Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken - Pure Comedy Gold

2026-10-10T11:06:01.171-07:00

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) is pure comedy gold. The humor is this film will have you rolling in the aisles with laughter. I've laughed so hard myself from watching this film that tears rolled down my eyes. Actor Don Knotts has the most animated face in the history of entertainment. His facial gestures alone will have you laughing throughout the entire film. This film is a series of five films that Knotts starred in from 1966 to 1971 for Universal Studios. He also appears in The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West, (1968), The Love God (1969), and How to Frame a Figg (1971). The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is Knotts' first major project after leaving The Andy Griffith Show on television. All five films are sold as a Blu-Ray set from Shout Factory. The films can be purchased separately also.

Knotts plays Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the local newspaper, The Rachel Courier Express, in Rachel, Kansas. The citizens of Rachel have avoided a run-down mansion in the town owned by the Simmons family. The Simmons mansion bears a striking resemblance to the Munsters Mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Twenty years earlier, Simmons murdered his wife and then committed suicide in the mansion. The town is approaching the twenty-year anniversary of the murder-suicide. Rumors in the town suggest that the mansion is haunted.

Heggs happens to notice a local man named Calver Weems being hit on the head with a board in front of the Simmons mansion and runs to tell his boss (Dick Sargent) at the newspaper that the man was murdered. His colleagues at the newspaper and the town citizens laugh at Heggs when it turns out that the man was not murdered but is alive and well. Heggs gets a reputation for having an overactive imagination.

As the twenty-year anniversary of the Simmons murder-suicide approaches, Heggs writes a small filler article about the Simmons story. The article gets lots of attention from the local citizens. To follow up on the popular story, Heggs' boss challenges him to stay a night in the mansion. Being the awkward dunce that Heggs is known for, no one has any confidence that he will stay in the mansion for one night.

Heggs decides to stay overnight in the murder mansion to prove he is not a coward and encounters a number of ghostly apparitions. He sees a portrait of Mrs. Simmons on the wall with garden shears stuck in her neck and blood flowing from the painting. In the organ loft of the mansion, a dusty old organ with blood stained keys plays all by itself. Heggs throws a book at a bookcase, and a secret passage opens behind the bookcase.

Heggs manages to make it an entire night in the mansion and later writes an article about his experiences. Nicholaus Simmons, a surviving family member, sues Heggs for writing the article and demands that he retract his story. Before making a ruling on the case, the judge orders that the jurors and town citizens take a tour of the Simmons mansion with Heggs leading the tour. Heggs tries to get the events of his overnight stay at the mansion to unfold once again, but with no success. The entire town writes off his experiences as an overactive imagination.

The funny moments in this film are too many to mention. Heggs backs into a tree in front of the Simmons mansion and thinks he is being attacked. He turns around and karate chops the tree, as if he is confronting a person. A similar scene occurs when Heggs encounters a mannequin in the mansion and once again thinks he is being attacked, so he karate chops the mannequin. The expressions on Heggs' face will have you laughing for days.

During Heggs' picnic speech at the town's Chamber of Commerce meeting, Heggs stands in front of a podium to give a speech about his experiences. His hands are shaking so much from nervousness that he eventually lets the wind blow his speech papers out of his hands. The microphone malfunctions during the mayor's speech at the meeting and he says to the town citizens: "The electrician must be a Democrat!" Heggs makes the same comment when the microphone malfunctions during his speech.

During his speech in front of the Chamber of Commerce, Heggs also tells the crowd: "I have been called brave. What is brave? Let me clarify this." This scene is particularly funny because Heggs shakes with nervousness as a person in the crowd yells out "Attaboy, Luther!" Heggs sits at a table with a beautiful brunette he has a crush on named Alma (Joan Staley). After mentioning to Alma that they both have a love of food in common, He tells Alma "I just love good food. My mother loved good food. She used to say I'd rather have good food than bad food any day of the week." Many of his comments to Alma in the film appear to be very awkward, but this helps to express Heggs' shy and awkward personality.

For absolute Halloween fun and scares - don't miss The Ghost and Mr. Chicken this Halloween season. Happy viewing.

-- Steve D. Stones

Sleepaway Camp; Maniac; sleazy horror flicks for Halloween season

2026-10-01T09:48:00.640-07:00

This October I was looking to recommend a couple of sleazy cult films for Halloween. For viewers who want to slum it a little. Here’s a couple:

Maniac, 1934, directed by Dwain Esper. Note an actor named Horace B. Carpenter. He has more than 325 credits, mostly in bit parts. In this exploitation, states-rights 51-minute celluloid garbage he’s memorable as the most insane, maniacal mad scientist on film. Working with a disgraced ex-vaudevillian who later kills him, he works to resurrect the dead.

A cat with its eyeball popped out; male mortuary workers leering over an attractive dead young woman; same young woman wandering partially nude in laboratory and later kidnapped and assaulted by a young man driven crazy by adrenaline; a creepy neighbor with hundreds of cats he raises to make fur attire; inserts of women in undies and showing their breasts; a hysterical wife wondering what the mad doctor did to her husband; real mad doctor lying dead in basement; cops to the rescue; sets too cheap for Ed Wood.

This has been described as the worst film ever made. It isn’t of course. It’s bad, true, but so unique you can’t take your eyes off the screen, at least the first time. Schlockmeister Esper directed. His wife Hildergarde Stadie, who worked in carnivals, wrote the hysterical script. As was the norm for these films, it pretends to be "educational," with inserts about the various forms of insanity the doctor is experiencing. It’s a combination of Poe’s The Black Cat and Murders in the Rue Morgue; throw in the ‘80s film Reanimator. It likely made a fortune at the box office. You can stream it free on many sites.

—

Sleepaway Camp, 1983, directed by Robert Hiltzik. You’ll need a shower after watching this grubby little slasher at a teenager summer camp. A boy cousin and his “sister” come to the nastiest, dirtiest, most dysfunctional camp. The cook is an overt pedophile. His co-workers just giggle as he vocalizes his rape wishes. Said cook is punished with a fate worse than death. One strength of this film is the inventive slasher attacks and kills within its 88 minutes.

The camp includes a very strange, paranoid owner who lusts after a teenage counselor who is a bit of a sociopath herself. The backstory is a slow-building romance between two young, bullied teens, Angela, (Felissa Rose), and Ronnie. The rest of the film is just one murder after another. There’s a backstory with Angela and her cousin, Ricky, and one crazy-as-a-loon mom, which you’ll have to watch the movie to learn more about.

I like little touches in this sleazy, gory film, like flypaper in the kitchen literally covered with dozens of dead flies. A final, wildly inappropriate credits song over the jarring final scene shot adds to the kitsch.

The ending of this film is iconic in low-budget horror. It does pack a punch for the viewer. This is not a good film but it’s unique; tasteless but quite watchable. Also, lead actress Rose, who has become a regular at genre conventions, wisely underplays her role; in contrast to the rest of the cast. That adds to the impact of the finale.

You can find Sleepaway Camp for free on Tubi, Prime and YouTube; and probably more streamers. Several badly reviewed sequels have been released. I have not seen any of those. However, I do watch Sleepaway Camp every October.

-- Doug Gibson

Godzilla Kaiju Popularity Overview And The New Monster General Election

2026-09-27T20:34:35.558-07:00

By Joe Gibson

Recently on our YouTube page, I ranked the kaiju in Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot (Ranking The Kaiju, Robots And Seijin In Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot)as I had done for the Gamera series a while ago. For a little while now, I have been planning on ranking the Godzilla series kaiju, but since Godzilla as an IP has an extraordinary amount of kaiju compared to Gamera, Kong, Giant Robo, or one season of Ultraman even put together, I knew I would have to approach it in a different way. I realized I would be better off grouping the kaiju in subdivisions for the rankings based on more objective metrics.

But I had other projects I wanted to work on first. Toho, in some ways, has forced my hand with the New Monster General Election that already has the fanbase in a state of frenzy. If you are unaware, for the past few years, every Godzilla Day (November 3rd) Toho has released a tokusatsu short featuring refurbished suits and puppets usually including a kaiju battle. I have loved watching these, and others in the fandom share this sentiment. The original wave of these reached their climax with the Godzilla from Final Wars teaming up with a Jet Jaguar with Gigan claws to defeat the King Ghidorah from GMK, and that series is no longer available on YouTube, but the relaunch started with a refurbished Godzilla 2000 suit rampaging and attaining a Burning form. That video is still up, and the ending teased that another monster would arrive through the smoke and fog to fight Godzilla next (now this) year.

Monster X, a Ghidorah variant from Godzilla Final Wars (2004), has been confirmed to be the first opponent for Burning G2K, but Toho has more ambitious plans for next year’s short. The New Monster General Election features eight sketches of monsters that the general public can vote on, and the winner will fight Godzilla. It is still technically unclear if next year’s short will be live action tokusatsu in this new series or something akin to Gemstone’s animated specials Godzilla vs Gigan Rex and Godzilla vs Megalon, but I really want these new designs immortalized in suitmation.

With this new marketing campaign from Toho, the Godzilla fanbase is excited but puzzled. I have heard wild speculation that Toho’s larger plans for these new eight kaiju to appear in a new Ultraman style show no matter who wins the election, and furthermore the topic on everybody’s mind is that somehow the winner will get an immediate boost to the top of franchise importance, rising to place alongside the Big Five (Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Rodan) in Toho’s in-house productions. I find that part, at least, unlikely, but it serves as a fair segue into my approach for ranking the Godzilla series. This article will explore the concept of Toho’s Big Five and beyond as well as the limitations of such a schema to more effectively introduce these new eight upstarts.

Last year, I tried to use Toho’s Big Five to frame discussion of Gamera’s costars (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/09/who-are-big-five-kaiju-in-gamera.html). I was able to mostly map a one-to-one comparison, but the entire premise needed some disclaimers that I should reproduce here. Ostensibly, the objective measure for the Big Five is box office appeals in Toho’s filmography. This was purposeful and helped return on investment in the Heisei and Millennium films after the films with new kaiju underperformed. Consequently, it resulted in a larger market share in popular culture, which translated into numerous mainline appearances, merchandise, other ancillary media and outside references in pop culture. As I explained, that means that it is really a Big 7 that adds in Kong and a child for Godzilla (which meant that I could include Daimajin and nonspecific baby kaiju for Gamera’s Big 5 but actually 7), but the current anthology approach to kaiju storytelling in the East means that the Reiwa Era is not likely to have a Big 5 that actually interacts with each other. Furthermore, the box office disappointment of Godzilla King of The Monsters and extenuating Covid circumstances of Godzilla vs Kong means that, by box office, the Monsterverse box office positions Godzilla, Kong, Mothra and nebulous swappable villainous doppelganger (Mechagodzilla, Skar King, Shimo, Spacegodzilla) as its Big Four.

The Big Five as a concept only really made sense in the decade between Godzilla: Final Wars and Godzilla 2014. That is the only time in history that those 5 uniquely were set aside for their “prophesied importance.” When the original films were coming out in the 60s and 70s, there certainly was a drive to revisit Rodan, Mothra, Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla in Godzilla sequels, but Gigan also got an immediate follow-up, as was also initially planned for King Kong and Hedorah. The Heisei series only relied on Ghidorah, Mothra and eventually Mechagodzilla and Rodan when Toho lost money introducing new kaiju, and Anguirus almost made it into what eventually became Godzilla vs Destoroyah while a different son of Godzilla than Minya also existed. The Millennium series, as the third time for Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla and Rodan, finally set the pattern that The Big Five were the only Godzilla kaiju to reappear in every era (even if Mechagodzilla and King Ghidorah were excised to elseworlds continuities from each other). With Godzilla Final Wars as the end of the franchise and Godzilla 2014 a surprising new beginning, that 10 years codified the Big Five as a group that we expected to see in any sequels to G14. The issue is that announcing Godzilla vs Kong kind of screwed with things on that front as Kong has always had more marquee value than the other four of the Big Five, and his remakes, though divorced from Godzilla, also mapped closely enough on to the Showa, Heisei and Millennium Series.

Secondly, you may also notice that the order of that Big Five kept changing, pushing Rodan further and further down essentially. Though of the KOTM crew, Rodan was the only survivor, he only reappeared after Ghidorah’s corpse created Mechagodzilla, Mothra was reborn to help Godzilla and Kong and the new Titan X grounded a whole season of television. Rodan may very well be the central kaiju in season 3 of Monarch Legacy of the Monsters or the Cold War themed spinoff, as he was arguably the main kaiju in Godzilla Singular Point, but he is also the only one in the Big Five that has not appeared outside of an offscreen fridging with Anguirus in a recap section (Planet of the Monsters) in a Japanese feature film since 2004. Ranking the kaiju by importance honestly is difficult because Rodan has this spot no matter what, unless Toho does restructure to include the election winner.

Mothra has not appeared in the flesh since then outside of the Monsterverse, but the same trilogy that reduced Rodan to a generic Pteranodon corpse kept her spirit as a central Deus ex machina. Still, there is a valid argument that Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla may be surpassing Mothra overall, and even so, the recent confirmation of Ghidorah’s role in Godzilla Minus Zero, produces an interesting dialectic in regards to his overuse.

Ghidorah is the most overused antagonist, appearing directly in Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs Monster Zero, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, Rebirth of Mothra, Rebirth of Mothra 3, GMK, Godzilla Final Wars, Godzilla: The Planet Eater, Godzilla King Of The Monsters, and Godzilla Minus Zero with ample stock footage cameos and multimedia presence (Godzilla vs Evangelion, Godzilla The Ride, etc.). These appearances all fall into a variety of contextual subsets based on if Ghidorah is in control of his own mental faculties, if he is from outer space or not, if he is King Ghidorah or a different type, etc. to the point it is simultaneously true that both the Monsterverse and Reiwa had a Ghidorah within a year of each other and that the last time Godzilla fought a villainous King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1991 (last time Godzilla fought a villainous extraterrestrial King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1972). There is equal parts hunger for and fatigue of Ghidorah’s role as Godzilla’s eternal archenemy.

