I do not know why this got a 3.9. It is a 7. It is just very underrated. I think there are to many sciences fiction that underrated and this is one of them. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is very scary. It is scarier then The silence of lambs could ever be. This is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do. This is scarier the Friday the 13th V a new beginning and that is not easy to do. This is scarier the Halloween resurrection could ever be. If you like monster movies then you should see this movie.

Remember GORGO, that middling and often boring British 1960 giant monster movie in which scientists capture a baby monster and have to contend with the creature's rampaging parent? Well, this low-budget and often shoddy Japanese monster epic (for once NOT from Toho, but from a cheapie rival instead) is an unofficial remake of that movie, although for what reason I'm not sure, as it doesn't really improve things anymore. Instead what we have is a totally generic monster film with a predictable plot, stock and dull characters, and predictable action. On the plus side it has a fast pacing to it and lots of special effects, most of which are cheesy. This is a film to watch if you're in desperate need of a good laugh.We begin as our team of intrepid explorers (including the man with the most annoyingly dubbed voice in the world) explore a remote island and are bombarded by earthquakes, achieved by the shaking of the camera in an extremely irritating manner. The natives are restless, running around shouting "Gappa is angry" and are amusingly Japanese folk in blackface. The first "Gappa" is discovered, a hilariously misshapen monster which looks like a turkey crossed with a lizard and dropped off a cliff. Soon enough he's carted off back to Japan and experimented upon, and gets to wear a funny red helmet for his efforts.Meanwhile, the parent Gappa aren't too pleased with the kidnapping of their son, so fly to Japan to rescue him. The 'rescue attempt' consists of destroying lots of cheap model buildings in their quest for revenge. They also have the ability to fly, with wings which make them look like they're wearing capes. These costumes are some of the worst you will ever see, so bad that I actually felt sorry for the guys who were wearing them. A fight ensues with the military, or in reality lots of little miniature toy tanks which are quickly destroyed. The monsters also fight some model aircraft and breath a heatwave on them, before retreating into a lake, beaten for the time being.It's not long before those pesky scientists are bombarding the lake with sound waves, causing the creatures to fly out and cause yet more model destruction. Watch out for some really bad back projection effects here, folks. Also, the cheesiest, most obvious, superimposed tidal wave effect you're likely to witness in a movie. I would guess that the only people who ever have a chance of seeing this movie are those who know what they're letting themselves in for, so there's no real need for me to tell you how poorly put-together this film is, or how awful the special effects are. But, as I said before, it passes the time and is a pretty amusing entry in the Japanese kaiju series.

Seriously, if the studio actually intended this to be satirical then shouldn't it have been...you know.....funny? The gigantic indestructible monster flick is not a genre that lends itself to subtle humor. It demands broad ridicule because its premise is inane. Think Ghostbusters when the giant StaPuff Marshmallow Man came wading thru the city. That's how silly your monster needs to be. Not to say that the Gappa aren't silly in their own right. They're just not silly enough. In a really good Gigundo monster spoof you'd have Tokyo menaced by something like an enormous broccoli monster from outer space that had legs and tentacles and shot green laser beams out of its ass. The government would try every weapon in its vast arsenal to stop the horrifying veggie brute but only succeed in slaughtering thousands of their own citizens instead. There would be a super-annoying brat in tight little shorts who loves the monster and gets crushed under a ton of rubble just as he's about to reveal to the adults what the monster's weakness really is. Of course all of the miniature sets should be made out of cardboard and toys purchased from a nearby Walmart. They can't look cheesy enough! Now THAT movie would be fun to watch. This movie is just the same refried monster drivel you've seen dozens of times before.

A group of intrepid explorers is sent on an expedition to find exotic animals (and people) for a new theme park to be built by a magazine tycoon who also happens to publishes Playmate Magazine. Soon, the group lands on an island in the South Pacific, where they discover an isolated tribe of natives who worship a mysterious God named Gappa. When the land is ruptured by an earthquake, the explorers come upon a cavern containing a reptilian egg. They take it back to a Japanese research center, where the creature hatches and is studied by a group of not too bright scientists. Unfortunately, the parental Gappas show up to claim their newborn lizard, trashing most of Tokyo in the process.I had a great time watching this piece of nonsense. Just about everything in this film is a complete riot. After a somewhat slow first half, the action is almost non-stop and there's plenty of stupendous dialog to keep you entertained. The production values consist mostly of hilariously cheap-looking scale models, the story and the acting are ridiculous and most of the characters are empty-headed idiots, especially for a group of scientists. The monster, Gappa, is a kind of bird-lizard, basically a ridiculous looking over-sized chicken. When it flies, it sounds like an airplane, but that's probably the result of a slip-up in the sound effects, because the creature gets attacked by fighter planes a couple of times.Made by the Nikkatsu Studios to make a late cash-in on the success of Godzilla- and many other monster movies and - what I understand - it was also meant as a kind of satire on the monster movie craze. Well, that aspect of the film was a bit lost on me, or probably got lost in time or translation, but then, I'm hardly an expert on Japanese old-school kaiju-flicks.Camera Obscura --- 6/10