Just the Ticket #213: All Monsters Attack

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

After Wednesday's wackiness, I think I'm trying to still be in a whimsical mood today, because the banner is a lie, the title of this week's Goj-Year-ra entry is a lie, and in the face of something so cheap, annoying, and challenging to sit through that gives me little of substance to say, I feel inclined to be as positive as I can about it.

Last week's Destroy All Monsters was intended to be the final Godzilla film at the time, due to various global and economic factors shifting general interests away from theatrical viewing. Toho were also intent on making the ancient, destructive monster allegory for nuclear war PTSD into a children's icon into the foreseeable future, including talks with Filmation to produce an animated series (that fell through in the 60s, but would lead to the 1978 Godzilla Power Hour in partnership with Hanna-Barbera...🎶and Godzooky!🎶).

So in under three months, Honda and Sekizawa cranked out Godzilla, Minilla, and Gabara: All Monsters Attack (or just All Monsters Attack, or in the U.S. as Godzilla's Revenge and its test-screening title of Minya, Son Of Godzilla), a slog of a Home Alone-meets-Pagemaster progenitor where the cowardly, daydreaming, car-humping son of a train conductor hangs out with an old toymaker (Hideyo Amamoto, Kamen Rider) and sleeps his way through franchise stock footage (particularly the fights from Ebirah, Son Of Godzilla, and Destroy All Monsters) with a talking Minilla (suit: Masao Fukazawa, voice: Midori Uchiyama) with Ultraman size powers, and ultimately learns the courage to fight off a duo of bank robbers (Sachio Sakai & Kazuo Suzuki, King Kong vs Godzilla) and impress his childhood friend (Hidemi Ito) by fighting back against a bully (Junichi Ito) with the same name as the amphibious, electric cat-monster that Godzilla judo-tosses in his dreams.

And that's it. All Monsters Attack doesn't have all monsters attacking, it comes in at barely above an hour of runtime but feels double that even though it's almost half stock footage already, and I don't care that I don't remember how the Gabara fight actually ended.

Granted, if this wasn't a Godzilla film (and I'm not confident it qualifies as either Godzilla or a film, anyway, but let's digress), it would be a solid children's film about finding the inner strength to be self-sufficient, and there is something poetic about the movie featuring a boy named Ichiro (after director Ishirō Honda, and played by Tomonori Yazaki, Kamen Rider) living through Godzilla movies in his dreams (even though Honda didn't direct two of the movies it takes footage from).

But as All Monsters Attack is technically a Godzilla movie by credential, I'd re-watch Raids Again before I'd touch Some Monsters Almost Attack with a thousand-foot pole.

F

Next week, I take a break from Goj-Year-ra for some Easter Re-Animator action, so please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't make slop out of stock footage, 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.

78

Ticketmaster,

Out.