MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET (1967)

MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET (1967)

Tagline: Even mightier than 'King Kong'!

(Action, Adventure, A South Seas Paradise) [G]

Note: This movie never got an MPAA rating, but it would have landed a [G]. This movie was also titled GAPPA THE TRIPHIBIAN MONSTERS. 

Spending so much money over a stupid bird lizard, claiming it’s a big discovery, and coming back here so quickly, those idiots are just trying to make a fool out of me…

In this one, an expedition goes to an island and discovers that the natives can’t stop worshipping a deity known as Gappa. Around that time an earthquake opens up a cavern and a giant young reptile is in there. We don’t know why, we don’t care. Of course, the people from the expedition take the baby and take it back to a zoo in Japan called “Playmate Land”. Yeah – I think it’s a pretty janky name too, but that’s what’s going on here. It doesn’t take long before the mother of the baby as well as the father goes to look for the baby and Tokyo is their first stop. Death and destruction await anyone standing in their way in this kaiju tale for the ages. 

First off, this is basically the same plot as GORGO only in GORGO we just have the mother coming to get the baby GORGO. The plots aren’t exact, but as I was writing the intro – that was my first thought…” hey wait a minute, this is GORGO!”. There are a couple of versions of this, but only the songs and score in the movie are changed. Sadly the studio that did this went nearly bankrupt after making this movie so it was the only kaiju film they did. The taglines claim it took a year to make. By way of comparison, TOHO was able to release a total of 8 Godzilla movies in the 60’s alone with the far more popular Godzilla films…

Pacing wise this thing is 90 minutes long and things move along pretty well, but man the dialog in this thing is bonkers. In one scene one of the scientists that brought Gappa back to Japan tells, a colleague, that she’s 22 and she’s already getting wrinkles. She just blows it off saying it’s none of his concern, but wow, talk about top “jerks in movies” candidates from the 60s. It should also be noted that  Yôko Yamamoto (who plays Itoko in this), probably didn’t have a wrinkle till decades after this movie was made. 

When we start talking about design these creatures actually look pretty decent. I love the fact that these things can fly and the flight doesn’t look super stiff until about the final shot of the movie. I think the majority of TOHO’s suits were better, but this thing is definitely at least on par in design, motion range, and the look of the models used. I would venture to say that this is the most TOHO, non-TOHO movie ever. There are a few things in this that surprised me, but will also delight Godzilla fans. I don’t want to give away too much if you were planning on checking this out, but it’s nearly non-stop mayhem once the Gappa parents arrive in Japan. A lot of Japanese movies have actors wear makeup to represent tribes. This is one of those movies, so if that offends you maybe skip this or fast forward through those scenes?

Where this one kind of nose-dives is just in the title, I would think they could come up with something that didn’t make it sound like the Gappa's were coming from an entirely different planet like Ghidorah or Space Godzilla. Outside of that and the fact that this storyline has been done before, I think we ended up with a nice little kaiju romp here that had a satisfying ending. 

MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET gets a 4 out of 7, but don’t expect a kaiju fight.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF NIKKATSU AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.