Corstae – Available Now!

Let me just say that I am actually really proud of this book (which you can buy here!). I want to document how it came to be. It started all the way back right after I had finished my undergraduate degree. I was languishing and a bit directionless, but I used my time to write…

Mothra

The first kaiju film from Honda that actually feels like it owes something to the original King Kong, Mothra was Toho's efforts at appealing explicitly to the female part of the movie-going audience. You see, Mothra is a girl this time. And there's singing. Other than that, it's pretty typical of this era in terms…

The Human Vapor

Well, this is a surprise. I did not expect to so thoroughly enjoy The Human Vapor. A curious mixture of film noir, The Invisible Man, The Phantom of the Opera, and even a soupcon of His Girl Friday, this genre-bending horror film from Ishiro Honda is his most effective and entertaining film since he got…

Battle in Outer Space

Ishiro Honda returns to the cinemas with another big, special effect spectacle ala The Mysterians. I'd say that this is a step down from the previous film, not having the same kind of narrative verve (the modest amount that The Mysterians demonstrated) and is more of a straightforward sci-fi adventure. That could work if, again,…

Varan The Unbelievable

What if Ishiro Honda made a cheap Godzilla ripoff for Japanese television that was quickly recut into a feature length motion picture? Would you believe me if I told you the result was not very good? That it does nothing to set itself apart from the movie it's copying? Well, as can be said for…

The H-Man

Moving away from giant monsters for a moment, Ishiro Honda brings Eiji Tsuburaya's special effects skills on a smaller, perhaps more effective, scale in service to a monster movie disguised as a gangster film. It's a curious mix where we get Honda's now expected over-explanation of scientific nonsense in combination with underwritten characters who never…