Mechagodzilla has the most unambiguous universal appeal/significance. “X vs Mecha-X” is a trope bordering on cliche at this point, and Mechagodzilla himself somehow made it into Ready Player One’s film without Godzilla (or Ultraman who Mechagodzilla fought in the book). Mechagodzilla has also made similar strides to what I pointed out for Viras in my Gamera Big Five video. Mechagodzilla was the last straight up villain and second to last antagonist to Godzilla introduced in the Showa series, and still came after Ghidorah in sequence in the Heisei, Millennium and Monsterverse series. Godzilla’s Reiwa series adapted Mechagodzilla before Ghidorah, and after Ghidorah and Rodan had to share Yamazaki’s first Godzilla the Ride, before Mothra has gotten any treatment from Yamazaki, Mechagodzilla gets the second Godzilla the Ride to himself to explore his fight against Godzilla. (This is especially significant because it took until 2002 for Mechagodzilla to be the only other kaiju/mech Godzilla interacted with in a film, and that has still only happened once since then.) Similarly, the first kaiju/mech to interact onscreen with both Godzilla and Kong was Gorosaurus, but the second one and first in an American film was Mechagodzilla, with Mothra next and Ghidorah and Rodan still not having achieved this. Despite making the least sense in the real world, a mechanical version of Godzilla has the smallest buy-in of any concept.

My own personal ranking based on enjoyment would be 1. Rodan, 2. Ghidorah, 3. Godzilla, 4. Mechagodzilla, 5. Mothra, but as I hope I have justified sufficiently, this is almost meaningless to say. If I do videos or later blog points following up on my Godzilla kaiju ranking, the most productive next step would be to rank the incarnations of each of the Big Five against each other, ranking the top 20 Ghidorahs for instance. And that should wait until after Minus Zero comes out for the sake of being thorough.

Expanding the Big Five into a Big 10 or Big 15 is something numerous people have tried to do, and I am still not sure that I have succeeded, but hear me out. Box office appeal is the primary metric for the Big Five, and so, logically movie attendance in Japan should be a consideration for expanding the Big Five, in which case the top 10 films are King Kong vs Godzilla (12.55 million), Godzilla 1954 (9.61 million), Godzilla Raids Again (8.34 million), Mothra vs Godzilla (7.20 million), Shin Godzilla (5.69 million), Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster (5.41 million), Invasion of Astro Monster (5.13 million), Godzilla Minus One (5.04 million), Ebirah: Horror of The Deep (4.21 million) and Godzilla vs Mothra 1992 (4.20 million) (https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/1o75xmh/godzilla_series_japanese_box_office_charts/).

In addition to the Monsterverse’s US and international appeal, KKvsG’s top placement means we can certainly keep Kong in the 6th slot, and while this list keeps Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan pretty central, Anguirus’ debut film is in the top 3. I am hesitant to give Anguirus a slot here because he is not that popular in Japan (especially compared to Baragon, who, in turn, is less popular in the US), but he has been in as many films as Rodan and serves a similar role as “dinosaur inspired friend to Godzilla,” and he is the only one we can promote from this data. (For the American side of things, Anguirus has an almost cameo in the Monsterverse where a skeleton with his head appeared in Godzilla’s temple when it exploded, and Anguirus won the 2024 Toho Kingdom Hall of Fame vote, beating out Hedorah and Gigan.)

If we adjust and take out the films that only featured members of the Big Five, the top 10 films are KKvsG, Godzilla Raids Again, Ebirah Horror Of The Deep, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Son of Godzilla, GMK, Godzilla 2014, and Godzilla vs Biollante, but GvB is about the point where we are getting into box office disappointments. This list confirms my other suspicion that the Son of Godzilla character, be it named Minilla or Godzilla Junior, is important glue in the franchise, so the 7th place spot I have earmarked for him stays (Anguirus being number 8). Put a pin in Spacegodzilla, Destoroyah, and Biollante for a moment; it makes more sense to get back to them after another Toho Kingdom indulgence. In a poll from 2020 with over 100 votes as to which kaiju should be considered the next five in a Big 10, Anguirus earned first place with 22 votes, Gigan second place with 20, Minya 12 (but Godzilla Jr 3 so our combined Son of Godzilla archetype gets 15), then Baragon with 11, Destoroyah 8, Biollante 7, and that is enough for the sake of this discussion.

Gigan is another strong contender for a Big 10. He first appeared prominently in a film featuring King Ghidorah (though low attendance overall, it is the highest attendance of the Champion Fest era of the Showa series) and then got a direct sequel (kind of) and multiple appearances on Zone Fighter. The addition of Godzilla and Gigan together into Jet Jaguar vs Megalon and Zone Fighter indicates that, at least of the available suits, Toho considered them the quintessential hero and villain…for at least one year in the 70s. Gigan was prominent in Godzilla Final Wars, but there was no Heisei appearance, and the other continuities of Gigan have been in expanded multimedia material similar to Viras in the Gamera series. Still, multiple creatives working on the Monsterverse have voiced desire to bring Gigan into the universe, and the various repaints of Gigan are carrying the Godziburst toyline on their back, so the number 9 spot going to Gigan seems fair to me.

On April 10th, 2021, there was a Japanese popularity ranking, surveying modern favorites in the franchise. With 5730 votes and a two-week survey period, this is the most objective of the sources I have brought into this investigation today. The top ten films according to a modern audience (which should thus influence a modern Big 10) were Shin Godzilla (914 votes), Godzilla 1954 (662 votes), Godzilla vs Destoroyah (655), Godzilla vs Biollante (645), GMK (288), Godzilla Final Wars (274), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (212), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (208), Mothra vs Godzilla (202) and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (183).

The Heisei series has been integral to Toho’s internal marketing of the character ever since they came out, and its new creatures Biollante, Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah deserve consideration for the last spot because even with no reappearances (yet), they have greater staying power than the Millennium kaiju (Orga and Megaguirus). GMK’s position vindicates Mothra and Ghidorah’s popularity, but also implicates Baragon as a profitable asset, and it is probably fairest to have Anguirus and Baragon share the number 8 spot, because where one is popular, the other is an afterthought basically. It is very difficult to narrow down who of the three Heisei kaiju should get that lost slot. The Monsterverse would otherwise be a kingmaker, but I do not really know if the confirmed impending revival of Spacegodzilla in Godzilla x Kong Supernova matters as much to the overall state of the franchise. Toho is introducing the eight new monsters this month before the new Spacegodzilla has the chance for so much as a trailer, and IF Toho truly does intend for the winner of the contest to be a new franchise mainstay, they would supplant Spacegodzilla here.

Biollante and Destoroyah each have interesting rhetorical situations, Biollante being the result of a similar contest that actually also inspired the Ultra series kaiju Leogon, while Destoroyah was the (retconned) logical extension of the Oxygen Destroyer and also went through several drafts that would have seen him interact with Anguirus. Godzilla vs Biollante is consistently a critical darling in Japan and America, and I would give Biollante the edge just for having half the theatrical attendance of Godzilla vs Destoroyah but as much, if not more, staying power.

So, with these next five, I would rank them a little differently. Kong should really have his own ranking inclusive of his opponents, but Son of Godzilla includes Minya, the three different suits for Godzilla Junior, Zilla Jr, Godzilla Filius, etc, so that would be its own post or video, as would the different incarnations of Anguirus. I will just rank the rest now. I like Biollante more than Destoroyah, but then Gigan, Spacegodzilla, and Baragon.

There are, of course, a few more secondary kaiju in the franchise: Ebirah, Kumonga, Kamacuras, Hedorah, Jet Jaguar and Megalon had multiple appearances across films, series or official shorts. And Titanosaurus, Orga, Megaguirus, the MUTOs, Skar King and Shimo are still prominent in their own films. The tertiary kaiju and Toho expanded catalog would add Varan, Moguera, Oodako, the giant lizard, the Giant Condor, Shukra, Momagon, The Griffon, Sanda, Gaira, Frankenstein, and so, so many more. That would be its own video to parse. Let us know which of those you would like to see first (a video ranking the incarnations of Ghidorah, the same video but with a kaiju the caliber of Anguirus or a wild obscure ranking like what half of my Gamera kaiju picks were).

In the meantime, we have a new bottom eight with the potential of rising stars, so let us go through the new contenders, knowing that they will either rise to the top of our lips or die in obscurity like Firelion and Lightning Bug.

Though this post is technically more about grouping the different Godzilla kaiju than ranking them, I still did include my best guess of the order of importance of the Big Five as well as my own ranking of the major stars. As we know little about these new kaiju, the order of importance seems to be their billing on the website and the order their silhouettes were first revealed. This is like how, in my Gamera ranking, I had to rank Vaora, Sohra and Bodera fairly low, as I only had access to their designs in a still image. So, the objective ranking is Gigasecto, Candyroy, Gilx, Sagius, Xenolhu, Madomuh, Minacias and Rigedoh, but, for fun, I will introduce them to you in the opposite order.

Rigedoh is ostensibly a triceratops but resembles a roided up fusion of Godzilla Evolved, Shimo and the Ultra series kaiju Gomora. Rigedoh thawed out of ice, due to global warming, and went through an evolution into its final form, per the information provided on the election website. A whole movie’s worth of context already exists just leading up to Rigedoh using his Dino Trident energy move against Godzilla, so I voted for Rigedoh rather early on in this election process (the first block of voting allows one vote per day between September 16th and October 4th, at which point the top 4 advance to midterms). I like Rigedoh, and I could see him as a suit very easily, but I kind of hope he does not win.

Still, we must recall that the most likely Godzilla for these kaiju to face is Burning Godzilla 2000, and I must admit that a jagged, spiky Burning Godzilla in black and orange would contrast nicely with a muscular, spiky white and pink triceratops. I also appreciate the recent trend of bringing herbivore kaiju into the fray with Therizirus in Ultraman Omega being a Therizinosaurus. I have not voted for Rigedoh a second time, but my second vote was for him.

My fourth vote overall was for the 48 meter ancient mecha Minacias, which resembles a thorny unicorn. Evidently, it was the peacekeeping guardian of an ancient prehistoric society that they used as a weapon, which wiped them out (bringing to mind Heisei Gamera and Gyaos). Upon its awakening, it passed judgement on modern day weapons testing, misconstrued Godzilla for a weapon of destruction and sought him out to make an example of him. In this case, it feels like the “movie pitch” here necessitates Godzilla, especially as its ‘Electric Damned’ unicorn electricity could beam clash with Godzilla and would effectively target the infrastructure Godzilla would not attack (siphoning energy from communication networks and causing total electrical gridlock). The spindly appendages make this difficult for me to visualize as a suit, but the silhouette is strong; of all the creatures here, I recommend flipping through the front, back and side profiles provided most of all.

I have joined consensus in declaring that Madomuh is the least unique, clearly just a copyright-able version of Cthulhu (Xenohlu, who we will get to, takes the concept of an eldritch horror interacting with Godzilla to a more fresh place), but Cthulhu vs Godzilla has always been a popular match-up that I would not mind seeing, and Toho inevitably was always going to make their own Cthulhu for this match-up to make money. Madomuh has arisen from the sea, following a period of dormancy, to re-establish itself as a ruler of earth. It can brainwash other lifeforms, is 50 meters tall (these new opponents range from 40 to 60 meters for the most part), and has a self-destructing mutagenic Grand Spore that can enter a creature to bring it under Madomuh’s control.

So far, Xenohlu is especially popular in the West, and even though I voted for it only third, this is probably my favorite to win and favorite overall. It has telekinesis, causes hallucinations and arrives, seeking out Godzilla out of a “sinister curiosity” about Godzilla’s atomic breath. This is easily the most bizarre and alien concept, as its Abyss Gaze uses a giant eye to override a person’s willpower and disintegrate them. Also, Xenolhu can fly by warping reality with his tentacles. This is almost too inventive to waste on a short film, but the odds of a feature film from a visionary director featuring this kaiju is next to nothing if he loses the poll I would think, so I still hope he wins. Starfish squid is how I would describe this design, and I think they could realize it in suitmation pretty similarly to Pestar from the Ultra series. The 58-meter height also makes Xenolhu more imposing than Madomuh, and the marquee value of “Godzilla vs Cthulhu" is present no matter which of the eldritch abominations wins this election.

Sagius is the other mecha, with the general shape being a cross between the Gamera monsters Iris and Legion, as is the centaur to Minacias’ horse. It was seemingly made to fight Godzilla and has drones that can come off its back as well as a variable maser attack from its chest or from its drones in an array. I would wish to actively campaign against Sagius making top 4, because it is a less cool version of the scrapped Asuka Fortress Mecha Mobile Facility with tentacles and smaller ancillary robots. I still voted for Sagius out of the interest of fairness, but I would not do so again.

Gilx feels like a Spacegodzilla offshoot concept, an extraterrestrial world destroyer that goes to earth to seek Godzilla’s energy (that already has Godzilla’s general build just with Ghidorah inspired features, in this case twin tails, and if he gets his hands on Godzilla’s energy, I suspect he would assimilate him further). Gilx’s goal with Godzilla’s energy is to destroy Earth with a beefed-up version of its Planet-Destroying ray. This is a cool enough monster and seems perfect for a short film (as opposed to a feature), but I find it weird to make Godzilla’s big 70-meter opponent that weighs over 40,000 tons only capable of destroying Earth by using Godzilla’s power. Godzilla’s victory would be ensured in the premise if his power exceeds Gilx’s already.

Though I cannot verify this, I have heard that Candyroy is especially popular in Japan, and I can see why. A Hedorah type creature composed of candy wrappers in this huggable exterior is the most “late Showa Ultraman” coded thing imaginable, and it satisfies the itch for Hedorah to return in a suitmation format while not making a CGI reimagination irrelevant. Candyroy is exceptionally weird. He looks like Alien Zamu but with a Hedorah skin texture and ranges from 0 to 55 meters. Like Hedorah, he came from space but assimilated an earthly pollution problem upon arriving. Still, like Hedorah, he seems to be a powerhouse, able to turn him body partially into particles to make a Particle Cannon shockwave or turn his arms into swords. Candyroy is neat, and I would like to see him in something. Now may be his best chance, but I figure if he makes it top four, he still has a chance to appear later on down the road.

Gigasecto was my first vote in this race, because I think he was one of the better concepts, and leading with him in the marketing tied my hands. If, after reading this whole article, Gigasecto still grabs you, then he has a unique appeal that could lead to him landing top 4. I certainly hope so, though he may be too close to Megalon (Megalon appeared in Gemstone’s Godzilla Day short in 2023, so we could do without Megalon lite this soon after). This is a detailed beetle design with six limbs and a tail, and he spent 65 million years feasting on nutrients in the Amazon rainforest before sensing Godzilla and becoming territorial. Like Megalon, his backstory could make him the lesser or greater of two evils, and if we are drawing from Megalon to make Gigasecto, I think it would be neat if Gigasecto and Gilx develop an inexplicable friendship. The Sonic Blade attack seems a little bit out there if it truly is a “vacuum blade that slices through spacetime,” but Megalon’s firepower was on par with that of King Ghidorah, so I should not complain too much. The four arms would make for interesting grappling choreography as well.

