys deal with their disappearance, despite the sister of one boy continually telling them what happened, the boys find themselves coming face to face with the alien creatures who inhabit this planet. At first glance it seems that two women, who look VERY human, seem to be the main inhabitants of this desolate planet, however there is also Guiron: the giant knife faced monster lurking about. With the boys held captive here, their only hope turns out to be the giant monster Gamera who as we all know is a friend to all children!

	The Review

As we get closer to the finale of the MST3K vs Gamera box set, it seems that the movies are becoming progressively more and more abstract. Although Gamera vs. Guiron is yet another very familiar title within the lineage of Gamera movies, it is a flick that ultimately takes the childlike innocence that was very much a part of the original movie but manages to amplify it to some rather insane levels. It seems to be the movie that director Yuasa was always moving towards, but in a slightly more disastrous turn that I would have ever imagined. Essentially Yuasa takes the concept of children being central figures within the Gamera universe, but moves the entire production in a direction that leaves the earth’s stratosphere both literally and figuratively in terms of general weirdness. The resulting mess creates a Gamera movie that leaves a lot to be desired as a movie of its own, but turns out to be a suitable and highly entertaining episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

With every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, it always seemed as if Joel and the bots were getting better with what they do, and watching these Gamera movies in linear-order really allows for the viewer to see that in action. Straight out of the gates, Joel and the bots are all over this Gamera title in an episode that likely compiles the very best riffing that this series has seen. Not only is this Gamera title the most purely insane feature within the collection so far, it also acts as one of the most incompetently distributed. Sure, Gamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gaos weren’t exactly well-handled when it came to their English dubbing, but Gamera vs. Guiron is on a completely different level of bad. The introductory sequence which features Eiji Funakoshi, the scientist from the first Gamera movie making a return, marks one of the very best moments of MST3K riffing as far as Gamera movies go. Pointing out just how terrible the dubbing is, and how long it takes Funakoshi’s character to actually complete a very simple sentence, the guys exacerbate the ridiculousness of the situation and strike comedy gold. A gut-busting’ly funny sequence in the very opening minutes of the film thankfully doesn’t fill us with false hope, because the rest of the movie gains on those laughs.

According to Kaiju expert and resident man of awesomeness August Ragone, who has an amazing featurette on the MST3K vs Gamera box set, at this point in time the Gamera films were finding overseas financing in the form of American distributors who liked the movies so much that they were buying them up before the movies had even been made! So, with this Western influence on the productions we started to see Caucasian characters popping up here and there within these movies. With Guiron we’re introduced to a neighboring Western family who allow for their boy to spend time with their young star-gazing neighbor. Normally this kind of strange international casting would probably have you scratching your head… but lets be honest here, this is a movie where two young boys hijack a space ship and fly across the galaxy to another planet, where they are nearly devoured by cannibal women, until a giant space turtle comes to rescue them. The international casting is far from the strangest thing going on here.

When it comes to technical innovations from previous Kaiju movies, these flicks have one scale to judge them by: the monsters. Is the monster impressive? And how are the fights? Well, even though Guiron is probably the silliest looking Gamera creature ever, director Yuasa does a great job of quickly establishing Guiron’s incredible skills by immediately killing off one of Gamera’s greatest enemies: Gaos. Not only does Guiron kill Gaos, he completely butcher’s him. Literally! Guiron, whose nose is a gigantic blade, chops the bird monster into tiny little pieces in one of the most violent sequences I have seen from a Gamera movie at this point. This is of course quite odd, considering the considerable role that children play within this movie, but what exactly makes sense about a project like this? The fight sequences that Guiron and Gamera have throughout the majority of the picture turn out to be some of the most entertaining of his career, including the notorious bit where Gamera spins on the parallel bars like an Olympic athlete, but unfortunately there just weren’t enough. Truly the monsters play background roles while the majority of the film focuses on the children and their exploits on this wild and new planet.

	The Conclusion

A weak Gamera film makes for an epic and strong episode of MST3K as Joel and the bots tackle this movie with the greatest of ease. Although these episodes seem to get better and better as they go along, Gamera vs. Guiron is hard to beat.

	Mystery Science Theater 3000: Gamera vs. Barugon (1991)

Director:	Jef Maynard
Writers:	Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy
Starring:	Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy

The Plot: Joel Robinson and his robotic friends Crow and Tom Servo are stuck in outer space aboard the Satellite of Love where they are forced, by the evil Dr. Forrester, to watch very bad movies. The crew try to make the most of the flicks that presented to them by continually cracking jokes while the movies play on for the audience at home. After the events of the previous film Gamera, the giant turtle of the same name escapes from his missile and heads back towards earth where he soon feasts upon an electrical plant. Meanwhile, we watch as some mafioso types head out into the jungle in order to find a particular “oval” which could be worth a fortune to them. However, this is no regular “oval”, it is in fact the ancient monster Barugon! When the creature finally hatches all hope for mankind will rest on the massive shell of Gamera the giant monster!

