Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has unsurprisingly been pretty well dominated by my continuing adventures in Silksong, which has been kicking my ass with a regularity I haven’t experienced since I first picked up Demon’s Souls. I do think there are perhaps some sequences that are a touch over-tuned, but on the whole I’m appreciating how its challenges force me to genuinely master its combat system, and hoping to beat the thing before any bosses ahead of me get patched into politeness. Meanwhile, my housemate spent the last two weeks binging the entirety of Black Clover, which actually surprised me with its sturdiness of form and likable cast – it’s not a genuinely great shonen, but it’s certainly much better than the JJK/Demon Slayer generation. With that complete, we’re definitely on the hunt for more background anime – but in the meantime, let’s burn down the week in films!
We first reunited with original Godzilla director Ishiro Honda for Destroy All Monsters, initially conceived (as frankly many of these were) as the conclusion of the franchise. In this one, humanity’s creation of the secluded “Monsterland” housing all known kaijus has ushered in an era of peace, with a united humanity now setting its sights on colonizing the moon. Unfortunately, a persnickety mind-controlling alien race known as the Kilaaks have other plans in mind; using their technology to control both humans and kaijus, they set the denizens of Monsterland on a world-wide rampage, taking humanity hostage in pursuit of a land of their own.
You would think “all of the kaijus show up and fight each other at once” would be a dynamite concept, but there is a clear air of fatigue in this feature. Honda’s press conference-focused style of disaster drama already feels dated, and the plot is a total retread of Invasion of the Astro-Monster, complete with Ghidorah’s arrival as a last-minute spoiler. The film also abandons the Fukuda-era films’ prioritization of human characters with their own adventure narratives; basically every human dilemma is “solved” by the halfway point, leaving the film entirely in the hands/claws/flippers of the kaijus.
Fortunately, our kaiju crew are consummate professionals, and they do their best with the thin material provided. As in Ghidorah’s original appearance, it is undeniably delightful seeing the earth’s kaijus bicker and collaborate, offering much the same pleasure as a grandiose pro wrestling match. Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra are old friends at this point; Godzilla might have a temper and Rodan might have an annoying sense of humor, but the three understand there are more important things than their disagreements, like sticking it to that bastard King Ghidorah. Fuck off, King Ghidorah! You smell and no one likes you.
The next stop on our Godzilla pilgrimage was All Monsters Attack, a ‘69 production again directed by Ishiro Honda. The film centers on Ichiro Miki, a lonely latchkey kid who dreams of standing up to his bullies like Godzilla. In his fantasies, he becomes close friends with Godzilla’s son Minilla, as his leathery companion faces off with the mean monster Gabara. Inspired by Minilla’s example, Ichiro decides to face his own fears, and overcome the kaiju-like threat of his bullying classmates.
As you can tell by that description, we’ve at this point steered completely into “Godzilla, friend to the children” territory, with Godzilla and Minilla here only appearing as beloved role models in Ichiro’s dreams. Additionally, most of Ichiro’s dreams are actually just replayed footage from previous films, cribbing heavily from Son of Godzilla, Ebirah, and others. As such, considered as either a disaster feature or adventure feature, All Monsters Attack fails utterly, and resultantly tends to crop up right near the top of “worst Godzilla movie” features.
I cannot deny that All Monsters Attack is indeed a terrible Godzilla film, but it’s still oddly charming in its own way. One of the greatest pleasures of running through this franchise has been seeing how Japanese culture develops alongside Godzilla’s powers, meaning I quite enjoyed this film’s detailing of Ichiro’s lonely life, caught both temporally and geographically in the storm of Japan’s rapid industrialization. Racing among rail tracks, conjuring fantasies in an empty home, finding courage in Minilla’s example; it’s all endearing, thoughtfully observed stuff, and provides a compelling snapshot of a path through childhood in a time of distinct cultural turmoil.
Next up was The People That Time Forgot, a ‘70s adventure film starring Patrick Wayne as Major Ben McBride, who leads an expedition to the arctic in order to rescue his friend Bowen Tyler. Together with a paleontologist, mechanic, and photographer, McBride fly a small aircraft into the mysterious land of Caprona, where they are swiftly attacked by friggin’ pterodactyls. Unfortunately, pterodactyls are only the first of their worries, as Caprona proves itself home to not just dinosaurs, but also skull-hunting samurai, roaring volcanoes, and god knows what else.
This one is pure high adventure popcorn, offering all the tense battles, improbable discoveries, and bikini-clad cave babes you’d expect from an Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation. The performances aren’t anything to write home about, but the film is exceedingly generous in terms of its fantasy setpieces, offering a steady procession of faceoffs with dinosaurs, cannibals, and whatever else Burroughs can think to throw at his intrepid heroes. If you’re a fan of pulp adventure, it’s quite a fine time – director Kevin Connor can’t match the grace of something like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but all the pieces are certainly there.
We then continued our journey through the main slasher franchises with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. This one stars Lar Park Lincoln as Tina Shephard, a teenage girl who, as a child, accidentally killed her father through the use of her psychic powers. She now feels isolated by her powers and remains haunted by her father’s death, her regrets and anxieties further stoked by a psychiatrist who only wishes to exploit her abilities. Returning to the lake where her father died, she unwittingly awakens Jason, instigating a battle between an old curse and a new power.
The New Blood is obviously a stab at “Jason vs Carrie,” a hail-mary attempt to revitalize a franchise that had well and truly run out of ideas. All this seems rather unfortunate to me, as the preceding entry was actually the best Friday the 13th film so far, and its lessons were quite obvious: embrace Jason as a supernatural force, go bigger in your action setpieces, and understand that camp is an inextricable element of your franchise’s perpetual also-ran identity.
Rather than reinvesting in the franchise’s core strengths like VI, VII demonstrates a (admittedly understandable) lack of faith in its base concept, leaning as much on its Carrie elements as its Jason ones. This doesn’t work; the original Carrie is a film of dramatic subtlety, visual grace, and psychological nuance, and Friday the 13th is not interested in any of those things, to say nothing of its lack of Sissy Spacek or Brian de Palma. With no faith in its core ideas and no substance in its new ones, Part VII manages to fall near the low end of a franchise with no apparent bottom.
