FURANKENSHUTAIN TAI CHITEI KAIJU BARAGON
(“Frankenstein Versus Deep-Sea Monster Baragon”)
Production: Japan, 1965
Director: Honda Ishiro
Category: Science Fiction/Kaiju
When Toho decided to produce the first ever Japanese Frankenstein film, instead of a straight horror movie they elected to place the character in the realm of kaiju eiga, pitching it against a typical giant sea-monster; atomic radiation again figures in the film’s wild plot, which involves a human heart irradiated by the bombing of Hiroshima. The heart eventually evolves into a complete humanoid organism, which finally grows to gigantic size. This monster is hounded by the military, but serves a purpose by defeating Baragon, the rampaging daikaiju. A giant octopus also figures, and the film is notable for its driving freakbeat soundtrack and multiple go-go dancing sequences, one of which drives the monster into an eroto-destructive frenzy. In 1966 Honda directed an even better sequel, Furankenshutain No Kaiju: Sanda Tai Gaira (“Frankenstein’s Monster: Sanda Vs. Gaira”), in which two new giant monsters, one good and one evil, grow from fragments of the first Frankenstein monster, which was smashed in a precipice. Sanda, brown and good, and Gaira, green and bad, finally come into city-crunching conflict over Gaira’s predilection for raw human flesh. Released in the US as War Of The Gargantuas.
Posted by Lady Belladonna