Well, that is the overview of the Godzilla kaiju as best as I can group them. Let us know if you agree with my drafts for the Big 10 and which of those Big 10 you would like to see ranked individually first. Also, let us know which, if any, of the new eight kaiju appealed to you in the comments below. Stay tuned for more kaiju coverage from a variety of angles in a variety of styles.

The Spider Woman Strikes Back not a bad late Universal horror

2026-09-07T13:48:21.184-07:00

I've been watching the free Internet Universal Monsters Channel of late (Xfinity 4135) and in between some dull and boring 21st century horror flicks, the UMC shows a healthy selection of the vintage Universal horror movies. Universal's run peaked in the mid '40s and the films essentially were better produced and written "poverty-row" horror types. They were on their last legs.

A lot of these mid '40s films are on the UMC. I had never seen 1946's The Spider Woman Strikes Back. But I'm a fan of Gale Sondergaard, who was pretty good in a couple of Universal Sherlock Holmes films. This film is 59 minutes and I wasn't expecting much. It's a slight film with a kind of "let's-wrap-things-up-quickly finale." However, it was a pleasant surprise: a not bad film with a good plot, fine acting and a generally creepy, suspenseful pace. And it also has the disfigured Rondo Hatton, Universal's dying horror star of the mid '40s. (Hatton suffered from acromegaly).

The plot: Sondergaard is Zenobia Dollard, a reclusive blind woman living in a mansion. Hatton is her scary looking mute servant, Mario. Starlet Brenda Joyce (also Jane in the Tarzan movies) is hired as Zenobia's assistant. Zenobia's had other assistants who have mysteriously left service. Although Mario takes some getting used to, things start well between the trio. But Joyce, (whose character is named Jean Kingsley) begins to have excessive fatigue, and sleeps too much.

What's happening is Zenobia (who is not blind) is siphoning blood out of Jean nightly, with Mario as her assistant. She feeds the blood to toxic plants, which eventually pollutes the milk. Cows are dying. Area residents get ill. The community is in an uproar wondering why this is happening. I don't want to give away the final reel. Other characters include Jean's boyfriend, Kirby Grant (Hal Wentley), who does some sleuthing for his beloved. Along with other townspeople, they begin to tighten the noose on Zenobia and Mario.

Sondergaard is excellent in the film, with a chilly politeness and solicitude that is increasingly sinister. Hatton was a poor actor, but in this film, he seems to show -- in his own way -- sympathy for Jean. He doesn't want her to die like the other assistants.

Sondergaard had previously played The Spider Woman in a Sherlock Holmes Universal mystery, matching wits with Basil Rathbone. Obviously, producers played on that in The Spider Woman Strikes Back. But they are not the same character, and there are few spiders in the film. The sharp dialogue and pacing provide tension, particularly when Jean is in the large mansion, at the mercy of Xenobia and Mario.

The film plays like a longer version of a superb TV show along the lines of Thriller, Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, or The Twilight Zone. It's largely ignored now although there was a recent Blu Ray release. It must have pleased viewers as a B feature in the late 40s.

Universal was soon to end their horror production. It became Universal International and made a string of flops until Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein became a bit hit. As mentioned, the Universal B horrors are tighter and more disciplined than Poverty-Row films. But it's the chaotic, slapdash scripts of films such as The Corpse Vanishes or The Ape Man that make these cheapie films more popular today; not to mention the iconic Bela Lugosi starring in many.

But give The Spider Woman Strikes Back a viewing. I'll wager you'll enjoy it. You can watch the Universal Monster Channel here.

-- Doug Gibson

Amidst the Changing Tides an homage to Puget Sound's natural beauty

2026-09-01T11:26:03.013-07:00

Puget Sound is a beautiful 100 miles or so of interconnected marine waterways along the state of Washington. Its deepest level is 930 feet. Its average water depth is 450 feet. This reviewer has never enjoyed the opportunity to visit. However, I just finished an anthology, Amidst the Changing Tides: Stories from Puget Sound, that makes me want to explore its natural beauty.

The anthology is edited by Drienie Hattingh, who lives in Gig Harbor, Wash. (located on the shore of Puget Sound) Hattingh is a novelist and short story writer, and she has contributed to this book. Hattingh once lived in Northern Utah. This reviewer, although not associated with Amidst the Changing Tides, has contributed to several books edited by Hattingh.

There are 29 stories in the anthology, which includes beautiful drawings. All the stories are well edited and don't tax the reader with excessive verbiage. They provide up-and-close, often personal descriptions of life in and around the waters of Puget Sound.

My favorite offering was the story, "Senescence," by Shannon Lewis. It's a fascinating tale of the last day in the life of a giant Pacific octopus. The passages tell the tale -- incredibly -- from the perspective of the sea creature. It's a poignant story, respectful, as the octopus deals with impending death, the loss of appetites and comforts it has enjoyed for years. The climax occurs in a shallow stream as the octopus feels the warmth of the sun.

Although not a scary story, the style contained a sense of the ominous, a foreboding that I'm accustomed to reading in dark literature. I was not surprised to learn that Lewis is a published horror writer.

Another story I enjoyed, and learned a lot from, is Hattingh's "Stella and Mac," a brief but heartwarming true tale of two Canadian geese, mated for life, that return to the same tavern in the town every year since 2015, making their nest to hatch their eggs. As Hattingh notes, people come to the tavern just to be witnesses to this annual event. (I had no idea Canadian geese mate for life.)

"Sound Therapy," by Tammy Joy Lane, is an emotional story of an Iraq War veteran, a woman, struggling with depression and raising a family in the Puget Sound area, which has lots of rain and dark days. To deal with this, she embraces the area she's chosen as home, noting its beauty and charm through long walks and other activities. The climax of this story, of encountering a seal during a walk, is powerful.

"Fishing the Alaskan Waters," by Ken Malich, is a spare, matter-of-fact tale about the challenges, travel and stress involved in trying to make a living from the sea. There's no high drama in the passages, but I found myself immersed with the interesting details of fishing life. It's something I'll never experience, but I certainly respect.

As mentioned, there are 29 stories, lots of illustrations, and brief biographies. I recommend reading two or three a day. As you get to know these writers, you'll both learn a lot about and gain appreciation for life on Puget Sound, and the sea.

-- Doug Gibson

Backrooms vs Obsession vs Joe

2026-08-23T11:25:51.913-07:00

By Joe Gibson

I schedule my videos on our YouTube channel a long time in advance. This can cause problems when, for whatever reason, I am improperly prepared come recording day (though recent developments have mitigated that) or I notice a glaring irreconcilable issue with the premise of the video or the completed file does not sit right with me. Since I script out many of my videos, I have the option to do this and just redeem a half-baked video into a blog post in such cases, but it is still quite annoying to shuffle things around to fill that slot. This essay went through multiple iterations before its midsummer recording and subsequent forestalling to August and untimely scrapping.

When Backrooms came out, I watched it in theaters. A couple weeks later, I was able to watch Obsession because, frankly, for a good while, it seemed like that film would never leave theaters, as I then watched Obsession another time the week after that. I think of myself as a perceptive moviegoer, but as I learned when I tried to write a “First Impressions” blog post about either film, I didn't actually have that much to say about them, even up until I tried to put these thoughts in video format.

Up until my most recent rewatch of both films that sparked this iteration of the essay, (second for Backrooms and third for Obsession overall), I had resigned myself to the idea that I just have less to say. And that's a weird spot for me. I turned my disdain for the new Animal Farm film adaptation into a meaty blog post about Chairman Mao, but I had nothing to say about two new genre defining horror classics? Admittedly it took me a couple weeks to formulate my thoughts on Mao, in which time I probably should have done a rewatch of that film. As I mentioned, I now have rewatched both films with the capacity for pausing and most importantly, discussion with people more passionate about both these films than I am.

When you pair Backrooms with Obsession in a sort of cult film double feature, some cosmetic details about these films soar to the forefront of discussion. That works as a transition statement to the point I’m trying to raise, but it also is very possible that some of you have watched neither film or just one, so I am going to have to give some exposition about both films. So, I had a transition statement to skip over the exposition and then another sentence reintroducing the need for further context, is that a detransition statement? Good thing I didn’t finish this in June.

In Kane Parson’s Backrooms film, we follow Chiwetol Ejiofor’s character Clark in his job and to therapy and through his aspirations and frustrations. The Backrooms, as levels of misremembered locales of the real world, provide an opposite perspective to his therapist Mary’s specific brand of CBT. His tenuous connection with his employees, once he has been in the Backrooms long enough, destabilizes into a misanthropic borderline cannibalistic possession of others that he gets to exert over the Still Life copies of ambiguously random people. At the same time, the horror in the movie shifts from simple survival horror to psychological horror with a confrontation between Mary and Clark to a slasher v final girl chase of Mary and the main entity in the film to finally existential horror as Mary is still not safe as ASYNC may not let her leave their facilities in the Backrooms, which themselves have made a Still Life of her. Her backstory, given through flashbacks matches the mundane to the magical with her mother’s delusion in some ways foreshadowing the nature of the Backrooms.

On the other hand, Curry Barker’s Obsession is about a young man called Bar who pines for his coworker Nikki. It plays out as a Greek tragedy of old showing the story of Bar’s cowardice, or alternatively it functions as a modern style morality tale where Bar’s obsession leads him to cross a threshold into the Twilight Zone where he should have been more careful as to what he wished for. In any case, after failing to confess his feelings to Nikki on his own terms and even after failing to answer honestly when she asks him point blank if he likes her, his transgression in the story is wishing that she loved him more than anything in the world. That sounds rather benign, but the discourse surrounding the movie has honed in on the fact that if you actually describe what happens without the magic, they go drinking at a bar, Bar separates Nikki from their group and makes a choice that gets her to think she loves him without her being capable of coming to that conclusion herself. The question of if Bar is taking advantage of Nikki comes up multiple times, and from there on, Bar makes the worst decision possible at every single moment, not learning his lesson even through the end.

Upon a first watch, the horror comes from the tension of watching this new Nikki act not quite right, misunderstanding her social cues, manipulating Bar, snapping out of her role abruptly at times, and eventually murdering their other friends. Upon a rewatch or two, it becomes clear that the real Nikki is the more prevalent antagonist than the Wish Nikki that most stories of this premise would have you fear. Nikki’s suffering is still actually central to the film (both Nikkis but especially the real one that is fighting against the wish for the entire journey), and right at the end, Wish Nikki actually prevents Bar from making a climactic decision of one last instance of cowardice.

From the midpoint on, Bar knows that his own death is the only thing that will break the spell, but he chickens out of shooting himself and instead overdoses on pills…but is about to vomit them out when Nikki wishes for him to love her. Not allowing your protagonist to make their climactic choice probably means something specific about the nature of the ways Bar and Nikki overwrite the other’s agency, but for the sake of this conversation, it may mean that they are coleads, especially since the final scare is Nikki coming back to consciousness in a situation with three dead bodies she has no way of talking her way out of. (Behind the scenes, Bar’s actor added in the final cowardice from the character, noting the pattern that Bar would do that because he had not grown at any point in the film.)

What I’m trying to say here is that if I show you two films where a relatable yet mentally unstable lead crosses a magical threshold that ends up causing the suffering of a leading lady who also has claim to the protagonist label and ends up outliving him, then those are the details we have to focus on in that conversation. Furthermore, the mental states of the lead characters are inextricably tied to the horror in a way we can't really ignore when comparing them. Clark wishes for a different world order based on warped memories of the past, and this manifests as the uncanny Backrooms and the Still Life copies it makes of him, Mary and random other people. Bar is an awkward, anxious coward who wishes for the girl he likes to love him under terms he decides and tries to modify to his comfort, which manifests as a new personality supplanting Nikki that is even worse at emotionally regulating than Bar is. So internal or external uncanny doppelganger replacement. At the same time, Nikki’s erratic nature while under the spell resembles her prior instances of drug use, which furthers the allusion to date rape. If you watched the movie and doubted that the date rape analogy works as an objective correlative throughout, rewatching the movie helps with that, because Bar never actually wants to release Nikki from his spell; he just wants a more palatable Wish Nikki and will draft any spell he can to get there.

Both films ambiguously include some thinking entity behind the magic. If the Backrooms is misremembering the real world, to what end, why and how? Is it something related to the mysterious Ivan Beck or do The Backrooms exist from something deeper and older than humanity and the experiments that unlocked it? This will sound weirder out of context, but Wish Nikki’s prose about Hansel and Gretel sleeping together implicates an older figure teaching them how to sin together, which is significant because the reveal that Nikki saw Bar as a brother comes out around that time in the movie, and if we thread these plot points, the similar sense of humor, cadence and casual sadism in the speech of Wish Nikki, the two (or possibly one trans) retail worker and the Curry Barker cameo helpline could point to some entity behind the wishes controlling these people.

Under this framework, I have felt confident in labeling both Clark and Bar as Tragic Heroes, and if you have followed the discourse online surrounding Obsession, you will know that that is an excellent way to get yelled at. So, I should clarify. Though the Oedipus type Tragic Hero is a good person whom fate and duty screw over, that is not indicative of all or even most of the Greek Tragic Heroes to say nothing of the waves and waves of literary Tragic Heroes that have come since. Framing a story around a person’s fatal flaw that destabilizes the world around them and ruins their life is enough to make that person the “Tragic Hero.” Add back in the fact that Greek tragedies often stipulated condemnation from heaven or the extant magic system, and the ways that the Backrooms eat Clark alive and final wish overrides Bar’s autonomy (after the seeming hive-mind of wish users that talk in the same cadence pass judgement on him) click neatly back into the Greek model.

A Tragic Hero is not the same as a hero because usually the tragedies about each Greek hero cover the period of time where they stopped being virtuous and fell to their flaw. Creon, in Antigone, is a great King making the decision he thinks is best for his kingdom, but he goes against the gods and enforces his will in such a cruel and obstinate way that not only do you root against him but almost his entire remaining family kills themselves directly because of his actions. Ajax, son of Telamon, is one of the greatest heroes in the Trojan War, who valiantly defends the Greeks and does not live long enough to participate in the major war crimes at the end. Sophocles’ play about him is a character study about that time he went crazy with envy over not getting Achilles’ armor and tried to murder his friends before killing himself. The actions of Odysseus in most of the tragedies written after the Odyssey, whether they result in his own death or not, are highly suspect and very unsympathetic.

