Back on March 28th, 2025, Raf and Brayton did a film noir double feature with hitchhikers getting into deadly danger. Both films from the Twitch stream have now been separated into halves, edited for presentation's sake, and uploaded onto YouTube for your viewing!
The first part of our Don't Stop for Strangers double feature, DETOUR, tells the tale of an unemployed piano player who hitches a ride and finds a whole heap of trouble barely held together by a wonky alibi. If that wasn't bad enough, our anti-protagonist is joined by a viperous companion, played by the fittingly named Ann Savage, who would famously murder and disappear noir expert Eddie Muller many years later! Mind the damn typos:
Raf and Brayton make light of real world crime with the second feature for Don't Stop for Strangers, the harrowing 1953 thriller THE HITCH-HIKER, proceeded with a discussion on the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode which shares the same name:
Today's date, March 8th, was the original release date for MAD MONSTER PARTY? (1967), an animated horror-comedy from Rankin-Bass productions which also features IT, a giant King Kong-inspired gorilla monster who appears in full in the third act.
Unlike the film's other supernatural weirdos, IT was not deliberately villainous, even showing moments of kindness and mercy, but was a destructive menace who ultimately doomed Dr. Frankenstein's Island and almost every soul living there.
While on the subject of Mad Monster Party?: several years ago, me and my friends Wyn, Brayton, and KaijuNoir did a live-watch and Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary track for the film, which can be viewed on the following link:
We're back again (well, just me and me alone...F*****g typical) to present a huge listing of interesting giant monster-related and adjacent videos from YouTube.
Direct from Brandon Tenold Cult Movie Reviews:
Last time he took on King Kong, now Godzilla faces his toughest foe yet: An adorable butterfly monster. It's the 1964 kaiju film "Mothra Vs. Godzilla", AKA "Godzilla Vs. The Thing"!
Swooping down from the heavens on a fire ball, the Kasha drags the bodies of the dead to the underworld for a life of damnation. Most frequently depicted as a demonic, flaming cat, the kanji for ‘Kasha’ actually translates to “Fire Cart”—so why did this malevolent yōkai take on a feline appearance? Featuring the author of numerous yōkai books, Hiroko Yoda, this episode explores the religious and artistic history of the Kasha and takes a look at the significant role of cats in Japanese culture.
Mobile Suit Gundam ( 機動戦士ガンダム, Hepburn: Kidō Senshi Gandamu, also known as First Gundam, Gundam 0079 or simply Gundam '79) was a ratings failure causing the episode count to be reduced and the story cut short. But it did introduce the world to RX-78-2. Then Bandai stepped in with their model kits and created what would eventually be known around the world as Gunpla. Mobile Suit Gundam was eventually imported to the US where it was again a ratings failure... twice!
So you think anime was better in the olden days back when we didn't have cute girls doing thing and just had manly men scream and shoot guns from their giant mecha? Not so fast, it turns that even in the days of VCRs did anime centered around cute girls exist. And out of all them, Twinkle Heart might just be the most cloyingly cute!
In Japan Hero's latest video, they take a closer look at the history of Shiro Jishi Kamen ( 白獅子仮面 ). Shiro Jishi Kamen / White Lion Mask is an often overlooked TV series from the golden era of tokusatsu heroes.
2021 marks the 55th anniversary of Ultraman, and yours truly actually had a hand in the festivities! On this episode of Vintage Henshin EXTRA, we'll take a look at what went into making TokuSHOUTsu's ULTRAMAN DAY ULTRATHON!
Take a trip to Seibeun Amusement Park in Japan and jump on GODZILLA THE RIDE: GIANT MONSTERS ULTIMATE BATTLE! Filmmaker and author Norman England reviews the kaiju attraction which was overseen by film director Takashi Yamazaki (RETURNER, ALWAYS: SUNSET ON THIRD STREET).
Here's some intriguing kaiju and other giant monster-related videos to for me to share and for you all to enjoy. I will be keeping up this feature as-often-as-possible for the remainder of 2021.
Direct from MONSTROSITIES Tokusatsu Vlog:
The story of how a tokusatsu technique created for the original MOTHRA (1961) was passed on to the original Kamen Rider and continues to be practiced to this very day.
In Japan Hero's latest video, they take a closer look at the history of the Robot Detective TV series ( ロボット刑事 ) including a brief look at some abandoned giant robot concepts.
