Poker night was always a problem with this crew.
Destroy All Monsters (1968) is a rare outlier in the Japanese Godzilla / kaiju genre of movies. Most of these stories feature a monster or two laying waste to the countryside, often acting as the deus ex machina that brings punishment down upon the evil-doers of the moment, while the citizenry cowers in its shelters. But in this one, despite the destruction of a number of cities world-wide, the monsters are actually the mechanism of a more comprehensive and comprehensible plot. Earth has been invaded by the Kilaak, a race of creatures which can take over humans through technological means. They’re Their goal? The usurpation of Earth for their own, unclear purposes.
As a means to that end, they surreptitiously take control of the several monsters penned up on an island named Monsterland, and send them out to destroy various foreign cities. Eventually, several meet at Tokyo, leaving it a wasteland. But the real action is taking place behind the scenes, as a various government agencies frantically try to discover what has happened to those who were in charge of Monsterland, and how to respond. In the climactic scene, humanity’s monsters are freed from alien control, stomp a space monster into the ground, and win the day.
To say this is a step up is true. To say the cheap special effects, obvious models, bad acting, and dubious story makes it worthwhile is a claim I shan’t be making. This is positively awful.
Only watch while drunk. Or working on it.
