Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re really into the winter doldrums at this point, which I frankly at least prefer to the agonizing November period of knowing winter is right around the corner. Anticipation of a calamity tends to be more painful than the calamity itself; at this point, even though a mercilessly cold January is approaching, I can at least comfort myself with the assurance that the year’s shortest day is almost behind us. And yes, I really should have moved out of New England years ago if I hate winter this much, I am quite aware of that thank you very much. On the plus side, the cold has at least given me a perfect excuse to hole up and finish The Summer Hikaru Died, which puts me in fairly reasonable shape to reflect on the year in cartoons. And of course, there were film screenings aplenty, as we all did our best to tuck in against the hateful salvos of That Bastard Nature. Let’s run ‘em down!
First up this week was Tumbbad, a folk horror feature spanning the last of India’s colonial years, from 1918 through the end of the second world war. Sohum Shah stars as Vinayak Rao, a boy growing up in the titular village, where it is rumored the cursed deity Hastar hides all the gold of the gods. Vinayak dreams of acquiring this fortune, and eventually returns as an adult, making a pact that secures his access to the treasures of Hastar. However, all such boons come with a price, and Vinayak’s insatiable greed ensures that his debt will eventually come due.
“Folk horror period piece with a touch of Lovecraftian mythos” is a preposterously enticing sequence of words, and Tumbbad more than fulfills that pitch’s promise. The film is utterly gorgeous, realizing the curse of Hastur through endless rain-soaked vistas that brought to mind The Wailing’s dazzling gloom. Everything is compromised here, everything fallen, and our protagonists most of all – while I’ve seen a number of films that grapple with the tyranny of British empire, this was the first I’d seen that so unsparingly depicts the view of the collaborators, the men who fought and climbed atop their fellows to secure such lofty, despicable positions as the local opium purveyor.
The cruelty of empire serves as the ideal backdrop for a mythic tale of greed’s ruin, with Vinayak’s rapacious hunger and denial of future consequence echoing the course of India as a whole. The film offers a convincing portrait of a fundamentally unsympathetic man, fully embracing its fabulistic ambitions while avoiding any easy off ramps of moral ambiguity, and thereby feeling all the more honest a portrait of greed as addiction, of the hunger that consumes Vinayak and Hastar alike. That gripping portrayal is elevated by the film’s rigorously purposeful visual design, all of which explodes into desperate contests of mortal ambition and mythic horror. Highly recommended.
Next up on our Godzilla canon rampage was Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, the triumphant return of everyone’s favorite three-headed asshole. Shortly after the defeat of Biollante, the people of Japan are visited by a group of time travelers, who state they intend to warp back to the 1940s and destroy the dinosaur that would become Godzilla. However, their true intentions involve planting the seeds of King Ghidorah in the past, that he might topple Japan in the present and prevent its all-powerful economic future.
So yeah, as with Hedorah, Biollante was apparently a touch too heavy for family audiences, necessitating a shift back to the time traveling and aliens of Godzilla’s indulgent past. There’s a touch of charmingly dated commentary on Japan’s economic miracle, but for the most part, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah feels much like a late Showa Godzilla feature, with both the fun monster showdowns and circuitous narrative flourishes that entails. It’s nice to see King Ghidorah realized in luscious early ‘90s form, but this is otherwise a pretty unremarkable, frankly backsliding step on Godzilla’s mighty journey.
Fortunately, you can always count on Mothra to turn in a superior Godzilla appearance. Our next kaiju feature was Godzilla vs Mothra, featuring the triumphant return of Moth Jesus, as well as her apparent dark twin Battra. When a treasure hunter, his ex-wife, and the secretary of the Marutomo company investigate the mysterious Infant Island, they discover both a giant egg and its caretakers, the diminutive fairies (now named the Cosmos). However, their attempts to return Mothra’s egg to Japan are soon thwarted by both Godzilla and Battra, precipitating a series of moth-on-lizard battles across much of Japan.
From the very beginning, Mothra films understood that in order to make a top notch Godzilla feature, you need to offer intrigue, excitement, and meaningful human characters before the Big Z takes the stage. The early Mothras accomplished this by fusing a Godzilla-style second half with a King Kong-reminiscent first half, wherein the mysteries of Infant Island give the film a sense of momentum and consequence right from the start. Here, that King Kong influence is further bolstered with clear riffs on Indiana Jones, making for a film that transitions gracefully from jungle adventure to kaiju chaos as it progresses.
Additionally, Godzilla vs Mothra crucially retains and even amplifies Mothra’s otherworldly, ethereal presence, consistently presenting her as a creature of majesty and wonder, a savior perhaps more generous than we deserve. With excellent kaiju fights, a generous blend of genre pleasures, and a convincing realization of Mothra’s angelic presence, Godzilla vs Mothra demonstrates the franchise returning to both the style and confidence of the peak Showa-era films. Now we just need Godzilla’s son back!
We then decided to celebrate the season with Santa’s Slay, an ‘05 comedy slasher featuring professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as Santa Claus. Having been recently freed from a thousand-year stint of spreading joy and cheer to all the children, Santa is now returning to his true passion: killing folks indiscriminately while tossing off cheesy holiday-themed one liners. Here to stop him is Douglas Smith as “Nicholas Yuleson,” the last heir to a confusingly defined legacy of Santa-slaying involving angels, elves, and curling competitions.
Look, it’s a horror-comedy starring a professional wrestler as an evil Santa Claus; I think that tells you nearly everything you need to know regarding its production quality and artistic merit. That said, Santa’s Slay does have its pleasures – there’s a brief interlude in the style of Rankin-Bass holiday specials, a soundtrack full of ridiculous royalty-free Christmas tunes, and also that abiding confidence in curling as the method for resolving Santa duels. I know it’s faint praise, but I can fondly declare that Santa’s Slay was far closer to a real movie than I expected.