Linkara's History of Power Rangers returns with a relatively (relatively) short and coherent recap of POWER RANGERS BEAST MORPHERS, the first of the Hasbro-era of the franchise but produced with creative talents from the previous vanguard. The whole of Beast Morphers is available on Netflix and I might give it a watch as it's a far better alternative to the one-episode-every-rare-blue-moon-year scheduling Nickelodeon was and still is infamous for.
Ronin Warriors, known in Japan as Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers (鎧伝サムライトルーパー, Yoroiden Samurai Torūpā), is a Japanese anime series created by Hajime Yatate and animated by Sunrise somewhat riding the popularity of Saint Seiya. Ronin Warriors first aired on American television during the summer of 1995 and subsequently appeared through syndication, as well as the USA Network and later on Cartoon Network as part of Toonami. Besides being known as Ronin Warriors, Yoroiden Samurai Troopers and Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers in some parts of the world it was known as Samurai Warriors.
After almost a decade of waiting, the 25-year-old journey finally comes to an end. Here's Yoko Higuchi's review of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time in anticipation for its international streaming release on Amazon Prime Video this Friday.
Sometimes the fossil record preserves some truly extraordinary glimpses into the past life on our planet, including traces of prehistoric animal behavior. In this video we're exploring 5 examples of such remarkable fossil finds - moments forever frozen in time.
Here's some intriguing kaiju and other giant monster-related videos to for me to share and for you all to enjoy. I will be keeping up this feature as-often-as-possible for the remainder of 2021.
Direct from Matt Draper:
A comprehensive look at The Millennium Era of Toho Godzilla, including a look at the history of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla '98, how Toho returned Godzilla ahead of schedule with Godzilla 2000, and the many reboots and evolutions found within The Millennium Era, covering 6 films made from 1999 through 2004. This is Part 3 of an ongoing Godzilla series.
In his latest video essay "How Toei Changed Sunday Mornings", MercuryFalcon takes an extensive look at The Toei Fushigi Comedy Series: a loosely connected franchise of lighthearted fantasy adventures and mystery comedies that had major influences on the creation of SAILOR MOON and how it all came to an unlikely but satisfyingly end in a kaiju-filled crossover with the one and only ULTRAMAN.
After Sam Riami's 'Spider-Man 4' never happened the character was rebooted with 'The Amazing Spider-Man'. There were ambitious plans for a whole slew of movies set in that universe. Drew Goddard was at one point time attached to write and direct a 'Sinister Six' movie for Sony, as part of 'The Amazing Spider-man' and when that fell apart he would be offered a potential 'The Spectacular Spider-Man' reboot (Which later became Spider-Man: Homecoming). Here's the story of why complete with dinosaurs and giant monsters attacking New York.
While we all eagerly await for Godzilla vs Kong this coming Wednesday, I would like to share something humorous and offbeat in a turtle shell to help ease your kaiju cravings if at all possible.
Back in 2019, me and my friends wrote, filmed, preformed, and produced a fan-made series entitled MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER VS GAMERA: ROUND II, featuring the two-of-three older era Gamera films that were never featured on the cult comedy series. Here's the very first entry featuring GAMERA vs. VIRAS (1968).
Here is the second episode, featuring GAMERA vs. JIGER (1970), my personal favorite of the two produced thus far.
In the wake of the 2020 pandemic, production for episode three centered around GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER (1981) has been slow-downed: the safety and well-being of the crew (my friends and I) is the absolute priority and, in the interest of social distancing, at this time we're unable to begin filming.
However pre-production has wrapped and we will continue as scheduled as soon as it is deemed safest for all to do so later in 2021.
We're all putting this time to use, sets and costumes have been retrofitted, several new physical models and props are being constructed, and higher quality filming/lighting equipment has been invested in to make the presentation of our Super Monster fan-episode (and potentially future ones) much better.
First full trailer for PACIFIC RIM: THE BLACK recently dropped and... It actually looks good for a CGI anime show! That or I'll take anything after Pacific Rim: Uprising but that's a totally different story.
The appearance of tangible human antagonist gives me pause for concern: like most anime series, it will begin with a fantastical otherworldly threat that will disappear several episodes in while a 'normal human' (cheaper to animate) one takes over as the main focus.
However, it would be cool to see equal amounts of human and non-human antagonists which this trailer also hints at with the smaller dog-like kaiju, a rogue hybrid Kaiju Yeager, and a strange mystery child.
