- AKA “Gezora, Ganime, Kameba: Kessen! Nankai no daikaijû”
- Directed by Ishiro Honda
- Written by Ei Ogawa
- Stars Akira Kubo, Atsuko Takahashi, Yukiko Kobayashi, Kenji Sahara
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsWcbfomtAg
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was in the middle of the road among the giant creature features. But it does have four big ones, some science fiction elements, and characters to root for. It was fairly entertaining, but not one that will make the best of lists.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a big American rocket about to blast off into space. They do the countdown, and up it goes! It’s going to Jupiter, where it will orbit for a year before trying to land there. However, it runs into space spores along the way that turn it around back toward Earth.
Akira Kubo, a news photographer and passenger on an airplane, watches as the Helios spacecraft splashes down into the ocean. He meets up with Ayaki Hoshino, who tells him about a remote island paradise. It’s going to be a fantastic new resort, and they want Kubo to take publicity photos. Dr. Mira, one of Kubo’s old friends, is going there to study reports of alleged “monsters” there. It’s the island near where Kubo saw the spacecraft go down.
An advance party of two men on the island complain about the cold as they go fishing. Suddenly, they’re attacked by a giant squid that eats one of them. The other man gets away, but runs into the island natives.
Ayako and Kudo run into Obata, an annoying man who’s also in the tourist trade. They get a report about the man on the island who was killed. Kudo, Ayako, Mida, and Obata, along with Rico, the guide, take a dinghy to the island. Rico runs off immediately, leaving them on their own. Yokoyama, the survivor of the monster attack, comes to pick them up, but he doesn’t want to talk about monsters. Ayako sees a tiny turtle and screams.
The group goes into a cave with an underwater lake, and then they see the water start glowing. Something big splashes them, but they don’t get a look at it. Yokoyama panics, runs back to base, and starts packing. Meanwhile, the giant squid-thing attacks the house from outside, and it’s way bigger than the house. It eats Yokoyama and injures Rico.
The others walk to base and find the wreckage. They find Rico, who has frostbite burns on his body. Obata digs through the rubble and finds some secret business plans that he stashes away. A native girl, Saki, walks in; she’s Rico’s girlfriend and wants to help. She leads them to the native village.
In the morning, Kudo and Mida go Scuba diving to find the monster, and Obata tries to convince Ayako that there are no monsters. The divers soon find the downed spacecraft and take lots of pictures. Then the monster shows up and attacks, but the two men manage to escape. The natives call the monster “Gezora.”
Gezora goes to the village, and everyone there scatters. The old leader stops to pray to it, but that doesn’t work. The visitors argue about it being an octopus, but it’s clearly a squid. Could they use fire to fight the sea monster? They get some gasoline and spread it around before luring the creature into their trap. It burns and runs away, back to the ocean. It sinks to the bottom and dies, releasing the space spores…
The humans continue to explore the island. They find a whole shed full of ammunition and fuel. Dr. Nida thinks that the monster might have come “from out of this world.” Obata finds an inflatable raft and tries to get away, but something under the water attacks him– it’s a giant crab! It too chases everyone through the woods. Kudo shoots one of its eyes out, but it keeps coming. He then shoots out the other eye, and it walks off a cliff. Then he blows it up, but again, the spores move on…
Obata wakes up on the beach, not dead from his misadventure with the crab. He sees some of the glowing blue spores, and they climb onto him. He hears a voice telling him that he’s been taken control of, and the spores are here to conquer the Earth. Meanwhile, Dr. Mida figures all this out on his own and tells the others.
Saki invites the group to her wedding with Rico, who is still basically comatose. Rico freaks out in the middle of it all and runs into the jungle. He remembers the monsters now. Mida realizes that they can use sound waves to hurt the creatures. They can use bats to make the sound, but when they go to the cave to catch some bats, they find all the bats are dead; something killed them.
While searching, Kudo and Ayako find another monster, this time a big turtle. They hide in a cave and see the bats inside. They seal up the caves to save the bats for later, but then Obata shows up. They explain the bat-plan to him, and he’s nosy about it. That night, just before dark, Obata dumps gasoline to set all the bat caves on fire.
Ayako tries to talk to Obata, to get the man inside to resist. He does resist and forces his body to let the bats escape. Obata walks out where a giant lobster and turtle are being harassed by bats. They revert to their natural instincts and start fighting each other. They fight their way up a mountain and both fall into a volcano.
The humans watch as Obata walks toward the volcano and jumps in as well. “Obata killed the last of the space creatures; he killed himself to save mankind.”
Kudo complains that no one would ever believe his story, and he doesn’t have any pictures.
Commentary
Not just one giant monster here, but four! These aren’t Godzilla-type mutations, these are upgraded animals, enlarged by space spores. I guess the blue space spores are the “Space Amoebas” since none of the monsters are even remotely amoeba-like.
It’s a predictable story with middling-quality creatures. We were entertained, but it’s not going on anyone’s top-ten list.