This features a monster that looks a lot like the Creature From the Black Lagoon. It lurks around and is actually something that must have been quite scary when it ran on TV back in the '60s. There are some decent (not cheap) jump scares and also some creepy closeups. Also, an island sinks and the use of miniature sets is impressive for an old, weekly TV show.
I'm rating this high because it's another very weird Ultra Q episode. It's not "Grow Up! Little Turtle" weird, but the alien invader from the planet Kemur rivals a few of my favorite monsters from the original Outer Limits series. When the invader grows to destroy an amusement park, it just adds to my enjoyment. The way it looks, with its misaligned eyes and the way it wiggles its hands in the air, is truly odd.
People are shrunken to 1/8 size in the government's attempt to solve urban overcrowding. Yuriko is shrunken by mistake but no worries, she's only having a dream after being injured in a train station.
A children's tale about a boy who turns into a monster.
Another Godzilla wannabe called Peguila brings cold weather to Tokyo as it travels from the South Pole. Somehow a drunken super pilot rids the city of the beast, ala Randy Quaid in "Independence Day".
I like the four-legged monster Pagos. He doesn't last very long, but I like the way he's designed.
This is good because the monster is so weird. The monster itself is a robot that is controlled by "Garadama", which I guess means "meteorite". Garadama controls the robot/monster via radio waves. The monster is the strangest looking thing and has the weirdest facial expressions and makes the strangest noises and hand gestures. The conclusion happens so suddenly and is such a moronically simple thing, it turns this from bad to good.
Two Garamons crash into Earth in the form of meteorites. The Garamons are so weird looking (the cover monsters on the DVD). They make weird jingling noises and stomp around Tokyo. I really like how they die or is it how they quit working because they seem to be as much robots as they are kaiju.
Story about a little bird that returns to civilization every 998 years...I think? Whatever. When it returns, it ends up protecting a little boy and eventually grows 40 meters high and attacks a city in true Rodan style.
There are some extremely cheesy effects including a spaceship wobbling from visible wires. But the Balloonga monster itself looks like a lumpy bladder up close, but the shots of it hanging over the city look really cool in a B-movie sort of way.
Loved the miniature work, hated the story.
A couple of giant spiders attack the Ultra Q crew in an old mansion in a swamp. Not sure why two of them were drowning in the swamp, other than to necessitate them going to the mansion to get warm. The spider effects are funny with eyes that flash and the spider walk defies gravity.
A giant mole makes an appearance.
Mt. Fuji is about to explode. A Tarzan-style man is found in the woods and later fights a giant rock monster who has Godzilla's roar. Somehow it all comes together and still makes next to no sense.
This could be one of the most inexplicable things I've ever watched. A little boy's turtle grows to be large. The boy then flies on the turtle's shell to a dragon's castle and meets a little girl who is the princess of the castle. A castle we never see, by the way. Then the boy wants to swing but the swing turns into a dragon and then he gets blown up by an atomic bomb but he doesn't really because it's a dream within a dream or something. It's certifiably nuts to me but I'm sure there is cultural significance that I am too American to understand.
This story has some decent creepy moments. It's probably due to the Antarctic setting. There are lots of special effect miniatures in this which are fun to watch.
Pretty fun special effect of plant roots or vines attacking people, but this is story was disjointed to me. And the mammoth flower is a bad effect in its full grown state.
A giant ape and a boy raised by apes are inseparable and when the ape goes on a rampage, the boy uses their mutual trust to slip the giant beast a little drugged milk to stop his unwanted tour of the city.
I like the snail beasts from space, although they weren't too difficult to defeat. The effect showing the rapidly growing eggs was simple but effective. I also thought using a thief as a means to release the space eggs into the world was original.
Tough to get any sense of scale of Gomess. He's in a cave and looks human sized but when he steps out of the cave, he looks to be about 30 feet tall. The boy that befriends the giant bird that battles Gomess is a typical "Kenny" and the bird is a lovable but stiff, nearly motionless bird. But man, do I love old Sci-Fi and Kaiju. Oh, and this is in Black and White, which I also love.
There are so many excellent, creepy things that occur in this episode. I want to mention them, but I don't want to just retell the story. Lots of terrific moments and terrifying images. Yikes!!! That HOLE!!! Watch this.
I enjoy keeping a journal about things I've watched or read. I've been leaving reviews for years on Letterboxd, which is largely for movies. That site has turned into just another snarky, quippy social media outlet so I'm looking at Trakt as a possible option.
What I'm finding is that with TV shows, it's really odd to try and comment about each episode. Most TV shows have continuing story arcs and it seems difficult to comment and rate each episode, perhaps because it may center around a specific character or story development that I may be more or less interested in.
If the show were an anthology like the Twilight Zone or even one with the occasional monster-of-the-week story (like the X-Files), comments or reviews of an episode would make much more sense. Commenting on a series with a long story arc seems like an invitation for either spoilers or vague descriptions. Perhaps a 1-to-10 rating for each episode is enough.
Great atmosphere and Arctic setting. Really like the way this looks. The casting seems spot on.
This is an interesting but confusing extension of the history of Castle Rock, Stephen King's most notorious locale. This is a moody, atmospheric tale that offers lots of creepy moments and minimal jump scares. The ending is a bit anti-climactic, and it honestly felt like a wrap-up that Stephen King would have written. Here's hoping that Season 2 is an entirely unrelated tale and not the continuation of the ground covered in Season 1.
Anthology series are making a much needed comeback. The single episode, short story format covered by such legendary series and the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, Tales From the Crypt, etc. will never be as popular or numerous as they once were. For those of us that love anthologies, that's a bummer. But these single season anthologies like Castle Rock, True Detective, and potentially, The Terror, offer entry into great stories only a dozen or so episodes deep, without the need to watch season after season of returning characters and continuations of convoluted story arcs once the show gets popular.
This is a good start. Having the opportunity to visit current day Castle Rock is appealing. This is being called an anthology so I assume that a different story will be told each season as opposed to each episode (like Twilight Zone, which I would prefer). There's a cheap jump scare early on which soiled things initially, but as we meet Henry Deaver, Ruth and Alan, things are quickly redeemed.
I am in the midst of a Stephen King book reading marathon. I have always loved his short stories but have been digging into his sometimes intimidatingly sized novels, so I don't think I'm going to appreciate all of the easter eggs or references placed within the episodes of this series. Anyway, this episode is a good launching pad and I'm looking forward to watching more.