The teaser trailer for SHIN ULTRAMAN dropped earlier today: a co-production between Tsuburaya Productions, Toho Company and Khara inc. stated as a movie adaptation of the original Ultraman series as well as an indirect follow-up to Shin Godzilla on Toho, Shinji Higuchi, and Hideaki Anno's parts (Good!, Never make a Shin Godzilla II and fly free like the bearded angels that you are).
While its intriguing, the CGI is a little simple to state it lightly even if, apparently, that's the filmmakers' intent to echo the original Ultraman's unrealistic effects and fantastical fairy tale nature.
SHIN ULTRAMAN also has a way a better chance of widespread exposure here in American than more recent Ultraman content, hopefully with a similar theatrical roll out that Shin Godzilla received back in 2016.
Listen, I'm happy for the success Tsuburaya Productions have found through online streaming and the Mill Creek box sets but it's all still relatively quint by mainstream American standards.
There also the Marvel Comics' ULTRAMAN series but... That series is purely American in many regards and isn't really advertising its Japanese origins very well: the sheer number of major news outlets assuming that Ultraman is an original 2020 Marvel creation proves that. Plus, the Marvel Comics' story is rather lame (seriously? 5 issues to barely battle Bemular? Pointless even by slow burn story logic).
Our incredibly fearsome hero, ladies and gentlemen.
After the surprised success they had with the very first Gamera film, Daiei Films continued dipping their toes into the giant monster genre by producing AND releasing three films all within 1966 featuring Daimajin, a giant stone idol and supernatural deity who comes to life to brutally punish mortal villains in feudal Japan. The Daimajin trilogy joined the popular giant monster boom of the 1960s with the highly praised samurai period dramas of the same decade, resulting in a unique if brief series of dark fantasy films. The channel Up From the Depths recently finished up their trio of video reviews on Daimajin presented here because why not (I felt like it, okay). DAIMAJIN:The last remaining members of a royal family call upon their god to save their village from a brutal warlord.
RETURN OF DAIMAJIN:Two peaceful kingdoms call upon their god to save them from a rival invading clan.
DAIMAJIN STRIKES AGAIN:Four boys set out through the Majin's Mountain to rescue their family members from enslavement at the hands of a rival clan.
Last but certainly not least is a fantastic video lecture from the always awesome Maser Patrol discussing both the Daimajin trilogy alongside other giant-monsters-meet-samurai properties. Tons of cool obscurities and educational history points to chew on.
Since I too am a nerd who loves him, here's some more Daimajin images to end the post on.
Daimajin parts the waters, from "Return of Daimajin" (1966)
Daimajin in his inert statue form and his living form on the warpath.
In the suspect tradition of Fractured Flickers, Mad Movies, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax, blah, blah, blah, comes the first episode of a new comedy-commentary series entitled UP MILL CREEK (WITHOUT A PADDLE), staring Brayton Conner, Andres Perez, and Raf Enshohma (hey, that's me). In this inaugural pilot, the three jerks talk over the 1940 Boris Karloff vehicle THE APE with humorous results. Mockery aside, we're very happy with how this pilot turned out and I'm pleased to share that there's more episodes coming.
Here's the full uncut recording session for the episode complete with an unused pre-show segment based around the Gumby short Lion Around. Unlike the completed episode, this unlisted extra is something I'm less proud of but sharing it here for posterity sake (plus future blackmail).
Once again, here's some giant monster-related videos for your viewing interest especially in this time of forced isolation. Omniviewer explores themes of the Monsterverse, namely the relationship between humans and the monsters and when they should stand back and let nature take its course or aid in the struggle to restore the balance.
Up from the Depths discusses what makes Mothra the Queen of the Monsters besides all the online shipping between her and Godzilla of course.
While not fully accurate and prone to crude gags, Corrupt Nostalgia discusses the nearly complete history of unmade Godzilla movies; be prepared for a lot of Kevin Bacon, huh, I mean Bagan.
The Library of Monsters reopens with part one of a duology of Monster Retrospectives, first up with The Mummy Man from Ultraman!
AlexTheHunted reviews Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
While Blue Oyster Cult's ON TOUR FOREVER is temporarily on hold, they took a short break from working on their next album to record this from everyone's home studio. Guess which song it was?
Retro Nerd Girl reviews the movie Fantastic Planet (1973), starring Barry Bostwick, Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin and directed by René Laloux.