I should not take it personally, but I am still quite annoyed at how many people have told me I am wrong for calling Bar in particular a Tragic Hero just because they can’t fathom old, established literary terminology being more complicated than a simple binary. The best rebuttal I got to that point is that it is weird to stick to the Greek standards and not the more recent ones, but we see a similar pattern anyways. Macbeth, Rambo (First Blood part 1 specifically), Eren Jaeger and Anakin Skywalker (prequel era specifically) are all war heroes in the backstory, but the main story shows how their flaws lead to their fall from grace as they eventually lose their status or humanity. There is technically a trend of sanitizing our tragedies in recent Western media, as the infinite ending variations of Chess fall on a scale of depressing to bittersweet to happy based partially on how moral Anatoly feels during the final match, but Greek tragedies also sometimes had happier endings that avoided the logical punishment (at least for Medea) so I think the Greek model is still applicable to almost every wave since because of how scattershot it was in the first place.

I have thought long and hard about how I would actually define the villain of a story, when considering that they could be either the main antagonist (Voldemort), protagonist (Light Yagami), the main antagonist’s boss (Palpatine or the old wizard archetype) or an incidental cameo (Satan in the Gospels), and I have settled on the main evil character as my definition. If the character fits those criteria as the principal of the evil characters or the evilest of the main characters, then I call them “The Villain.” This, of course, does not preclude Duumvirates or Triumvirates, and it somehow results in Sean Renard being the Villain of Grimm with The Royals, Black Claw and Zerstörer as mere seasonal antagonists, but it works the best for the most amount of stories I have encountered. Bar fits that criteria by the way. I am not disagreeing that Bar is the villain; that is self evident, and what we should focus on is how the story positions his downward spiral as the impetus for a horror movie. I refuse to bear any more lectures from people who define villain as main antagonist, somehow think that Bar qualifies as the main antagonist (instead of protagonist) and do not realize that Tragic Hero does not mean good guy. The online conversations about this movie are insufferable, but the in-person ones have been edifying. If you will still find issues with my definitions here, let us talk this out rationally.

One issue I have with Backrooms that is actually quite sizable is that I do not fully buy Clark’s descent into madness because it feels like there are about two scenes missing from his arc between when the Still Life corners him and when he has moved in with them and started eating them. The Backrooms bring out the worst parts of Clark, that is self-evident, but his fall from grace does not necessarily track as smoothly for him to fall as far as he does as quickly as he does. The villain of the movie is still technically the Captain Still Life, because Clark killing people and eating Still Life are behaviors coded to the Captain, not him. Clark comes off as too reasonable with his employees for his murderous and cannibalistic turn to come off as foreshadowed in the first two acts; the solution is to add in more moments where Clark mooched or controlled the other characters. (If this is confusing, just think back to Halloween Ends. Michael's evil is what infects Corey, Corey's villainy is coded through Michael, and Michael outlasts Corey. Ergo, Michael is The villain and Corey merely a tragic hero.) Now, a while ago, A24 announced that they will put the movie back out with 15 additional minutes, and that pissed me off because clearly it was missing those the whole time. Then, it came out that the additional 15 minutes was done in blender, which is how Kane did his web series of the Backrooms for the monsters and Hazmat suit ASYNC employees. And, finally, that version of the movie came out, and (according to Variety) the extra 15 minutes was essentially one of Kane’s YouTube videos just exploring one of the hallways from the film, so there is no complete version of this story. It doesn’t make the movie bad; it just holds it back from near perfection. I should note, upon this most recent redraft of these thoughts, that stories such as Euripedes’ Herakles introduced a fit of madness right at the end for Herakles to kill his family. There is better and more subtle foreshadowing in the third act of Backrooms, and if you choose to read into the possible identities and dynamics the shown Still Life have, you get hints towards some further characterization for Clark. If you choose to believe that the redheaded Still Life woman is the copy of his wife or at least represents his wife to him, it helps but is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

On the topic of Obsession’s character study, there is something interesting about Bar that creates the same ambiguity surrounding his intentions and mental state that the film blatantly displays for its dichotomous Nikkis. At the start of the film, his cat Sandy overdoses on prescription pills. I initially thought the pills were his own and that Bar was short for Barbara, and his friends only called him Baron out of trying to play into his own masculinity issues. Furthermore, I thought the mention of his grandmother early on was only to set up that Wish Nikki might have interpreted them sleeping together in grandmother’s house into her fairy tale inspired prose. Apparently, the pills belonged to his grandmother Barbara, which I could do without for the sake of this tragedy, but it does not really matter. Bar clearly needs some kind of counseling and medication, and whether he is on prescription pills or just has a family history of problems necessitating them does not change much.

In any case, in that first scene, he finds that Sandy has eaten the pills with her food, and this serves to foreshadow some plot beats later on. He wants to stay home and mourn Sandy, but Nikki tells him to come to the bar and he comes. He also explains that it hasn’t really set in yet, the death. That scene justifies a later one when Wish Nikki murders Sarah in front of him, and he is visibly not processing it in the moment and folds when Nikki tells him they have to hide the body. His central flaw of cowardice used the same way to show escalating stakes.

Where this gets interesting is that the bottom of the pill bottle says not to eat the pills, which is an odd label to put, and we never actually see Sandy knock the pill bottle down. Bar is not aware of leaving the pill bottle out, but considering that this whole movie exists to document Bar’s inability to take responsibility for anything while he selfishly focuses on his obsession, his inability to see that his negligence would kill his cat is a good visual metaphor. Tragedies (often) have prologues, an initial monologue or primer, but this could also go further if you will permit the tinfoil hat (this is still much less of a stretch than many of the popular fan theories out there about either film).

Now once Nikki is under the spell, she wakes up at the slightest provocation as part of the codependence…except for one scene. When Bar is texting Sarah right before Nikki wakes up and kills her, the real Nikki comes to the surface begging for Bar to kill her because the fake one is sleeping. But Bar has time to carry on a whole conversation with her and put on clothes and leave with the fake Nikki asleep. When Bar talks with Sarah, he says he has sleeping pills in his pocket, which is such a weird detail to include because he never uses those pills again, wasn’t wearing those clothes in bed and has no real reason to bring it up. Taking all that together though, it really seems like the film is saying that he drugged Nikki, but he was still scared she would notice him leaving, which suggests he might not be aware he drugged her. And if that’s the case, then that would further justify the suggestion that he left his pills out for the cat in some kind of fugue state. As far as we can tell, the magic in the film is objectively real in-universe and not the result of his delusions. At the same time, the film juxtaposes his feelings with fake Nikki’s, and the ambiguity of the title could be describing his own obsession and not the one he creates. If we accept that he unintentionally killed the cat and drugged Nikki, then his obsession also led him to act erratically, snapping back between two understandings of awareness, and the film is trying to see if we will ignore that for a cowardly man but not a “hysterical” woman. Nikki has a better excuse for her actions in this film. As my subsequent conversations with other viewers has uncovered the realization that her intentions are far less ambiguous than I realized, the pattern seems to be that after seeing her reflection, the real Nikki can surface to try and hurt Bar or herself, after which point the Wish version goes and overcompensates. I prefer the ambiguity, especially since Wish Nikki’s hands aren’t clean of blood entirely given the Sarah incident, but knowing the actual dynamic clears up Nikki’s behavior throughout the film, which is an important step towards giving her back her voice in this story. (This is why Nikki has, I believe, nearly equal claim to the label of protagonist.)

Now, which film is better? Obsession. I think it’s obviously the better film. I’ve already highlighted the ways I find the writing to be tighter and more intricate, but I think it is closer than it might seem. I have Backrooms at like an 8 out of 10 personally, and Obsession, while better, is still below a 9. Both films have excellent directing and superb acting; Chiwetol Ejiofor was amazing in particular. And on the finer levels of cinematography and color grading, both films used darkness more effectively than most modern larger studio films. You can still see what is going on, just not as much as you would like to, some of the details blacked out to make it scarier. Many blockbusters annoyingly use a black and orange color scale very arbitrarily, but Backrooms slipped into that naturally to escalate the fear in a scene by juxtaposing the usual white and orange aesthetic of the Backrooms. Naturally, this is another area I do not feel confident speaking on outside of these vague statements, so I have had difficulty articulating this in the prior drafts, and I do not even think I have done the best job now.

Obsession has better characters in my assessment because Mary, aside from her flashbacks, is static until Clark’s arc has run, Clark is less easily understandable than if the flashbacks had been his instead, and his employees really do not amount to much. Conversely, Bar has a layer of audience insert relatability that masks his darker tendencies initially, and his tragic fatal flaw becomes clearer over repeated views. Even though he is very passive compared to most tragic heroes (though I would apparently be remiss not to reiterate that as the main evil character, he is the villain), both versions of Nikki are actually active enough participants in the plot to push it forward as the real Nikki is behind all of her self-harming in a desperate effort to escape her torment. Sarah and Ian are also more complicated characters than I can break down into a single sentence. They have some great characteristics and other flaws that led them to fail to save Nikki. Really, the area that holds Obsession back from a 9 or 10 is worldbuilding.

Frankly, it would work better if Bar slipped into the twilight Zone momentarily to make this wish instead of the One Wish Willows existing in the world for anybody to buy. As I have mentioned, the corner store employee(s) and Curry Barker customer service cameo speak in the same cadence and tone as possessed Nikki, which seems to imply some hive mind entity is behind these wishes. That raises many questions. Furthermore, no other character in this movie has ever used a wish until Bar makes them aware of it despite the fact that they probably would since Bar did. Ian instantly wishes for a billion dollars once he gets one, and Sarah’s whole subplot revolves around her wish to get into a good school.

The school she wants finally sends her a letter right before Nikki kills her, but Bar opens it after, and the envelope doesn’t disappear which means that Sarah earned that spot in her school instead of wishing for it. More sad, sure, but it comes at the cost of justifying the plot mechanic of a widespread wish toy. There is actually debate on that point; apparently the ink smudges in the letter. If it takes hours after Sarah’s death for her wish to gradually come undone, but Bar’s death instantly breaks his wish, that is contrived. What is worse is that the fix of having the letter instantly disappear would just remind Bar of the willows, which he follows up on in the next scene, so the only reason for that contrivance to be there is to make it seem like Sarah didn’t use a wish.

Nikki of course gets to wish for Bar right before his pills kill him, so she never used one either even though she wanted to leave her job, find love and be able to write peacefully, three things that would each make for good wishes for her to try. In terms of other common wishes, we see that homeless people still exist, the world hasn’t ended, etc so the mass marketability of these one wish willows is superfluous and just weakens audience immersion. I understand that Curry Barker has plans for a limited series or sequel exploring other wishes, but the history of the world playing out the same when one wish willows exist is an insane backstory ask. The Backrooms can slot into the Greek myths of the Labyrinth, but the idea that no fringe politician wished an extreme agenda through or a controversy away is impossible. Kane already accounted for the Backrooms opening late into Earth’s history though, if we factor in his YouTube series which gives a distinct unfair advantage for worldbuilding.

Backrooms is still set within Kane’s web series, I think pretty early in the timeline, so the main questions left after the movie are the ones that already existed. That said, the movie does bring in the concept of multiple levels of the Backrooms including a pool level, which was part of the original Backrooms wiki and not something that I thought Kane could legally use. The entity in the film predates other entities in the series, and, though I was worried about possible overreliance on survival horror getting in the way of the existential horror of the Backrooms, I think it threaded that needle fairly well, though again, we are missing scenes of Clark to optimally ease us from the survival horror into the psychological and existential horror.

Sometimes, it is hard for me to write about certain films. Though Backrooms and Obsession are films we, as horror fans, will keep talking about for decades, I have been satiated by a few conversations already. It was conversations with people more enthusiastic about these films that got me to think harder about them and finish this post. As more time has passed, I maintain that Evil Dead Burn deserves a slot alongside these two films as a thought provoking 2026 horror masterpiece, but 2026 itself already seems like a return to form year for the cinemas (by return on investment if not quality). Though I can make no promises at this time, I think it would be productive to rank the 2026 films I've seen by the end of the year. Let us know if you would like to see that, and share your opinions on Backrooms and Obsessions in our comment section.

Novel takes us through the last, desperate era of Ed Wood's life

2026-08-18T16:26:30.343-07:00

The Valley Obscured By Smog, Bearmanor Media, 2026.

Alan Starkwell is a young college graduate, transplanted to Los Angeles in the latter mid-70s, with dreams of working in the movie industry. Alan doesn't have too many prospects. He has a degree in English. He thought he had a job as a script reader lined up, but his friend took the job from him. And he's crashing the same friend's pad with several others, including an ex-girlfriend who definitely is not interested in him anymore but sometimes hangs around the pad barely dressed.

Ah, the life of the educated young poor two generations ago ...

Alan, needing cash as soon as possible, has a potential job tossed to him, It's a publishing house. He hurries to the job and is hired on the spot by the owner Bernie Bloom, who says he needs a magazine editor. The business office has locks just about everywhere. Alan is assigned a windowless area to churn out copy all day long. The pay's low but there are bonuses if you write a book once a month.

Fans of the cult auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. will recognize the setting. It's a pornography publisher called Pendulum. Ed Wood spent much of his last several years there writing stories, novels, film captions, essays, screenplays, even directing. For $200 a week, Alan is expected to write fiction and non-fiction for the magazines. In these magazines the highest priority are photos, not text.

Alan can make an extra $800 to $1,000 a month if he can pen a porn book, preferably non-fiction sourced with a "doctor" of some sorts to lend legitimacy on topics such as sex between a husband and wife, or homosexuality, etc. There's even a library in the office with source material that Bloom has purchased. Dr. T.K. Peters, anyone? ...

Most of the staff is young, like Alan. Most are unmotivated, except an older writer, who keeps to himself. This guy, Ed Wood, likes to also occasionally work in women's clothes. He's dismissed and often chided by the staff. They shrug off his disapproval of their laziness, thinking him a tired, old drunk.

There's some truth to the "tired old drunk" moniker, but Alan -- not cynical, just skeptical -- finds the old man interesting. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Alan and Ed form a kind of team. Ed's been assigned to direct a movie, to be called "Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love." He has $7,000 to do it. He wants Alan as his assistant. Alan knows he's unqualified for the job but wants to be a part of any movie.

Alan becomes more of an assistant. He becomes a kind of minder for Ed, once a movie director but now an unreliable alcoholic hanging on to his job. Ed needs someone to care about him; make sure he gets out of bed, his apartment, and finishes the porn film. Ed's job depends on it.

