Frankenstein vs. Baragon

Toho was always searching for the next monster to add to its pantheon, wasn’t it? Taking and modifying the particulars of the Creature birthed from Dr. Frankenstein’s work and throwing it together with another giant lizard thing, hidden away from the ravages of time and coming up because coincidence drives all of this stuff. Bringing back some of the more irritating habits of Honda’s earlier monster movies, Frankenstein vs. Baragon mostly ambles around slowly for most of its runtime until it reaches its action-spectacular conclusion, which ends up feeling completely random and haphazard. I get that these were getting made super fast, but was no one willing to try and come up with reasons other than coincidence that newly discovered monsters find themselves in the same place?

Before the fall of Berlin at the end of World War II, German scientists sent the heart of Frankenstein (it’s honestly unclear if there’s supposed to be a difference between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster at all in this, so it’s just Frankenstein) to Japan. Taken to the military hospital in Hiroshima where we get explanations about how the heart can never die from Takashi Shimura in his little cameo, the action swiftly moves to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Is that horribly tasteless? I’m going to be honest, it feels horribly tasteless.

Anyway, fifteen years later, Dr. James Bowen (Nick Adams) is investigating the effects of radiation on the human body when stories of a feral boy (Koji Furuhata) start popping up. He’s seen by Bowen’s girlfriend (?) Dr. Sueko Togami (Kumi Mizuno), and they bring him into the lab when some local villagers corner him in a cave. At the same time, Kawai (Yoshio Tshuchiya), the naval officer who brought the heart to Hiroshima, witnesses an earthquake and what looks to be a new monster peeking out from the cracks in the earth, but don’t worry. That thing’s not coming back for a long time.

No, we have to spend a lot of time with Frankenstein. One thing we haven’t seen in Honda’s monster films in a while is the movie coming to a screeching halt in order to properly categorize the monster (the last time that it was really an issue was Rodan), and that’s exactly what this film ends up doing. They wonder endlessly about whether this is Frankenstein or not after Kawai gives them a visit and connects the dots for them. They even send the third of their trio of scientists, Dr. Kawaji (Tadao Takashima) to Germany to talk with the scientist who sent the heart to Japan in the first place. This happens while they give Frankenstein more food and he starts to grow at an accelerated rate (it’s never explained why he suddenly starts growing, but I assume it’s because he has access to a steady food source for the first time). In fact, it goes so far that Dr. Kawaji approaches Frankenstein’s cage to cut off a limb as the only way to prove that Frankenstein is Frankenstein (the cut off limb should regrow).

And that’s where the movie just kind of lost me. Why is this so important? Why is it so important that Dr. Kawaji would be willing to sneak in and do it without permission? Why is this effort to catalogue Frankenstein so key to everything? It’s just not. He’s a monstrous man, and ironing out the connections with another IP (in the public domain, of course), just feels like an excuse to burn some script pages on the way to 90. This would be weird enough if Dr. Kawaji’s propensity for monster murder didn’t come back later in the finale, but it does. And…nothing ever comes of it. It feels like an attempt to make any character interesting but not being able to follow through on it or do anything with it.

So, Frankenstein ends up escaping because flash bulbs make him cranky (the extension of the fire thing from the original Universal monster movies which Honda reportedly rewatched while writing to give Frankenstein similar traits as his most famous incarnation), and he disappears into the Japanese Alps. The trio of scientists go in pursuit, not being able to track him but wanting to help him anyway. At the same time, the mysterious underground monster (remember him?) shows up in the same area. He’s dubbed Baragon and causes havoc, killing a bunch of dancing teenagers having a dance party in a small, remote mountain village. This gets blamed on Frankenstein, and there’s a small push and pull between the scientists and the military about what to do.

This is, of course, just set up for the big action spectacular to end the film. Now, it’s time to talk about Eiji Tsuburaya again. Once more, he works on a Honda film, and he does it well. I think the effort is helped by the fact that the model work is at a larger scale, going generally for 1/4 scale rather than 1/25. This allows more forgiveness around improper lens choices and film speeds, making the effects feel generally more convincing while retaining the same levels of effectiveness. There’s also an embrace of composition in the special effects that ends up being really effective, especially when Honda and Tsuburaya frame Frankenstein holding Baragon over his head with flames from a forest on fire. It looks great. It’s honestly what saves the film from being a complete misery. You’re always able to count on Tsuburaya coming through in the end, no matter the narrative deficiencies that lead up to.

And then Frankenstein fights a giant octopus for no reason. It’s random and dumb, but, again, at least it looks good.

This is not some hidden gem of Honda’s career. The only thing saving it is that Tsuburaya has gotten a lot better at special effects since the days of something like Varan. It’s a bit of a slog getting to those special effects, but it’s also helped by the fact that, outside of the categorization effort, the film moves along quickly. I mean, it’s not good, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it bad. It’s…okay.

Rating: 2/4