Forget Kronos and Cthulhu! Why isn't Typhon a more popular super ancient giant monster dark lord?!? You'll see why after checking out this brief essay from Overly Sarcastic Productions.
Here's a humorous video featuring me and BranzantFiLMS' live viewing / audio commentary of the 1968 American-Japanese co-production The Green Slime, staring a whole lot of B-list white people and a whole lot of green-colored monster suits operatedby Japanese child extras (not all but most of them are). The audio commentary here is unlisted hence why I'm sharing it through my blog here:
For a second opinion, here's Brandon Tenold's 20-minute-long review of the exact same film:
From Saturday Night Live's The Lost Deep Thoughts.
Earlier this month, me along with friends BranzantFiLMS, Wyn the Rogue, and KaijuNoir sat down an watched the original 1933 King Kong, live-streaming the audio as we shared general thoughts about the film that eventually devolve into humorous riffing - I hope this is a case of true love mixed within the performance satire and not just four jokers making with the joke-jokes because the film is an aging old ape but that's just me. Because the original live-stream ended up being way longer than I had wanted it (just shy 8 minutes of Peter Jackson's 2005 film, On The Damn Boat), I've decided to edit together this slim down edition, isolating the main commentary by itself with corresponding images and gags. Enjoy!
I'm back and I have tons of articles coming up alongside some much needed updates to older preexisting ones. Until then, here's some giant monster-related videos for your viewing interest especially in this time of forced isolation (thanks for nothing, viral-lifeforms and tRump). First up is the trailer for Minoru Kawasaki's latest giant monster comedy, MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS.
Direct link for the above video: https://youtu.be/uAADM0nhJBs From GORIZARD: I decided to compare the quality between Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock's original 2000 DVD release against their 2020 Blu-ray release of GAPPA: THE TRIPHIBIAN MONSTER (aka MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET)
Also from Wikizilla: In the first episode of a new series where we look at the impact of kaiju throughout the world, we kick things off in the United Kingdom!
From Up From The Depths: A franchise as long and diverse as Godzilla is bound to contain its fair share of funny and wacky moments, and in this video we're counting down some of the best, including some underrated moments you may have forgotten! You're not gonna want to miss this!
JohnnyBaak shares some interesting facts about the classic monster movie THEM.
Direct link for the above video: https://youtu.be/2Oqma3Oc47I KaijuNoir and friends review the illustrated novella KONG: KING OF SKULL ISLAND, the first and arguably the best in artist Joe DeVito's King Kong series... And long before said artists horrifically confusing title choices in proceeding sequel novels and comics.
FINALLY! I've been vindicated! Kind of. YouTube producer and reviewer TitanGoji (an extremely nice fellow in person) does a great service towards an ungrateful tokusatus fandom, huh, I mean "humanity" and shares his extremely negative (rightfully so) review of the truly terrible live action film adaptation of demonic superhero manga DEVILMAN (2004).
Seriously, it's nice to see someone relatively popular among the current tokusatsu fandom lay into this film because this crummy mess has TOO MANY DAMN defenders online! Perhaps loyal Devilman fans who's never seen this film what-so-ever but will defend the franchise regardless and at all costs? Or an anime fan who doesn't like it when their genre-of-choice is being criticized even if said criticism is limited to one minor aspect that really does suck regardless? Even I know that's a stupidly blind thing to do! Fandom loyalty isn't worth dying on a poorly rendered hill of CGI demon bodies for! Seriously though, this film is terrible and makes most other anime-to-live-action-adaptations look like honorable B+ efforts by comparison - something that TitanGoji goes into further detail towards the end of this accursed film and the sordid production history behind it.
There is an alarmingly massive amount movie reviewers and related retrospectives online with an even smaller number of which dedicated to some semblance of serious film appreciation beyond the mainstream weekly film review outlets. Than there are those bizarre yet wonderful movie lovers who balances both extremes but never abandoning the latter (analysis) over the former (funny business). Among this rare breed is the always entertaining YouTube channel Good Bad Flicks, overseen by its uniquely named host Cecil Trachenburg.
Recently, Good Bad Flicks posted a sincere video asking for help to keep up their channel's quality so that they won't have to resort to desperate advertising measures as The Unfathomable Beast Dubbed YouTube continues to breath down their undeserving backs (excessive word usage is fun). Seriously though, this channel could use all the love and support it can garner (here's the Patreon page) even if its just through shared awareness among your own friends online.