W. Paul Apel has crafted a novel that provides readers a glimpse of what Wood's life was probably like in his final years. In my opinion, it's another addition to the surge of Ed-Wood related books the past decade-plus that -- read together -- provide a sort of biography of Wood's life, before and after, what occurs in the Tim Burton film, "Ed Wood."

I'll stop with mostly plot narrative. Writer Apel has created an accurate portrayal of Los Angeles/Hollywood of the '70s. He's placed the release of "Star Wars" in his time frame. Alan thinks Ed would be excited about this new blockbuster. Ed isn't but he does perk up a bit when Alan mentions Peter Cushing is in Star Wars.

Ed's dreams live in the past; but he exists in a hard, tough present where Imperial whiskey is most real to him

Apel's research is a plus for the reader. Scenes in the narrative derive from Rudolph Grey's classic oral biography of Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy. (A quick note: I wrote my NOE review when many of the myths of Ed Wood were still believed.) And Apel has clearly seen the many documentaries and read the growing list of books on Ed Wood, the Ed Wood Wednesdays blog from Joe Blevins, and Bob Blackburn's Ed Wood Jr. Facebook page.

Shannon Dolder, a young woman neighbor of Wood's in the infamous Yucca Street apartment complex in Hollywood Wood and wife Kathy endured, becomes in the novel a sort of pal to Alan. The late Dolder, who was part of the '70s and '80s LA punk scene, accompanies our protagonist Alan to a reading from poet/novelist Charles Bukowski, and meets rocker Keith Moon; both are fun interludes.

But when Alan and Ed frantically attempt to complete Necromania in a couple of days, contemporaries of Wood surface. There's Ed's wife, Kathy Wood. There's a phone call to Vampira who turns down a part in "Necromania." There's a lot of Criswell in the novel. They visit him and his eccentric wife. Criswell loans Wood a coffin and visits the movie set, which of course includes Hal Guthu, cinematographer and agent to adult actresses. Porn starlet Rene Bond, and her husband Rick Lutze, both in "Necromania," are in the novel. And there's a hilarious passage of Alan and Ed, after egocentric porn star John Holmes turns them down, sneaking out of the iconic Tail O' the Cock restaurant, stiffing Holmes with the cost of a steak dinner.

Ed Wood fans know, of course, that "Necromania" was filmed several years before 1977, the novel's time. But including the film in the narrative makes sense. It provides a central theme; Wood's economic survival, perhaps his life, depends on him finishing that film. Alan becomes a participant in that drama stress. The film also provides a more interesting center than the locked-up colorless Pendulum offices. There is one fun scene where cops raid Pendulum, which was a normal occurrence back then. (Much of the Pendulum offices scenes are recollections of the late Leo Eaton, who worked with Wood there, and Robert Cremer, biographer of Bela Lugosi who interviewed Wood in the 1970s.)

Apel has written a fast-moving, entertaining novel Wood fans will devour like a fine dinner with great dessert. But even those not aware of Wood's career can enjoy the novel if they come across it. It's an interesting tale of a young, penniless writer living essentially by his wits, grabbing the only job he can snag. And this writer finds a kind of mentor, old and weak, but with a backstory that turns out to be so interesting.

--- Doug Gibson

Apel's Amazon page is here. He's written a non-fiction book -- I Watched Football Early the Day I Died: The Lost Ed Wood Frank Leahy Screenplay -- based on an unproduced screenplay Wood wrote on the life of the legendary Notre Dame football coach. Apel is currently writing a book called Necromania: A Tale of Weird Lit -- The Pulp Fiction of Ed Wood. ... The endurance of Wood's 50 years-plus appeal and cult status is fascinating. It first peaked in the mid to late 90s, after Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy, Burton's film Ed Wood, various documentaries, and now-defunct genre magazines such as Cult Movies and Psychotronic Video. But the cult never went away. The past 12 years or so it's grown, along with a renewed interest in Wood's career post 1965. As mentioned, lots of valuable books, websites and Wood Facebook pages exist.

Watch a Plan9Crunch YouTube interview with author Paul Apel discussing The Valley Obscured by Smog.

Bearmanor Media link to novel is here.

Gauthier's Dracula Never Dies volume 2 scores another Rondo award

2026-08-14T11:34:20.403-07:00

It was no surprise that Christopher R. Gauthier's second volume of the planned Dracula Never Dies: The Revenge of Bela Vorlock, earned another Rondo award for the author. Just as it will be no surprise in the future, -- Gauthier completes the final volume of the trilogy -- when he wins another Rondo.

Here is our Plan 9 Crunch blog review of Gauthier's Volume 1 of the trilogy.

Here is our Plan9Crunch YouTube interview with Gauthier after Volume 2 was released.

The strength with any Gauthier art creation is the prose ... and the passion. I described Volume 1 as a "primal scream." Both books are a tale of a proud, talented actor, who has survived a lot, maintaining his dignity and honor despite cruel brickbats from fellow actors, smarmy film executives, arrogant critics, and a rather fickle public.

And actor Bela Vorlock eventually gets -- as the title says -- his revenge. In Volume 2 he even acquires a servant/accomplice, a sort of Renfield.

I wrote the following blurb for Dracula Never Dies: The Revenge of Bela Vorlock Volume 2:

"Savage, dark poetry defines the prose of Christopher R. Gauthier. Volume 2 continues the righteous revenge of a proud star against tormentors. You'll be under Gauthier's spell, reading long into the dawn. One sequence I particularly enjoy features Vorlock carefully preparing revenge for an evil critic who has slandered him for decades. It's brutal and savage, but justified. In Troyman, Gauthier has created a character as evil as Ellsworth M. Toohey from The Fountainhead.”

And I penned this review:

"Volume 2 of The Dracula Never Dies planned trilogy ups the horror from author Christopher Gauthier's tale of brilliant horror actor Bela Vorlock. On the streets of Los Angeles our protagonist takes revenge on the cruel establishment that persecutes him, including an arrogant, cruel critic.

Gauthier introduces a servant to Vorlock, who helps with his quest for accountability and dignity.

As with the first Volume, the book's prose is its signature strength. Gauthier is unmastered in presenting passion, anguish and retribution on pages."

Readers, this a darker, gothic tale in Volume 2. It exceeds the haunting darkness of Volume 1. However, the tone is very appropriate. Gauthier's talents with plot and dialogue make the events seem natural -- and even just.

The author has experienced a very challenging life. He is, as mentioned, a survivor. He battles adversity in the past and today, taking it one day at a time. The passion in the Dracula Never Dies series is as much as emotional response to life itself as much as the action within the pages.

This trilogy is wonderful tribute to Bela Lugosi. Dracula Never Dies: The Revenge of Bela Vorlock Volume 2, Arcane Shadows Press, 2025, will provide hours of dark, delicious horror for gothic lovers.

-- Doug Gibson

Heat Lightning is one damn good pre-code melodrama

2026-08-10T13:42:20.827-07:00

I must confess, I absolutely love watching early 1930s pre-code films on Turner Classic Movies. "Heat Lightning," 1934, is one of my favorites. These films could be rated PG or even G today but it's the adult dramas and themes in the films that panicked the short pants of the old-maid prudes of the Hays Commission way back then. And Heat Lightning was Aline MacMahon's first starring role. MacMahon was a great actress; heck, she'd be a big star in this era.

I am going to post a couple of 1934 reviews below. I know they are tough to read. I will then offer a brief review from me and add a couple more newspaper clips to go with the one above. Plan9Crunch thanks David Grudt of Long Beach, Calif., for digging through Newspaper Archives to find these old press gems.

OK, McMahon and co-star Ann Dvorak are Olga and Myra, sisters running a gas station on the old road through the hottest part of California (I always think near Baker, Calif.) but town is unnamed. At their station 110 degrees is a cool day. Olga is the protective older sister whose lived a lot. She won't let younger Myra go to a dance because she thinks young sister's boyfriend Steve is a bad guy.

A whole host of wonderful vintage stars are in the film. Jane Darwell and Edgar Kennedy are wonderfully comic as an old couple who stop by the station for a car repair. (Olga is also a mechanic.)

Two rich divorcees (Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly) breeze in to spend the night in rooms the station lets. They're with a world-weary chauffer (Frank McHugh). An impoverished Mexican family stays the night in their vehicle and sings at night. An old man called "Popsy" is traveling with two "cutie-pies" he picked up. The sheriff occasionally shows up.

Tension mounts when two men, George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot) stop for the night. It turns out George is a former boyfriend of Olga's (from her old days). The pair are actually robbers who have killed a man in Salt Lake City. They're heading for the border but George, despite a nervous Jeff, is determined to first steal the jewels the rich divorcees have placed in the station's safe.

I won't say any more about the plot's resolution, but I'll list the pre-code elements, and why the silly Catholic Legion of decency panned the film.

-- In one scene, one of the "cutie pies" (Muriel Evans) tells her friend, "Say, it's your turn to sit up front with that old thigh-pincher."

-- Divorcee played by Glenda Farrell is forced to take a bath outside. Her chauffer (Frank McHugh), a married man, keeps guard and later they are a couple.

-- Despite her reservations and distrust of George, Olga spends the night with him. George is seen leaving her room early in the morning.

-- Although it's only barely implied, younger sister Myra, who sneaks out to the dance with boyfriend Steve, is treated coldly by him when he returns her home; this despite her obvious affection. Her sobbing afterwards with Olga hints that she was seduced.

-- The resolution, not to be told here, has violence and a nontraditional opinion on crime punishment.

This is a melodrama with stereotypes, but it has that Warner Bros/First National heart, with all the great actors of that era. Preston Foster and Aline MacMahon generate attraction despite the latter's wish not to feel it.

This film pops up on TCM a few times a year. Enjoy a couple more clips below.

-- Doug Gibson

Ranking The Evil Dead Films With Evil Dead Burn

2026-07-29T10:57:55.801-07:00

By Joe Gibson

Over the last couple of months, I have dived back into the Evil Dead franchise in order to correspond with the release of its newest entry Evil Dead Burn. First, I ranked the films from memory on this blog, rewatched the original and 2013 ahead of Burn (that was how I knew the incantation in Burn was 2013’s; I do not have them memorized), watched Evil Dead Burn, uploaded my initial reaction to the film, gathered my thoughts for a more in depth review of Burn, blitzed through the remaining three films in my rewatch, ranked the main Deadites in each film on this blog and rewatched Burn (and AoD, 2013 and Rise again). Now, I intend to rerank the franchise, but that might be a bit more difficult than I anticipated. There is a visual gag in the manga One Punch Man where, during the climactic final showdown between hero Saitama and arc villain Garou, both of their power levels are increasing exponentially, just at slightly different rates. Upon this recent rewatch saga of every Evil Dead film, none of them got worse; I found new things to appreciate about each of them, but some are still better than others. Also, I am pleased to announce that after rewatching Evil Dead Burn in theaters, I finally have some conclusions about it including what the symbol of smoking means for the movie and its ending.

#6 - Evil Dead 2013

Yes, this film has technically both maintained its last place spot and even gone down a position, but, again, all of these films have increased in my estimations, just not all at the same level. Previously, I mentioned that I wanted something to make Evil Dead 2013 click back into place for me, and surprisingly enough, my rewatch of the original film is what did so. At each relevant plot point in the original, I could track along what 2013’s equivalent was in a way that proved how faithful 2013 really was.

Then, when I rewatched 2013, I realized that Olivia is actually a decent character for her little screentime, in some ways an improvement over Shelly, and David, though held back by his premature exit, actually has a pretty good emotional throughline with his character. (Evaluations of acting should be tabled in this franchise ranking, otherwise Rise and Burn are the best by default.) Really, every living character except Natalie is good in this film and some (Mia and Eric) are all time great characters in the franchise.

While I think the original film works in large part because of the chemistry the cast has, conflict is how the remake builds up its characters. Olivia gets bossier as the stakes raise, Eric is stuck between his unending adoration and justifiable bitterness for David (which could have come back in their final fight but didn’t), Mia loves David but harbors some resentment for his selfish patterns, and, as the main point of the film, through both her drug use and Deaditing, Mia says and does shocking things that hurt those near to her and herself. These characters either choose to stay by Mia even as she declines or they have already done so in the past. Using the Deadites to reflect the way Mia’s withdrawal causes her to hurt herself and say horrible things to her loved ones is a brilliant decision (were the film to commit to it).

Still, I stand by my criticisms of the film’s structure and its central themes. Showing off a Deadite in the opening scene kind of spoils the metaphor a little bit (the first film is a lot more subtle in showing the entity influencing the plot before it gains a human host, and more scenes like that in the remake would have helped ground us in Mia’s seemingly worsening withdrawal induced mental state), but the larger problem is that David’s arc leads to him finding a way to free his sister without killing her. For context, the cold open uses the trope of a grieving father doing what is necessary to put down his Deadite daughter, and the film treats that as the correct decision, not yet foreshadowing that it is possible to redeem a Deadite. (Unlike David, the father is not a good man trying his best without knowledge of what to do; there are literal experts with him that never explain that it is possible to cleanse a taken soul.) The arc of the designated hero through act one and two and deuteragonist overall is entirely divorced from the cold open, which otherwise serves no thematic purpose for the drug addiction metaphor or substantial plot importance. That is bad. As divorced as Jessica and her cousin in the cold open are from Ellie and Beth in Rise, it at least foreshadows their dynamic in a tangible way.

Also, while Mia works as an update of Cheryl, the other Deadites do not really serve any type of purpose in the film beyond self-mutilating and injuring Eric (or David in Deadite Eric’s case) for one scene before they die. The drug abuse analogy starts and stops with Mia. Olivia, Natalie and Eric, after their transformations, act more like zombies. What little dialogue Deadite Eric has exists to foreshadow the coming arrival of the Abomination, the boss battle that I had a difficult time wrapping my head around in my Deadite ranking.

The only way that the metaphor of ‘Mia battling the worst version of herself as the last step to getting sober’ functions on that level is if the Abomination has any investment in that journey, and while the film says that the entity is becoming Mia while corrupting her, there is reason to believe that the Abomination is not the same as Deadite Mia despite looking the same. They don’t act similar, and the Abomination seems much less intelligent in breaking its prey than Mia was. This would mean that the Abomination is just fishing around for its admittedly generic dialogue taunting Mia at the end, which makes it only meaningful for her. Again, David saving Mia is a good payoff to their story, but Mia’s victory against the Deadite symbolizing her addiction involves self harming in order to attack the being physically nearest to her, which is exactly what she did as a Deadite, so the movie drops the ball with its metaphor in a way Rise and Burn do not.

