Gamera Vs Guiron (1969)

	Director: Noriaki Yuasa
	Starring: Nobuhiro Kajima, Miyuki Akiyama, Christopher Murphy, Yuko Hamada
	Run Time: 82 mins
	Certificate: PG
	Rating:

Plot
Two young boys see a UFO land and sneak inside, only for it to take off back to the aliens' home planet. The boys find out that the planet is facing destruction and the aliens intend to devour their brains to absorb their knowledge before they invade Earth. Thankfully for the boys, Gamera is here to save the day but he must do battle with the alien monster, Guiron.

Review
If you're planning an invasion of an alien world, would you really want to absorb the knowledge of two school children who dream about milk and donuts and no nothing of the Earth's defensive capability? You'd want to kidnap some heads of state wouldn't you? Common sense seems to have deserted this series a long time ago, if it ever had any. However, it's all too easy to totally hammer Gamera Vs Guiron. It's quite possibly one of the worst films ever made and has been ripped to pieces on things like Mystery Science Theater 3000 so it's not like I'm the only one who thinks it's a total dud. I'll try and look on the positive side although that's about optimistic as a lobster in a restaurant tank.

The Gamera series never had the sort of budgets that Toho gave the earlier Godzilla films but come on, they had to find something better than this! Guiron is a complete and utter joke of a giant monster. He looks pathetic and his head is so cumbersome that he can't even stand up properly. He has to walk around on all fours. Gamera himself looks really cheap and his eyes constantly roll backwards and forwards like he's having some sort of fit. To be fair the fights between the monsters aren't the worst you're going to see in this series but because the monsters themselves look so contrived, the whole thing looks like two guys in fancy dress having an argument. Gamera also pauses during a fight to have a go on some parallel bars, swings around numerous time before returning to the battle. These monsters certainly pull off some acrobatic moves during their confrontations. Gamera Vs Guiron does contain one of the most brutal moments in kaiju history as Guiron actually chops off the legs, wings and head of the monster Gyaos before cutting up the rest of his body with his huge sword-like head. It's not gory (although there splashes of purple blood!) and looks rather silly now but the intent is still there and it's shocking to see these scenes in what is technically a kid's film.

This series was aimed at a younger audience than the Godzilla films and thus the main stars of the film are a bunch of whiny little kids who wear way-too-small shorts and seem to hit it off with giant monsters. To be fair that's the stereotypical image of Japanese kids that all of these kaiju films show be they Gamera or Godzilla but it's rather off-putting! If there's no sign of Gamera on the screen then these little brats are the main focus, wandering around the alien planet and gawping and laughing at everything they see. The dubbing jobs on all of the actors are pretty ear-wrecking but the kids get the worst. Not just content with destroying your sense of hearing with awful dubbing, Gamera also has annoying theme song which is played a lot during the film and will no doubt provoke some suicidal tendencies.

Verdict
Without a shadow of a doubt Gamera Vs Guiron is one of the worst kaiju films I've ever seen. It's not even "so bad it's good" and no amount of people retorting with "oh it's only a kid's film" will make me change my mind. Even kids aren't as idiotic to love something as appalling as this.