Just the Ticket #210: Ebirah, Horror Of the Deep
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.
Based on factors that would have the average toxic fanboy or speculation grifter roaring like a lard-assed, radioactive beast (like changes to the established cast and crew, and Godzilla fighting a giant lobster—which sounds dumb and holds the potential to give us the same kind of ending we've seen three times in a row already), a strong negative consensus, and my previous experience with Godzilla Raids Again (which was also not directed by Ishirō Honda), I was dreading this one.
Fortunately, it's not that bad.
When his brother Yata (Tôru Ibuki, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster) is lost at sea and suggested to still be alive, Ryota (Tôru Watanabe) and a couple of dance-athon contestants (because Ryota thought he could join the competition late to win a sailing vessel and find his brother) steal a yacht where a wanted safecracker (Akira Takarada) is hiding out, and also wind up stranded when Ebirah smashes the boat during a storm.
Waking up on an island, the group soon learn that it is a heavy water production facility (²H20, which is not to be confused with regular H20 or H202, but in this Universe, you never know...) run by the nuclear terrorist group Red Bamboo (led by King Kong vs Godzilla's Jun Tazaki in a dragon eyepatch, just in case the villain coding was too subtle with all of the slavery and nuclear arms dealing going on) who have also kidnapped and enslaved natives from Infant Island to make a "yellow liquid" (get your mind out of the gutter; it's probably banana/lemon juice, based on the fruits growing on the island) that keeps Ebirah from attacking them.
When the natives try to escape, our heroes befriend one named Dayo (Kumi Mizuno, who played Namikawa in Astro-Monster) and seek refuge in a cave where Godzilla just happens to be sleeping or hibernating because Ghidorah fight, something, something, continuity doesn't matter in Japan. And because Godzilla used to be King Kong who used to be Frankenstein and no one wanted to spend time or money on rewrites, they plan to set up a lightning rod and wait for a scene with an electrical storm to shock Godzilla awake (because electric shocks and my sarcasm worked so well on him every other time it was tried) so that he can be a distraction while they use Yoshimura's lock-picking mastery to infiltrate the compound and rescue Dayo's people. The script has several moments of "I'm going to say something stilted and out of character to justify my continued presence and plot utility," but the majority of the acting is physical, expressive, and entertaining enough, as are the group's stealth sequences and suave displays of ingenuity.
As for the setting and effects, the island is a beautiful, cost-effective location, but the model work is laughably cheap and obvious-looking, and the set design still has that "blinking, boxy, important-looking but of nondescript function" appearance to it with some industrial flourishes to make it look less spacey but still fitting with 60s sci-fi style, like it belongs in a James Bond film.
Though the generic surfer music was off-putting in comparison to previous Godzilla scores and the underwater scenes bordered on unintelligible (not to mention Godzilla's Kong-like interest in Dayo that doesn't end up going anywhere), I enjoyed the kaiju action quite a bit.
Despite Ebirah just being a giant lobster, it was an impressively articulated puppet-suit with a genuinely terrifying screen presence. The Godzilla fight scenes with Ebirah and the Red Bamboo Air Force (and the generic giant condor that was there just because the crew had a spare Rodan puppet lying around) were a welcome return to what fans of his pre-Ghidorah appearances enjoyed (more atomic breath, monstrous movement, and brutality, with minimal humanoid tactics and no silly victory dance).
But once all the planes have exploded, the natives are rescued, the giant condor is roasted to death in nuclear halitosis (but perfectly fine at the end of the movie somehow), the Red Bamboo are shot, exploded, crushed, or sunk, leaving their secret island operation to self-destruct, and Godzilla has ripped off Ebirah's arms, Horror Of the Deep reminds me one final time that the most significant plot moments (besides the brothers reuniting) happen either because the characters decide to act out of character, or because they wait and hope and pray for something to happen. It happened repeatedly with Yoshimura and his odd dialogue, it happened with the storm that woke Godzilla, and it had been happening the entire movie with the cuts to the Infant Island natives and the fairies (now recast as Pair Bambi for unknown reasons, and they're nowhere near as good as The Peanuts) praying and singing for Mothra (now grown into the prop from Mothra vs Godzilla) to awaken...which she finally does when the island is about to explode with the important characters on it so she can tackle Godzilla and airlift their sorry asses to safety at the last possible moment.
Thankfully (or however I'm supposed to feel about a mass-murdering nuclear dinosaur in 2026), Godzilla is able to do a Butch & Sundance leap before the island explodes as well, because he’s a cool guy, and....
I don't think Ebirah, Horror Of the Deep entirely deserves the hate it gets. Yes, it is an inferior effort (with a lot of heavy lifting required to call the finished script an effort because Sekizawa basically replaced every instance of "King Kong" with "Godzilla," called it good, and feigned ignorance that it had ever been anything else) by an inferior crew with inferior resources trying to salvage a delayed production under unfavorable circumstances (including hours of cut scenes that became lost media). The cut corners are as obvious as a hexagonal cheese wheel. But there's enough to enjoy here unironically (even with Godzilla ending up back in the ocean yet again) that it didn't make me angry.
D
I wasn't feeling well yesterday, Ticketholders; so I apologize for not having this week's TBT '26 push ready (too many links and too much caffeine burnout). I guess that's what I get for my energy intake over the past week.... But you're all incredible and I hope you stay incredible, Stay Tuned, and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave your comments at the bottom of this post and any others you have thoughts about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can find out what a giant lobster tastes like, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content, which will resume on Wednesday with another compilation.
87
Ticketmaster,
Out.
Comments
Post a Comment