Overall, though this film is a meticulous remake of the first, I kind of regard it as a companion piece to Army of Darkness, going in the opposite tonal extreme and with a Deadite cast that amounts to “evolving doppelganger of the hero and its army of corpses”. The plot of Army of Darkness is so contingent upon its comedic tone outweighing logical consistency with the franchise rules, and if the main directive of Evil Dead 2013 is to have as much terror and blood despite the script, then it makes a bit more sense. In that framework, Evil Dead Rise matches with Evil Dead 2, as it is the closest of the newer films to that comedic tone (though still quite a ways away), and Evil Dead Burn reminds me a lot of the first film for its inventive grungy directing and black comedy (though of course Burn and Army of Darkness are the two films that feature a boss fight with specifically a skeleton). But we’ll discuss each of those films on their own a little later on. I no longer dislike 2013, but I also still feel weird grouping it with the rest of the franchise.

#5 - Army of Darkness

This movie is uniquely suited to make me feel as strong of joy as the scarier films can generate in terror, so it gets better every time. I watched many of the movies this film took inspiration from as a child, and so it still feels like something I have a deep attachment to even though I was too scared to watch it as a child. Still, I cannot in good conscience tear into the deeper subtextual storytelling of 2013 and not critically analyze Army of Darkness (which itself is also uniquely ill-suited for that).

The majority of the characters are simple archetypes, which is neutral. The Wise Man and Henry the Red are very simple features of this type of fantasy story, and though he looks like the love child of Scotty and Eric, the film only really starts to give Arthur some good material in the final act (when he becomes a pincushion like those two). After the procession of Ash and his clones, Sheila is the next most dynamic character, falsely blaming Ash for her brother’s death, falling for him, becoming Deadited and then returning to humanity very abruptly. That is among the issues in the plot.

Logically speaking, Sheila and Arthur should have fallen to the curse due to possession and damage taken, the ancient Brits of Castle Kandar should only barely understand Ash, his car should not work, the contrived presence of those textbooks in his trunk shouldn’t be sufficient for the battlements they make, Ash shouldn’t be able to swordfight a skeleton and his clone at the same time, etc. However, being a comedic action power fantasy, it has the best possible excuse for logical inconsistency of any genre: “it is both funnier and cooler if it happens this way.”

If you try to analyze the film any other way, which I have spent way too long thinking about, Ash losing his mind in Evil Dead 2 makes all of the repetition across the original trilogy more purposeful. If Ash’s fight against the Deadites starts to loop back in on itself into resembling the comedy shorts and films he likely watched as a child, then the fact that he saves a character that gets turned into a Deadite via rape (Cheryl) that is his love interest (Linda) and also saves a strong adversarial pincushion ally (Scotty) after venturing into a pit to fight a with Deadite (Henrietta) and fighting a miniature form of himself (hand) is so much more interesting. Bad Ash serves as a shadow to Ash in this film, taking on more and more inhumanity and ugly attributes as Ash softens more into a(n almost) traditional hero, and it works as interesting commentary on the fact that Ash causes most of his own problems but still solves them, always in a kind of battle with himself but losing other people along the way.

I think the ambition of Army of Darkness lands better than Evil Dead 2013’s (it’s better to excel at representing nothing but comedy and spectacle than fail to represent something important and complex), so it is an easier decision than last time to keep it in the spot above 2013 (again both films got better but one more so than the other), but I understand switching these two. I would not understand putting either of these films that much higher unless the list is more subjective than clinical, but I will hear out any arguments on the quality. I used to think Spider-Man 2 was far away Raimi’s best Spider-Man film and Spider-Man 3 the worst, but I eventually came to the conclusion that it was just a consistently good but flawed trilogy, and I think I could argue that given the time and space. I look forward to well-articulated opposing viewpoints.

The list from this point on was very difficult to sort, so have patience and grace for me. Even if this order is not your same, you may still agree with some of my rationale. And even if you disagree with the rationale, it is possible your list will be similar.

#4 - Evil Dead Rise

Yeah uh, this is lower than it was before, but, as I keep repeating, these films all got better upon a rewatch. This part is less a case of some getting better than others; these next few are essentially a three-way tie because it is very difficult to order these fairly. I want this film to be higher, but it is more important today for me to rehabilitate Evil Dead 2 and Burn. Let us discuss the good and the bad of Evil Dead Rise.

My criticism of the use of the high rise setting in Evil Dead Rise did not really pan out as well upon a rewatch for the simple fact that I compared it to the cabin across the first two films. It took the first film's tense exploration and the second film's frenetic chase scene to get a sense for that layout. Expecting one film to cover all of that ground was ill-advised. The high rise is a gimmick that allows for the inversion of certain scenes from the originals as I mentioned, but it also enables the forced proximity in a less invasive way than “and then the entity swallowed up a whole trail in the woods.” The high rise is a good setting, and the only weird parts are the convenient backstory with the bank and the slightly contrived inciting earthquake.

I find Ash and Alice more captivating than Beth, but as I have been trying to say these past few blog posts, the central relationship and rivalry of Beth and Ellie is the best written siblings to enemies in this franchise, remaining relevant to the plot and themes throughout the entire runtime. Beth and Ellie both have faced struggles the other hasn't known, and their reunion juxtaposes them so effectively. The Prodigal nature of Beth’s return and the sisters’ issues with their mother warrant its own essay at some point. The actors’ chemistry does the rest.

The theme of motherhood and motif of contrasting healthy and Deadite families are a bit more vague than the way Evil Dead Burn ties its Deadites so closely to the Price family's own toxic patterns, but that is neither a good nor bad thing inherently. Any metaphor is going to be at least a little imprecise, and locking your story too tightly into symbolism can result in avoidable literary misspeaks and confusion. Showing Beth the real Ellie's motherhood style and then a warped version of it is more impactful than having their dynamic be one thinly veiled metaphor, because there truly is infinite potential for how Beth could raise her children (heck, knowing this franchise, the one in her belly could turn out to be Ash via time travel shenanigans).

Pretty much every character is likable in their own way, and, yeah this is notably the first film in the franchise where absolutely nobody gives a bad performance (though there is some accent slippage and once you realize Lily Sullivan cannot scream, you can never un-notice that). The entire scenario is such a well-polished tribute to what came before. It is still possible for this to regain its second-place footing one day, just the next couple films impressed me almost equally.

#3 - Evil Dead 2

Evil Dead 2 has the best ideas in the franchise and among the best execution. Though it is easy to view this film as the most undiluted Sam Raimi directing in existence, there were some studio guardrails in play preventing as dark a tone as the first film (and if you think Army of Darkness represents his style the best, that was chopped to hell and had the ending changed depending on what you watched). This film is the best showcase for Bruce Campbell’s talents, and it has far and away the best Deadite cast, as I recently argued on this blog.

The recap opening is still a problem, replacing the friend group's chemistry with cliffnotes (that really weakens the payoff that Ash's love for Linda is so strong, he can unDeadite himself). Also, as I recently realized, the rest of the film largely plays out compatible with The Evil Dead (the Necronomicon doesn't show up again outside of those torn pages, the door takes on its appropriate canonical damage level fairly quickly, etc), but the recap still ruins that continuity. Still, largely, Evil Dead 2 acknowledges and builds on the first in some pretty key ways.

Annie, though her writing still leaves much to be desired, picks up on the dangling plot thread of the Knowbys, and she joins the cast as a knowledgeable character to bounce off a more experienced Ash. Her few moments of guile don't replace a deeper exploration of how she can move on from Ed so quickly, but it is something for her character which makes her better than Natalie and the third iteration of Linda. Ed is fine, but the first new Deadite of the group usually has more going on. Upon a rewatch, Jake was actually a standout character with an equally reasonable rivalry as Ash's other male counterparts Scotty and Arthur, and Bobby Joe's scene with the tree is at least more tasteful than Cheryl's (and also helps bridge the gap of the tree's journey from rapist to boss fight).

I still have issues with Raymond Knowby's ghost because the easy fix with that is to just have those instructions be on the recordings as well. It would hit harder for his, at first, objective account of the proceedings to become more and more personalized to his daughter as his sanity and life fizzle. His ghost briefly escaping hell to narrate instructions just still raises too many worldbuilding questions and makes him seem like a Chosen One more than anything. (I am now aware he is not the only ghost in this franchise, but he still is the only one shown off prominently in the movies, so my point still stands.)

This is still the film I show people to test the waters of getting them into this franchise, and I feel even more emboldened to do so, because the direction, effects and physical acting are exceptional for what they were working with and in general. I just think that the cause and effect in the script is weaker and, furthermore, that the more intense guardrails put on Raimi's vision compromise it a little.

#2 - Evil Dead Burn

This placement was difficult to come to but feels right at least for now. In some ways, this ranking is inevitably going to be subjective, and I am now encountering the issue I have with ranking with Scream where every sequel has equal but opposite flaws from the last that make them roughly equivalent in my eyes. (Aside from 7 and 3, every other Scream sequel got to enjoy second place in my rankings at least temporarily as I watched them for the first time.) I am disheartened to see the mixed reaction towards Evil Dead Burn, because, especially upon a rewatch of the franchise and then Burn itself, it fits in quite well while doing its own thing. To an extent, I now have a loyalty to this film and a vested interest in trying to get people to see it the way that I do. Part of that is communicating a feeling, and the other part is delving into craft. My enthusiasm doesn’t make the movie perfect; this is just the same thing that happened to me with The Last Voyage Of The Demeter if you watched that video on our channel.

The core of what makes every Evil Dead film special isn’t Ash, and it isn’t even Deadites; it is the sheer hunger and enthusiasm these up-and-coming directors have for the art of filmmaking, the way that they test out new shots and push extremes in multiple directions. From the first scene of Evil Dead Burn, I am once again seeing things I haven’t seen anywhere else in a movie (maybe that is because French extremity is a blind spot in my studies, but even if these shots have a precedent, bringing them into Evil Dead is a good decision). Sebastien Vanicek takes Jessica and the Deadites as a whole and makes them his own, while still paying homage to the franchise up to that point. Edgar is a little anomalous as he feels more like a Sinners Vampire (the less said about the dog, the better), but Thya is a classic Rise Deadite, Susan’s bathroom scene clearly took heavy inspiration from 2013, and Polly is exactly the kind of Deadite you would see on Ash vs Evil Dead. I’ve already talked about how Joseph Price becoming a Deadite works better and hits harder than Scotty and Eric’s Deadite scenes, and I’ve mentioned how the film inverts the primal fear of going into the dark cellar by having Alice have to go into the terror by going up through the levels of the house. What I want to talk about right now is the richness of the characters and the thematic value of this story.

One of the main criticisms of Evil Dead Burn is that the characters are unlikable, and, well if we are reductive enough, we say that about literally every cast in this franchise (likability is more related to charisma and acting talent, which Bruce Campbell gained between the first two films). Still, the criticism touches upon an intentional aspect of the movie; aside from Alice (who is basically just trying to survive), every other character has a severe negative trait that defines them in the story. Thya and the other Prices are clearly aware of the abuse Will inflicts on Alice but do nothing. (As that is Thya’s only real transgression, the story has less to do with her outside of turning her into a short-lived but memorable Deadite.) Joseph is notably a coward, likely due to suffering abuse from Edgar, though Susan matches Edgar’s sheer aggression with biting passive aggression (the first wound inflicted on Alice by her in laws is Susan judging Alice’s footwear, forcing her to change, lying that they are the same size, and not caring that the shoes are so small they hurt Alice). Grandma Polly, though a comic relief character with dementia, is xenophobic, instantly assuming that the ambiguously brown Thya is trying to steal her money and never accepting Alice (even trying to get Susan to kill Alice rather than convert the strong Frenchwoman into a Deadite). What makes these characters rich though is that the film takes the time to show the limitations of their central flaw before they fall to the curse.

Thya is, again, on the outs with the rest of the family. She is largely a sympathetic character and notably does not want to officially get married to Joseph because she thinks it would lead to Will and Alice’s level of fighting. (This likely means that Thya has observed a similar pattern in the other Price union between Edgar and Susan.) Thya is on the outs with the family, particularly the grandmother as I mentioned, and she is mainly trying to stay under the radar and avoid contention in the family. That explains her role in Alice's suffering perfectly sufficiently. Joseph has more going on though. His cowardice is on full display for the first act of the film, but when Deadite Thya attacks him, he brings himself to fight back and even finish her off. Throughout the rest of the movie, even through waterboarding, he never gives up the location of the dagger and survives a long time, getting a few licks in on his father during the prolonged take of Alice crawling through the battle. He is the type of coward that finds his strength even though it isn't enough.

Edgar is the source of Will’s pattern of behavior. Susan believes she is nothing without her family and gives up her artistic talents for the family; the implication is that Edgar is a very controlling spouse that told her that. She also puts up with his aggression toward the other characters at dinner, and, if you will permit me to describe her role in the back half of the film without the magic, her main function is that she fails to stop Edgar from abusing Joseph. Edgar’s whistle for the dog is the same whistle Will uses for his wife, and while Alice instantly pushes back on that, I don’t think Susan would if that were to happen. Edgar is a hard sell of a character to be sympathetic, but the humanity is in the contradictions of his character early on. He puts on a gruff sense of bravado, refusing to cry at the funeral but doing so as soon as he is alone with Will’s body. When he later criticizes Alice for not even crying at the funeral, this makes sense to him because he knows he cried. During the scene of his infection, Edgar, this strong looking man, instantly cowers after seeing what Deadite Will can do. When the voices tell him to harm himself, he struggles with that, and when Alice finds him about to cut himself, he lets her take the knife and begs her not to tell his wife. It does not excuse any of his actions, but it builds a picture of a realistic character.

Susan, again, juxtaposes Edgar’s aggression with passive aggression, but what she really wants is to keep together this incredibly fragile family (the fact that she goes along with the Deadites even though it is obvious they are lying further characterizes her goal of keeping the family together as a similarly vain pursuit). She has sacrificed a lot for Edgar and expects everyone else to make those sacrifices too, so she is really a tragic character and the main antagonist for Alice because of their differing philosophies. It’s like if the rivalry of Jake and Ash in Evil Dead 2 mattered more to the overall story. The limit for what Susan will put up correlates to the amount of abuse Edgar blatantly inflicts on Joseph, but what makes her die as a villain is that it becomes clear, that she will not stop the Deadites from hurting Alice (or in the subtextual sense, she will let her abusive family do anything to Alice, anything to herself and almost anything to Joseph). With the lines clearly drawn, each character becomes the worst possible version of themselves and enact a torturous spectacle trying to kill Alice.

