"Godzilla vs Hedorah" (1971)

"Gojira tai Hedora"

"Godzilla vs the Smog Monster"
Yoshimitsu Banno, 1971, Japan

 

A truly bizarre film with almost everything thrown into the mix – psychedilic visuals and musical interludes, animation (not quite Pink Floyd – The Wall, though), stop-animation, kiddie-movie, anti-pollution warning, multiple screens, etc. None of this enlivens the sluggish pace, dull dialogue and ~ catastrophically ~ mundane fight-scenes between Hedorah and Godzilla himself. In fact, Godzilla is almost incidental as the creature made of sludge and pollution, Hedorah, runs amok. It shits, pukes and gases out over people, sometimes dissolving them into skeletons. Hedorah itself is a truly repellent and silly creation, but the script labours under the destruction-of-nature message. A tropical fish tank represents pure oceans, but even that succumbs. Once, just having Godzilla lay waste to Japan was enough to conjure hints of atomic bombs and mass-disaster but the Earth faces pollution monsters too.

            This eleventh Godzilla installment begins with a bizarre opening number, a psychedelic theme, a cross between a James Bond credits sequence with lyrics listing elements polluting our world. Next thing, it’s a children’s “Save the Earth” monster flick with a tadpole turd-like Hedorah and pauses for science lessons. Half atrocious, half spellbindingly odd ~ who knows what they were thinking? Most resonant moment has Godzilla being buried under an ocean of sludge.