	The Review

Continuing on through the epic “MST3K vs. Gamera box set from Shout Factory, the second film in the series marks another triumphant return to form for the MST3K cast. In one of the most divergent films in the Gamera series, and one of the few not directed by Gamera icon Noriaki Yuasa (this film was directed by Shigeo Tanaka), Joel and company find a lot of fun to be had at the expense of our most beloved tortoise. With Gamera vs. Barugon the quality of the riffing seems to find a steady increase over the original episode and the movie itself seems to work even better due mainly to it seeming to be a slightly “lesser” Gamera movie. While I won’t go out and speak for the hardcore Kaiju fans who know everything there is to know about these movies, a lack of Gamera or any of his typical traits might lead this one to holding a rather strange torch within the lineage of these movies. However, that ultimately leads to a very entertaining episode of Mystery Science Theater that features some fun host segments and plenty of referencing towards the original Gamera episode reviewed previously.

Veteran director Shigeo Tanaka, who was better known than Yuasa and who was given a larger budget than the original film, took on the Gamera series in this second entry. Although I know little about the director myself, I will applaud some of his work here and say he definitely steps up to the plate with his film and creates an even more visually creative space for Gamera and Barugon to run around in. The first major divergence from the previous Gamera is obviously first and foremost the fact that this film is in color while the original was in black and white. Still, Tanaka does a lot more than throw a little bit of color onto the palette. There are a number of impressive shots throughout the movie and at nearly all moments we are consumed by a rather epic vision, which seems suitable for a movie about two giant monsters fighting one another. Right from the start we’re introduced to Gamera as he heads back toward earth, directly picking up where the previous film left off and we watch as begins a quick tirade of destruction. Tanaka seems to promise us a rather grand and destruction filled sequel as we watch on with Gamera shooting his flames in a much more directly visual presentation of the giant turtle creature than what had been seen previously. However, in an epic bait and switch move Tanaka introduces us to Gamera but then sets him on the sidelines for almost the entire duration of the movie. Afterward our story focuses primarily on Barugon and the intense destruction that this monster looks to devastate the world with.

Barugon, by his design, is actually quite similar to Gamera himself. Both walk on all fours and have a very distinctive “animal” look in opposition to other Kaiju beasts such as the famed Godzilla who was much more anthropomorphic. Their differences of course come primarily in their superpowers, which are both quite epic. Gamera of course has the ability to absorb and spit fire, as well as fly by sucking his head/legs inside of his shell and firing rockets from the holes. In the case of Barugon, his power was created as an exact opposition to Gamera’s famous fire breathing antics. Barugon is a monster who has two main powers. The first, and most ridiculous, is that he can somehow shoot forth a rainbow out of his backside which is somehow a destructive force to anything it touches. Secondly, he shoots a projectile tongue-like weapon from his mouth, similar to one of Ridley Scott’s Alien, only this tongue of his shoots forth an ice storm that freezes anything in his way. So, it becomes easy to see what the producers were really hoping for with this one. You take two polar opposites and set them up against one another in the most gargantuan battle of giant rubber-suited monsters that this world has ever seen! Unfortunately, by sidelining Gamera for nearly the entire movie it really hurts audience members who had grown attached to the beast throughout the course of the previous movie.

The distinct lack of Gamera is certainly a big issue with this movie. The lack of children, for whom Gamera is always a friend to, is also another lacking element. Some however might count that as a positive. One can only hope that while our cameras here were steadily watching Barugon for almost the entire duration of this film, in some alternate dimension there was another Gamera movie being made where our giant turtle friend was then coerced into his climactic showdown with Barugon by a very simple Japanese boy. Unfortunately, one can only guess at what the original contents of this film were as this version, distributed by Sandy Frank, is missing roughly 14 minutes worth of additional footage. While its doubtful that there’s much more additional Gamera footage in the original cut, the spliced together feel of Gamera vs. Barugon shows a lack of affection from the distributors. Apparently the film was originally picked up by American International Pictures and originally featured a different English dub soundtrack, but this version became less available as the Sandy Frank version took over as the most popular amongst television studios who were looking to buy up cheap content. The AIP print also exorcized the additional 14 minutes worth of footage but one wonders if the dubbing could have at least been better on that print because the one we’re stuck with here is pretty awful even for Kaiju fare.

	The Conclusion

There’s really not a whole lot to say. This is a weaker Gamera film but is an incredibly entertaining piece of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The riffing is top notch and the guys rarely relent as they continually point out the campy atmosphere of the movie. A lot of fun is had and this marks another impressive addition to the excellent MST3K vs. Gamera box set. It gets a four out of five!