I have struggled to come to a conclusion about what smoking represents in the movie, because it is clearly a very important symbol during the start and end of Alice’s story. In a film called Evil Dead Burn that uses fire as prevalently as it does, smoking takes on further importance. What tripped me up is that Edgar shoots himself in the head to take a hit of the gun smoke midway through the movie. Smoking represents the disapproval the Prices have for Alice, her Frenchness, and her individuality from their prescribed ends. (Thya is the only family member that smokes with her.) Adding Deadite Edgar into the symbolism of the smoking and dramatically showing Alice’s bloodshot eyes brings in the ambiguous possibility that she has been Deadited by the end of the film.

What I probably should have focused on is Alice’s hesitation to smoke before the funeral and how she doesn’t hesitate at the end. In both cases, she takes a step to separate herself from Will, taking off the wedding ring at the beginning and calling him her ex-husband at the end. She finally smokes after a moment of catharsis, so it represents triumphing over Will’s control. For that reason, it would not make sense for that scene to show her being Deadited (and thus she probably isn’t), but, as I have said in the past, I would love to see her fending off possession for a film like Ash in Evil Dead 2 and hearing Deadite tauntings in her deaf ear. Edgar probably has no bearing on Alice’s smoking since Will’s burning touch is enough to instantly defeat Edgar and begin his corruption whereas Alice has the strength to grab Will’s burning head and crush it.

Because of all of this, I genuinely feel that Evil Dead Burn’s toxic family throughline is strong in a literary sense that 2013’s drug addiction imagery was not and even in a way that Rise’s motherhood conflict was not. Now, again, not every horror film needs to have this type of literary value, and if the story naturally leads away from the symbolism, then that is the price that the author must pay. Rise pulled back a little more than Burn did, in a similar way that Evil Dead 2 pulled back from The Evil Dead, but this part of the ranking is basically a three-way tie. I just needed to give them each their own spot.

In the future, some drawbacks of the film may become more pressing. Though I am fine with the Burning Will boss fight, the best version of this film might not have had Will pop up again after the car crash at all (as he lacks the nuance the rest of his family gets and feels tacked on after a climactic triumph just to have the obligatory final boss). Also, as Polly and Jessica proved the film was not traditional Deadite averse, I maintain that the dog should've been a lot more expressive, whether it morphed its shape or merely said “Dead by dawn.” When I encounter a three way tie, recency bias and reactionary loyalty can elevate one of those films to the top, but those may fade with time. A number score feels especially arbitrary, but I feel this film, on a level of craft, is in the same conversation as at least Backrooms if not Obsession, and it is one of my favorites of the year so far. If you, like me, place the first film at the top of this ranking, I suspect you will place Burn fairly high as well. They feel similar.

#1 - The Evil Dead

Throughout my coverage of Evil Dead the last couple months, I have kept gushing about this first film. Truly, this low-budget film managed to tap into some primal fears about demonic possession, body horror, descending into a dark and dangerous cellar, and the slow degradation of everybody around you as you are unable to save them. Watching this movie as a child terrified me and coming to terms with those fears has inoculated me to the other films on this list as the scenario of this film is classically the most terrifying thing I can fathom.

The effects are very low budget, the acting is stilted without the more complicated character arcs of later films, and the movie is beset by moments of unintentional (and intentional dark) comedy, but this all contributes to an atmosphere of a film you should not be watching. The craft is there and a vision, and if you let yourself get drawn in, it feels real, with these regular people stuck in a horrifying situation. The horror is paced perfectly, building up to the Deadites and whittling down the survivors into just Ash. Though the tree rape is ill advised and shot a little too sensually, it is a load bearing scene as 2013 kind of understands, with a bookend as the tree taking Scotty out winds up forcing Ash fully into the hero role.

Going more into specifics, this version of Ash is special for how down to Earth he is (please don’t ask me to pick my favorite version of the man though), suffering tremendously in a way that is played straight. He is more timid, and the bit where he stumbles on his words trying to remember a phrase in a different language comes back in Army of Darkness but serves to endear him to us here. I feel like 2013 kind of buckled in the shadow of Ash by giving David a sort of cool factor with the adoration Eric holds for David, David’s own increased coolness by reentering Mia’s orbit suddenly rather than just being a part of the friend group that steps up, etc, and from that point onward, it is impossible to truly return to the underdog Ash initially was.

It is still fair to criticize the other characters, but I think their chemistry and rapport shines through and that their characters are each functional. We see these characters talking, flirting, playing games to set up their relationships, and then the Deadite versions recreate or subvert those interactions to scare us by warping that which is good. If you want me to go more in detail about my thoughts on this movie, let me know in the comments. I have an easier time describing this film in comparison to the others because the tone it strikes is so unique and the demonstration of artistic craft so peculiar that the other films naturally invite that comparison.

Ranking The Main Deadites In Each Evil Dead Film

2026-07-16T14:29:35.286-07:00

By Joe Gibson

Recently, to ring in the release of Evil Dead Burn, I have been rewatching some of the previous films with the goal of ranking the main Deadites in each film. Then, I figured it did not make much sense to exclude Burn from this list so I watched Evil Dead Burn, taking note of who can be considered the main Deadite, and this ranking will help me formulate my thoughts for my updated Evil Dead film ranking. Without much further ado, we will start this list with some controversial shenanigans. Major spoilers ahead for Evil Dead Burn.

#6 - Deadite Mia, Evil Dead 2013

This is a controversial placement because most people (correctly) view Mia to be an improvement over Cheryl, but allow me to explain why her Deadite version is this low despite being on par with or better than Cheryl’s. I feel it is a rather logical technicality. Deadite Mia comprises essentially 3 different characters, and the actual Deadite version of Mia that infects Olivia and Natalie that gets stuck in the cellar is leagues ahead of the two that this movie forces me to lump in with her.

When the Naturom Demonto turns Mia, the scene uses imagery of a different Mia appearing to her, and this is very enigmatic to me. It happens again with Olivia later, but in that case Deadite Olivia acted in the same manner as the vision she had, which is not true of this first Deadite Mia that only screams and summons the vines for the obligatory rape scene. Perhaps, this being is the same as the third version of Deadite Mia, the Abomination that rises for the boss fight. But that doesn’t really make sense either. The Abomination still has yet to rise by that point, and I am assuming that the in-universe reason it chose Mia’s form was because she was far and away the most tenacious and long living of the Deadite options available to it, which she was not yet at the time of her corruption. (There is reason to believe that the Abomination itself returned in a different form in Evil Dead Burn, and that visage would also be contextual.) So three characters.

And yes they all have to look like Mia in order to further the drug abuse metaphor where she battles the worst aspects of herself, but I will again point out how the film does not use that well, because she does not fight the Abomination in a manner coded as getting clean; she fights the Abomination in a way coded to the Deadites (and thus her addiction) in this movie: self mutilating (cutting off her hand) in order to hurt the people closest to her. Also, though my main consideration here is the main Deadite of the film, I have to consider the others, and 2013, aside from Deadite Mia 2, has the worst Deadite cast. They act essentially as zombies and because the Deadite possession was meant to symbolize Mia's drug addiction, the rest of the Deadites are superfluous to the movie, have nothing to contribute and each barely last a scene.

#5 - Bad Ash, Army of Darkness

Army of Darkness has the most wild variation of Deadites aside from maybe Evil Dead 2, as Deadite ranks consist of weird flying harpy things, a pit witch, a pit b–Deadite, an army of skeletons, a battalion of Mini Ashs, and the fearsome leader Bad Ash, the cellular mitosis result of Ash swallowing one of his tiny doppelgangers. For the nostalgic practical effects and the truly unique tone of this film, it is almost a tie between this and the number four spot. I appreciate both immensely.

The meat of this section will have to go to evaluating Bad Ash, but I probably have to justify why I am calling him that. The Bad Ash label is an inclusive umbrella term that can describe any time Ash gets Deadited, and even though the specific character in Army of Darkness calls himself Bad Ash, he is officially named Evil Ash. That is dumb.

He is Bad Ash because he says he is, and I am more than happy to just call the Evil Dead 2 Deadite versions Deadite Ash 1 and Deadite Ash 2 (apparently Bad Ash himself was the doppelganger in the mirror in Evil Dead 2 though his vocal pitch was lower there). Whether or not we should count these as separate characters or the same is unclear because apparently in Ash vs Evil Dead, a version of Bad Ash called Evil Ash 2 grows out of Ash’s severed hand, and I have not yet ascertained if they are the same personality or even the same demon.

In the context of Army of Darkness, Ash kind of stumbles into hijacking both sides of a skeleton war, and while the real Ash grows into a (slightly) better hero, his evil doppelganger loses all semblance of humanity, eventually becoming just another skeleton (albeit the coolest looking one). Though Bad Ash shares several character traits with Ash, including attraction to Sheila, he overestimates the moral virtue of Ash consistently. Even after Ash shot him and cut him into pieces without hesitation, Bad Ash is still surprised when Ash stabs him in the back later during the castle siege. That is a more interesting Evil Clone dynamic than usually occurs in popular media. I can’t help but feel like Bad Ash holds the film back from being a little scarier, but the second they changed the title from Medieval Dead to (Bruce Campbell vs The) Army of Darkness, that was already a given.

Still, the bulk of the Deadite creativity went into Bad Ash’s various forms and choreography, which kind of grounds him into being a microcosm for the whole Deadite cast. At first, he mimics the impish nature of his diminutive progenitors, still resembling a human more than a corpse. After his burial, he is rotted to a sufficient degree to fit alongside the more detailed captains in his army, and, by the end, he is a stop motion skeleton like the bulk of his army. You will see this with the next pick on this list, but just because a film does not have the definitive Deadite does not mean I dislike them. With how experimental this series is, I will accept whatever episodic spin each film wants to put on their Deadites (so long as they do it more holistically than 2013 did).

#4 - Burning Deadite, Evil Dead Burn

Though I have claimed before and will continue to claim after this post that Burning Will is the main Deadite in Evil Dead Burn, this new film might be the closest to a true ensemble. Jessica acts like a classic Deadite to get the plot started, Edgar fits closest into the Cheryl role, though he, himself, technically could have been any creature including a vampire based on the way he acts, Thya and Polly both get major setpieces as main antagonist, and Susan is the most continuous antagonist to Alice in the film.

Still, Will is the reason for the gathering, the reason for Edgar's infection, the pattern of behavior that the film uses Deadites to examine, and the other Deadites foretell of his coming similarly to 2013's Abomination (also it takes at least 5 souls claimed for him to finally show up). Also like that Abomination, Will has a burning touch and headlines a boss fight. If certain commentators are correct, then Jessica actually transferred her essence to Will, which would be another point of similarity to the Abomination.

The Abomination, in the symbolism of 2013, is Mia finally facing and overcoming the darker aspects of her character, but in the actual narrative and plot, it's just a boss fight, and the Abomination is just fishing out around for stock dialogue, which would be the case for Jessica if the Burning Deadite is not just a new one made from giving a new demon Will's memories. (Yes, I know that Polly implies that she wants to take that passerby's leg in the post credits scene, but that does not inherently mean she wants to body hop. I would expect a Deadite that's down a leg to rip off a human's and try to animate it before I would expect the masochistic self harming Deadites to jump ship once the body is arbitrarily too damaged.)

My ideal Deadites would look more like Cheryl, Ed, Henrietta or even Mia with the more uncanny deterioration, but within this film making it very difficult to differentiate the personality of Edgar and his Deadite, I would prefer people's demons remain their own. Also, given the variety of the Deadites on display, with a dog, a fire demon, and a funny Grandma, I can handle Edgar, Susan and Joseph’s lack of Deadite skin texture.

#3 - Deadite Cheryl, The Evil Dead

Though the film is very low budget, the progressing make up for the original Deadites, especially Cheryl, just conveys the body horror best of all for me. It is not enough to have the personality change into a sarcastic zombie with CGI effects; it is scary to see what Cheryl becomes over the course of her movie as the lead Deadite. (Even a top tier Deadite like Ellie feels a little naked without such a dramatic change to the skin texture in the face as what happens to Cheryl and Mia.) It is also scary to see it continue to happen to Shelly, Linda and Scotty, but, in retrospect, the better Deadite casts have a bit more variety and purpose to their transformations.

As I mentioned in my Out of the Theater reaction to Evil Dead Burn, Scotty’s (and his emerging archetype) Deadite transformation is kind of superfluous most of the time. Shelly’s transformation is necessary to raise the stakes, but Linda ends up being the other standout Deadite of the film by acting differently than Cheryl in a way that gets to Ash. (It is tragic that Evil Dead 2013 struggled so much to give Natalie any kind of characterization living or dead-ite.)

There was clearly room for improvement in the makeup, but, as is the case with practical effects, it is real. It is something you can touch. We’re all playing along when we watch a movie, but you take that design and film it the right way and it is scary. I stand by my take that The Evil Dead is the true masterpiece of the franchise, but it also does not mean that its Deadites are untouchable. For instance, Scream 1996 is the best in that series, but I think the killers of films 2 and 4 are better.

#2 - The Marauder, Evil Dead Rise

I am closing out this ranking with some more shenanigans, though again I hope logically sound ones. While Deadite Ellie is the Cheryl of this movie, the fact that she participates in the boss fight as a fusion with the two other main Deadites of her film places more importance on the part of The Marauder. The Marauder proves my point of “The Main Deadite must be partially evaluated through the rest of the Deadite cast,” as it is the culmination of Deadite Ellie’s bizarre views of motherhood, thus becoming the obstacle for Beth to overcome on her journey to becoming a good mother. The beings that make up The Marauder also act like classic Deadites, a good return to form after 2013, with their eye shades representing the different types in the franchise and their taunts including the phrase “Dead by dawn”. However, part of Sam Raimi’s creativity with the Deadites was the sheer malleability that the Kandarian demon found in its prey, the asymmetry of the Evil Dead 2 Deadites and the fact that the tree was technically the boss fight there. The Marauder is a fine compromise to get us back to these "biologically impossible Deadite abominations.”

