Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1990) (aka Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster)

Plot Outline: A terrorist organisation called the Red Bamboo are making nuclear weapons on a secret island. Living in the waters off the island and protecting them is Ebirah, a giant lobster. Godzilla is accidentally awakened during a storm and naturally proceeds to do battle with Ebirah whilst a group of shipwrecked people try and stop the Red Bamboo.

The Review: Arguably one of the worst films of the series, this is woeful, uninteresting and cheaply made. The plot is weak (and that’s saying something for a Godzilla film) and its only an excuse for Godzilla to star in another film. Instead of aliens taking over the world, this time there is some renegade terrorist group called the Red Bamboo who have their own little nuclear facility on an island. How did they manage to stay undiscovered there for so long, especially with their own airforce and naval fleet? You'd have thought some government would have found out what they were doing. The have been some pathetic opponents for Godzilla during his career (Gabarah from Godzilla’s Revenge springs to mind) but Ebirah is easily one of the worst. Godzilla deals with him very easily.......twice. He poses no real menace and doesn't do much at all during the fights except get his claws ripped off. Godzilla even tangles with a giant condor and makes mince meat out of it. Then Godzilla promptly trashes the Red Bamboo. He's unstoppable here! Mothra also makes a small cameo appearance (and the Mothra puppet looks very badly worn too) for some unknown reason, probably just to trick people into thinking they were actually getting more monster action than they assumed. Wrong! Originally this was intended to be a King Kong film, notably evident where Godzilla takes a shine to one of the native girls! However I'm glad that Godzilla got to kick ass because the film wouldn't have been half as good with a big gorilla fighting a big lobster!

Final Verdict: I’m a big fan of the Godzilla films but having to sit through this is a chore. He's on total walk-through mode here as the opposition is very weak. Even the Big G needs a challenge.

Rating: