The Mysterians (1957) – Review

There’s a test I tend to put on the works by Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda that I like to call the Godzilla test. It’s born from the fact that Honda has such a distinctive style that invokes his entries into Toho’s Godzilla franchise so much, that when watching one of his non-Godzilla Tokusatsu entries I tend to expect to see the famously belligerent King Of The Monsters suddenly pop up among the model tanks and copious explosions. However, the test is that if I don’t experience an urge to see the Big G in action at any point, then Honda has made a movie good enough to stand on its own two feet without invoking thoughts of his most famous creation – however, this leaves his 1957, alien invasion movie, The Mysterians in something of a sticky pickle. You see, in a film that sees earth conquering extraterrestrials, kaiju mechas engaging the military and the UN desperately trying to pull a solution out of their rear ends, it often feels more like a Godzilla film than some actual Godzilla films. But even if it struggles with my bullshit, totally made up test, can The Mysterians at least deliver camp 50s sci-fi thrills?

After a string of seemingly natural disasters hit near Mount Fuji, Joji Astumi, starts to suspect that something out of the ordinary may be afoot. For a start, a huge forest fire that errupts during a festival causes the suspicious disappearance of his astrophysicist friend, Ryoichi Shiraishi who was in the midst of writing a report on newly discovered asteroid the scientist was convinced was once an extra planet of our solar system. This audacious theory suggests that this “Mysteroid” (good one, Ryoichi) was located between Mars and Jupiter and may have been capable of sustaining life, but the suspicious happenstances continue when the area then suffers a gargantuan earthquake that levels the surrounding villages like a Dyson vacuum cleaner attacking dust bunnies. However, a forest fire and an earthquake may be weird, but it’s hardly conclusive evidence that Astumi is on to something, thankfully then, the strange, otherworldly conspiracy suddenly desides to ditch the secrecy and unleash a giant, beak-faced robot named Mogera that starts attacking the investigation teams with funky death rays and drill bit arms.
Soon, the ones responsible make themselves known and lay out some rather disturbing demands. It seems that Ryoichi’s theories were correct and these Mysterians have already arrived an built a near impenetrable base on Earth and more than this, they demand a two mile strip radius strip of land and the right to “marry” any Earth women of their choosing, which seems like something of an alarming choice when you consider that the entire race dresses like Evel Knievel has his gear designed by the makers of a Japanese game show.
With superior weaponry and a will to use it, the Mysterians are poised to take the planet and it’s women whenever they want – can the forces of Earth finally unite in the face of a common enemy and turf them out like the intergalactic creepers they obviously are?

So, to get my little jokey test out the way immediately, Ishiro Honda’s The Mysterians fails my Godzilla test miserably, primarily because the director himself made actual, official Godzilla movies for Toho that had virtually identical plots and were far superior to this. However, while such movies as Invasion Of Astro-Monster and Destroy All Monsters proved that virtually everything is better if you put Godzilla into it, The Mysterians does still contain enough 50s sci-fi cheese to entertain those who adore that period of filmmaking.
All the classic Ishiro Honda tropes are there, which includes a spot of social commentary, musings about a country still unsure of its place on the global stage after the events of the war and a sense that Japan can regain some identity if they can manage to repel this assault on their country (and women) by an invading force that seems to have the long term goals of a teenage boy desperate to pop his cherry. In fact, if I’m being totally honest, a lot of the more standard parts of the film are a little boring at times and The Mysterians is massively guilty of hinging one too many scenes on endless meetings of scientists and the United Nations, but it’s the more slightly unhinged parts of the plot that endeavor to make the final film a fun experience to watch.
For a start, maybe it’s down to some awkward dubbing, but I never really managed to get a hold on what the Mysterians were doing and how they were planning to do it and while I realise that a non-dubbed version probably could have cleared some of the plot inconsistencies up (the whole Ryoichi thread of him joining/turning on the aliens had me utterly lost) money doesn’t grow on damn trees and a dubbed copy is all I could rustle up at the time.

Also, while the giant, robot death-bird named Mogera carries a fair bit of Toho history on its lop-sided shoulders (it was later revamped and air dropped into Godzilla lore for a role in 1994s Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla), the blocky thing doesn’t actually do much other than go on your standard mecha/kaiju rampage fairly early on before getting well and truly kiboshed by an exploding bridge. From there, an unbreachable, heat ray shooting dome takes over as the Mysterians primary offensive weapon, but for some reason it comes complete with a not-so-secret back door located in a nearby cave which might suggest that these would-be alien overlords aren’t quite the threat the movie is cracking them up to be. However, the most memorable aspect about their dastardly plans (other than their hilarious attempts at fashion) is that a vast part of their plan seems contructed purely to get them laid. Whether the Mysterians have complicated needs to populate their race or they are just a horny band of space incels who treat women as just a commodity, it adds a rather bizarre detail to the movie that I’m not entire sure what it’s supposed to signify. Is it Honda’s idea of satire to have “invaders from other lands” have misogynistic desires, or does he just think it makes the villains more villain-y if they think snatching up women from their homes with jetpacks is an acceptable thing to do in order to score a girlfriend.

While it’s admittedly a rather distracting plot point made slightly amusing by the clumsy attempts of 50s filmmaking to justify it, everything is finally cleared up with screeching death rays being fired by both sides while Akira Ifukube’s typically bombastic score does the heavy lifting (it seems he’s also is expecting Godzilla to show up listen to some of his themes) and while The Mysterians isn’t exactly the gold standard of alien invasion movies, Tokusatsu movies or even Ishiro Honda movies, it feels similar enough to better examples of the genre to coast by nicely enough.
In fact, the real mystery is how were the aliens were expecting to have their way with Earth’s women when they’re dressed like Power Rangers with gigantism…
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