*1/2 Random Evil Squid-Like Aliens Abduct Boy Scouts! Film at 11:00.

The source for this review hails from a particular DVD box set called “50 Sci-Fi Movie Classics”, which I highly recommend to anybody who loves campy B-movies (although the picture quality is a little lacking). The set included three gamera movies: “Gamera the Invincible”, “Attack of the Monsters” (Gamera vs. Barugon), and this pile of turtle feces known as “Destroy All Planets”. It may not be one of the better Gamera movies, but it’s still entertaining in the “what the heck were they thinking?” department.

A space ship that looks like a bunch of Ping-Pong balls stuck together and painted with black and yellow stripes cruises on into the solar system to be immediately destroyed by a giant turtle. Gamera don’t cotton to outsiders, apparently. Well the aliens (who look suspiciously human) send a second ship, which succeeds in capturing Gamera. They also pick up a couple of boy scouts who were exploring the ocean in their yellow submarine. We are treated to stock footage from the previous gamera movies, and then treated to stock footage again, except this time we are suppose to believe it’s “Gamera controlled by aliens to destroy stuff”. To be fair, some of it’s new. A small bit. Very small. Anyways the boy scouts dink around the spaceship for a while and eventually master the alien technology and screw up the ship’s controls. In a last-ditch effort, the aliens reveal that they are actually giant squid-like things and merge together until they are one big Gamera-sized, um, thing. They fight, Gamera wins.

Watching an old Gamera movie, one would expect to see a number of things. Low-budget sets, rubbery monster fights, large quantities of colorful blood, children saving the day, and an absolutely insane yet somehow cliché plot are among those expected points. This movie satisfies those needs. What lowers the score considerably is the excessive use of stock footage. It’s not just the occasional clip, it’s full-fledged filler in the form of pretty much the ENTIRE fight between Gamera and Barugon as well as Gamera and Goas. Not only that, but they pass off BLACK AND WHITE footage from the original Gamera movie as “new”. Other then that you get a kinda boring plot that might be entertaining to the children this movie was designed for. A last interesting point is that the movie stars both a Japanese Boy Scout and an American Boy Scout. People who were in the scouts, such as myself, will probably spend most of the movie comparing the uniforms (I personally think that the Japanese Scouts had cooler hats).

Silly and very campy but fun to watch at times

Decent fight at the end

Boy Scouts of the World Unite!

Stock Footage!

"OK, now that was scientifically impossible!" (I quote I used quite often)

STOCK FOOTAGE!!!

"Somehow despite being impaled by a giant squid, the impact missed all vital organs and Gamera continues his struggle." (another commentary)

Did I mention stock footage?

Credits