Get it? Spoof of The Hiromi Gargantua? It's a play on War of The Gargantuas! No? Ah, nuts to you! Anyways... The long running anime series Mobile Police Patlabor is often cited as a strong example of the 'Realistic Mecha' genre from Japanese fiction. Realistic Mecha is where giant robots are presented as plausible machinery that could exist and work within the real world while also avoiding the more fantastic clichés of most other giant robot stories such as alien invaders, supernatural power-ups, soulful sentience in the machines, and giant Godzilla-style enemy monsters. However, there are several exceptions seen throughout the Patlabor franchise where wacky monsters do appear and cause havoc, betraying the very concept of Realistic Mecha.
Yes, between giant albino alligators, unmanned killing machines, out-of-control Labor robots, deep-sea reptiles, genetically engineered mega-rodents, hideous human-alien hybrids, and gigantic Kappa androids, this otherwise unassuming franchise about police officers piloting 30-foot-tall police-bots in the near-future has a lot of giant monsters popping up. This continuous trend started with The 450 Million-Year-Old Trap (July 25th, 1988): the third episode in the original direct-to-video series and was an early directorial effort from the now famous director Mamoru Oshii, one of the forgotten grandfathers of Patlabor. A series of mysterious incidents occur in and around Tokyo Bay, including damaged undersea cables and a parked car being pulled off a pier, leading some to believe that it could be the work of an actual sea monster. Detective Takahiro Matsui of the Metropolitan Tokyo Police Department (a recurring character in the franchise) requests Captain Goto, head of the Police Special Vehicle Section 2 Division 2 (SV2 for short), for help on the strange case. Goto and his SV2 Patlabor team help pilot a remote control submersible Labor to search for what caused the incidents. However, the Labor is destroyed during its underwater search, convincing all present that the monster truly does exists. The SV2 are given orders to kill the monster soon after but not before they stumble upon the giant creature's origins: an life-form birthed from a science experiment gone...a little out-of-hand thanks to a well-meaning but clumsy and shortsighted mad scientist.
Although this sea monster is largely off-camera throughout the episode, its noted that the artificially created being went through various stages of accelerated evolution (presented in a brief montage of resurrected prehistoric animals) until reaching its supposedly final form which makes its rather anti-climactic reveal by the story's end. As you can tell by now, The 450 Million-Year-Old Trap is a subtly played spoof of Toho Studio's classic run of giant monster movies, complete with a big blue-colored War of The Gargantua homage shown throughout this article. Now we could call this unnamed guy 'The Blue Gargantua' for obvious reasons but, based on an odd little twist in the tale where this somewhat benign beast shares an unexplained resemblance with SV2's team member Hiromi Yamazaki, the ironically tall man from Okinawa who's soft-spoken and kindhearted, I shall nicknamed this character The Hiromi Gargantua until I'm corrected otherwise with an official moniker.
RELATED VIDEOS ON PATLABOR:
Marc of Oh No Anime takes you through the life and legacy of one of anime's most under-appreciated franchises, Patlabor (direct video link right below video box).
I know you younger people and more tech savvy individuals are enjoying the virtually unlimited promise of streaming services with the variety of programming it offers. However, with the way things are going now, with every company creating their own streaming channels, limiting their libraries to only the most marketable and recent fair, a reliance on syndicated show packages from the same handful of entertainment monopolies, and phasing out older films and television shows in turn, I feel like it's only a matter of time until streaming services will become the same miserable wasteland that modern cable television has long ago become. A television wasteland where we literally have thousands channels but with nothing interesting to view beyond the same 44 reruns of BIG BANG THEORY and the original CHARMED scattered across multiple networks. I don't care if you're a fan of BIG BANG THEORY or not, but 20 channels playing the same set of episodes is NOT a good thing: that would be like going to a grocery store that only sells french fries and only the same brand of french fires in all fifteen of its aisles. You probably don't believe me, of course, but this nifty video from FredFlix perfectly illustrates the wonderful if not offbeat variety of film and TV programming we use to have on cable entertainment, back in the day when you could be up at 2AM and have a wide choosing of rarely shown movies to watch as opposed to today.
I along with friends and fellow nerds KaijuNoir and Brayton sit down and share our audible thoughts via podcast on one of the year's more decisive-yet-belittled films Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom. Take a listen and enjoy.
