The year is 1967 and by this point in Godzilla’s career he’d pretty much done it all. He’d been cast as a villain, a hero, Hell, he’d even gone into space at one point! But Toho figured that for The Big G’s next outing that the best role for that city levelling, super lizard would be that of… a parent.
It goes as well as you’d expect really, both in plot and execution as the movie takes the same, less “classier” approach as the previous outing Ebirah: Horror Of The Deep and sets virtually everything on a generic island. The plot, such as it is, involves some bods trying to science the shit out of weather control but instead manage to supersize a bunch of insects instead, including the Kamacuras; a group of giant praying mantises and Kumonga an immense, silly string spraying spider.
Also on the island is a giant egg which somehow attracts the attention of Godzilla, which proves to contain a baby version of his species. Of course, this being a more child friendly movie in the Godzilla cannon we are “treated” to numerous scenes of an increasingly more irritated Big G (which ironically mirrors our own attitude toward the creepy little shit) trying to parent the little “Minilla” through questionable comedy abuse. Need to teach your child how to blow radioactive fire but desperate for a nap? Simple, just stamp on the infants tail as hard as you can to produce the desired effect…
While Godzilla lovingly beats his child, blissfully free of any giant-sized child protection officers, the humans scurry around trying to freeze the island and finish their original experiments (apparently the creation of jumbo jet sized insects isn’t impressive enough).
It’s all fairly substandard stuff, the comedy broad, the monster fights descent, the human stuff bland, but the really annoying thing about Son Of Godzilla is how bad it’s leading man looks.
With a squished up piggy face and eyes that betray a huge love of recreational barbiturates, he is frankly, a fucking state. But at least he looks better than his son who vaguely resembles a toad that someone had repeatedly kicked into the shape of a biped.
If you are a child (and a pretty young one at that) you may enjoy the sizable levels of goofy, and you can’t say that the movie doesn’t succeed on it’s own merits but the zany tone makes it somewhat of a core to sit through.
Maybe Toho should’ve considered putting this Son Of Godzilla up for adoption…
🌟🌟
We've Got (Back) Issues 