Now, Deadite Ellie herself is a standout in this franchise, and the conversation of the best Deadite in general will come down to Ellie or Henrietta (though Cheryl and Mia are often runnersup, and Jessica has some upward momentum if she is still around). I have held strong in my respect for Ted Raimi’s Henrietta, partially because Henrietta is the particular Deadite that always scared the crap out of me when I was younger. As you can tell, I am giving Henrietta the top spot today, but with the return of Ellie Bixler in the post credits scene of Evil Dead Burn, it seems clear that the franchise is not done with her. If Ellie is in the next film after Evil Dead Wrath, unless they severely botch her character, she will probably leave Henrietta far in the dust. I will give Henrietta her dues for now, but first, let us glaze Deadite Ellie.

Ellie, in some ways, feels like an amalgamation of the best parts of Cheryl and Henrietta: inciting Deadite made from the protagonist’s sister and creepy mother that sings a lullaby to her child. She is shut out (though in a hallway and not a cellar), and, when the plot has fully thickened, you get the classic moment of her cackling and frothing like a wild animal. Still, Ellie has her own unique accolades too. Alyssa Sutherland gives perhaps the greatest Deadite performance ever, with the optimal physicality and emotional range. The tension between the two Bixler sisters serves into the theme of the movie for once and also functions better, setting up the main conflict for Beth and remaining relevant through each plot point. (The throughline with David and Mia in 2013 is better than I had remembered actually, with him refusing to leave her behind, but human Mia’s lack of act 2 focus and David’s abrupt death still limit their dynamic.)

Of the main Deadites in the franchise, it makes the most sense to bring her back, and even the method of bringing her back was not too strange for this franchise. Her urn in Evil Dead Burn was very small and likely only contains the arm and leg that Beth shot off in the hallway (the other Deadites there either left intact, fell dormant, both, like Jessica, or joined the rest of Ellie in the Marauder so only those limbs would be left intact amongst the carnage), and her tattoos make those limbs easily identifiable. Apparently, in Ash vs Evil Dead, Ash’s severed hand from Evil Dead 2 grew into a full second Bad Ash, so there is precedent for a Deadite limb to reassemble into the clone of a full Deadite. Like it or hate it, but Ellie 2 makes sense, so we will have to see how they utilize her in the future and if they take inspiration from the best Deadite.

#1 - Henrietta, Evil Dead 2

My recent rewatch has been most favorable to Evil Dead 2 as it resolved many of my issues with it, and I was once more taken aback by the tenacity of the Kandarian demon and its impressive Deadite cast. It is easy to forget how persistent the demon is trying to get Ash because Bobby Joe, Jake and Annie all remain human instead of turning into Deadites, but the demon tries every single trick it can to get Ash, turning him into a Deadite three times (if you count the hand) and literally chasing him throughout the cabin in its noncorporeal state. Deadite Linda is better here than in the first film (though I still do think her human form is underwritten except for the foreshadowing of the Deadite choreography with her dancing), and Ash’s hand is so unbelievably persistent compared to the entire cast of 2013. Ed, though again underwritten as a character, shines as a Deadite for his scene because of the uncanny facial prosthetics, and it is much cooler to see the Tree fight Ash than it is to see it rape somebody (but unfortunately it still does that as well.)

All of that is important and helps cement Evil Dead 2 as the most creative film in the franchise, but with the tone balancing at play here, Henrietta, despite her lack of screentime, actually almost singlehandedly is the thing keeping it a horror film. From her first appearance, she is a desiccated late stage Deadite with such mastery over her abilities that she is basically a shapeshifting witch. Though Ted Raimi plays her as a stunt casting with his tongue in his cheek, that makes her scarier, and the constant reminders that she is down in the cellar help to reset the tone when it gets too goofy. Consequently, Henrietta kind of slouches into the role of quintessential Deadite because she is incredibly powerful and scary but has such a potent sense of humor that she feels at home alongside Ash’s slapstick. I genuinely believe that Henrietta would feel just as much at home in The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness as in Evil Dead 2, and if you don’t believe that, why not? Henrietta has a range that no other Deadite before Ellie really had, and Henrietta still has an edge over her in that regard.

I avoided spoilers for Evil Dead Burn quite well ahead of the release. It was only while sitting in the theater during the previews that I stumbled upon the vague spoiler that the second post credits scene would feature the return of a Deadite that can be referred to as “Mommy.” Though I knew that probably meant Ellie was the one coming back, I held out hope it would be Henrietta because if we’re not getting Ash back, Henrietta is the next best thing. As you know, Ellie is back, but with that revelation comes implications for the rest of the franchise.

Bringing Ellie back without Beth and Kassie would be kind of hollow, so they and their chainsaw will probably be back as well. (Conversely, Henrietta is less tethered to her family at this point and probably actually knew the Prices, so could bounce off Polly well for comedic scenes.) Ellie, at this point, probably cannot manipulate either of them as well as she could initially, so they will need to find another angle with her, and I honestly think they should draw from Henrietta’s powerset. A flying shapeshifting Deadite witch would be a stakes escalation for both Beth and Alice, and I think it would be interesting if Alice, while presumably fending off Deadite possession like Ash in Evil Dead 2, hears Ellie in her deaf ear cracking dumb jokes. Alternatively, they could draw from Bad Ash, since Ellie also just materialized out of nowhere to presumably lead this growing Army of Darkness in the modern day. Whatever they chose to do with Ellie, it is important to note that the filmmakers now finally have a chance to surpass Henrietta, and they had better not squander it whatever direction they go in.

Here at Plan9Crunch we like the Evil Dead films (though our tastes are slightly different between each of us), and we have covered some of them in the past here and have plans for further coverage. Our YouTube page as an "Out of The Theater" reaction to Evil Dead Burn, and there will be a longer review in a couple of weeks. Also, around that time, I will release an updated ranking of the films including Evil Dead Burn here.

Our favorite films: Doug Gibson, Rob Craig and Steve D. Stones

2026-06-07T20:59:01.791-07:00

Hi Cult Film Fans! We at Plan9Crunch are nerding out a little as summer gets into swing. This week we'll be at Monster Bash, by the way. Anyway, myself, Doug Gibson, acclaimed cult films author Rob Craig, and artist and co-blogger, Steve D. Stones, have named our all-time favorite films, for now. Read on and see how many films you agree should be on the list. And check out the films you've never seen. Believe it or not these films are accessible!

DOUG GIBSON’S FAVORITE FILMS

My favorite 3

Night of the Hunter (1950s)

Dracula (1930s)

The Black Cat (1930s)

Silent

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Nosferatu

Haxan

The Golem

Three's a Crowd (Harry Langdon)

The General ( Keaton)

The 1930s

The Bride of Frankenstein

The Old Dark House

The Dark Horse (Guy Kibbee)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

You Can't Take It With You

Peach O'Reno (Wheeler and Woolsey)

Duck Soup

The Raven

1940s

Devil Bat

The Corpse Vanishes

Detour

The Grapes of Wrath

Stranger of the Swamp

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

The Time of Their Lives

1950s

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Bride of the Monster

Night of the Ghouls

Shane

1960s

Wait Until Dark

The Haunting

Spider Baby

The Human Duplicators

The Sadist

The Thrill Killers

Support Your Local Sheriff

Night of the Living Dead

1970s

Fat City

Rocky

The Godfather Part 2

Torture Dungeon

Halloween

Dog Day Afternoon

Meatballs

The Outlaw Josey Wales

The Legend of Hell House

1980s

Tootsie

Planes Trains and Automobiles

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Crocodile Dundee

They Live

1990s

Can't think of a great film

2000 on

Return of the King

The Others

Sinners

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Mr. Jones

Nosferatu

ROB CRAIG’S FAVORITE FILMS

Top “50” Horror/Sci-Fi Movies 1953-1984

The Angry Red Planet (1960)

The Asphyx (1972)

The Astounding She Monster (1958)

The Atomic Brain (1964)

Attack of the Mushroom People (1965)

The Baby (1973)

Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970)

The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962)

Brides of Blood (1968)

The Brood (1979)

A Candle for the Devil (1973)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The Children (1980)

Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

The Crawling Eye (1958)

The Creeping Terror (1964)

The Cremators (1972)

Day the World Ended (1956)

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Demon Witch Child (1974)

Destroy All Monsters (1970)

Dungeon of Harrow (ca 1964)

Evil Brain From Outer Space (1965)

Eyeball (1975)

Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1965)

Fantastic Planet (1973)

First Spaceship on Venus (1962)

Frozen Scream (1975)

Godzilla vs the Smog Monster (1972)

The Ghastly Ones (1968)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

The Horror of Party Beach (1964)

Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970)

The Human Duplicators (1964)

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)

Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972)

It Conquered The World (1956)

“It's Alive!” (1969)

Journey to the Center of Time (1967)

Killers from Space (1954)

The Killer Shrews (1959)

The Lathe of Heaven (1980)

The Little Shop of Horrors (1961)

The Lost Continent (1968)

Manos, the Hands of Fate (1966)

The Manster (1962)

The Man With Two Heads (1972)

Mars Needs Women (1967)

Monster Zero (1970)

The Mutations (1973)

Night of the Bloody Apes (1974)

Night of the Ghouls (ca 1960)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

1984 (1984)

Not of This Earth (1957)

Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)

Phase IV (1974)

Pieces (1982)

Plan Nine from Outer Space (1959)

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

The Pyx (1973)

Robot Monster (1953)

Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

The Terror (1963)

Terror From the Year 5000 (1958)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Torture Dungeon (1970)

The Undead (1957)

Vampire's Night Orgy (1975)

Videodrome (1983)

Voyage the the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1967)

Warning From Space (1964)

War of the Gargantuas (1970)

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)

The Wild World of Batwoman (1966)

The Wizard of Mars (1965)

Womaneater (1960)

Z.P.G.: Zero Population Growth (1971)

STEVE D. STONES’ FAVORITE FILMS

1). The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). 2). Dawn of The Dead (1978). 3). Carnival of Souls (1962). 4). Things To Come (1936). 5). The Crawling Eye (aka The Trollenberg Terror) (1958). 6). The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961). 7). Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958). 8). Torture Dungeon (1970). 9). Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). 10). Nosferatu (1922). 11). Killers From Space (1954). 12). Night of The Living Dead (1968). 13). Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill (1965). 14). A Bucket of Blood (1959). 15). Black Sunday (1960). 16. Rubin & Ed (1991). 17). Creepshow (1982). 18). Forbidden Planet (1956). 19). The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). 20). The Thing (From Another World) 1951. 21). Godzilla vs. Megalon (1974). 22). Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981). 23). Die Hard (1988). 24). Predator (1987). 25). Dracula (1931). 26). Two Thousand Maniacs (1964). 27). The Phantom of The Opera (1925). 28). For A Few Dollars More (1967) 29). Pink Flamingos (1972). 30). Multiple Maniacs (1970). 31). Once Upon A Time In The West (1968). 32). Jaws (1975). 33). Dirty Harry (1971). 34). Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972). 35). The Screaming Skull (1958). 36). Jackie Brown (1997). 37). Hellraiser (1987). 38). Time Bandits (1981). 39). Blade Runner (1981). 40). The Hideous Sun Demon (1959). 41). Curse of The Swamp Creature (1968). 42). The Corpse Grinders (1972). 43). Where Eagles Dare (1968). 44). Shock Waves (1977). 45). The Road Warrior (1981). 46). Murder Mansion (1972). 47). Suspira (1977). 48). Star Wars - Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). 49). The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (1968). 50). Quatermass II: Enemy From Space (1956).

Ranking The First Five Evil Dead Films

2026-06-01T22:12:41.037-07:00

By Joe Gibson

Some Preamble

When I was a small child, I was actually afraid of many of the cult films we look at on this blog. Indeed, the Nilbog goblins joined the ranks of vampires and zombies in my early nightmares, and, even after overcoming that, the abominations affectionately called Deadites from The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 terrified me deeper than anything. That’s a credit to the creatures and filmmaking on display. Though the films were cheap, the writing a little shaky, and the performances unrefined, there was something so maximally uncomfortable about the Deadites that stuck with me during my glimpses through closed fingers while my father watched those films. Everything that is scary about demonic possession and everything that is scary about zombies came together in that delightfully warped package. Bruce Campbell, as the guy who could defeat them, naturally took on a somewhat mythic status, though I preferred to watch his Spider-Man cameos and The Man With The Screaming Brain.

Of course, over the years, I have grown up a little. After measured exposure to Evil Dead 2, I could appreciate the physical comedy that goes hand in hand with the terror. Last October, I revisited the franchise (almost) as a whole, and, though I watched with rapt attention, the irrational fear was gone, replaced with analytical interest. You can find some of these thoughts in a video we put on the YouTube channel discussing the franchise here (Podcast 47: Plan9Crunch vs Evil Dead).

At the time, though not necessarily enjoying it as much as the original trilogy, I was rather sympathetic to Evil Dead 2013 to the point where I thought it sufficed to say that they were all pretty much on the same level quality-wise, especially because they each shared some of the same issues (worldbuilding inconsistencies, lack of that many great performances, etc.). In order to be able to make the ‘they all have bad acting’ point, I skipped Evil Dead Rise (because, as I was recently able to validate, aside from some accent slippage at times, there is not a single bad performance in the 2023 film). My main point of interest in the franchise, however, became the notion that if you stitched the first three films together and lopped off the recap segments from Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, then you have a really interesting psychological thriller character study about Ash Williams. Think about it.

Without the benefit of being distinct films, the gradual tonal shifts from horror to slapstick comedy must take on another meaning, and the story becomes even more compelling if Ash losing his mind in the second film leads to him viewing the Deadites through the lens of the comedy shorts he would have grown up watching. Add back in the repetition of certain motifs (his hand fights him the way the little people in Army of Darkness do, there is always a Deadite in a pit or cellar he must venture into, and Ash gets a procession of doomed love interests and doomed friends until he finally can save them in the third film), and you also have the question of narrator reliability (which can explain the inconsistencies such as the book getting destroyed in the first film, Cheryl and Henrietta maybe kind of sharing that cellar and why the films themselves keep misremembering what Linda looked like).

In just a little over a month, Evil Dead Burn will come out in theaters, and, based on the trailer, it looks like it is following up on the disconnected “Deadite Jessica” bookends from Evil Dead Rise, so it is time to update my Evil Dead franchise thoughts here for you all. So, as if foreordained, a couple weeks ago, I randomly had a nightmare replicating the fears I used to have of the Deadites, where I was holed up in my bathroom as Deadites were trying to get in. This past week, I watched Evil Dead Rise, and it definitely has changed my opinions on the franchise in some notable ways. I figured the most prudent way to explain this is a ranking, since it is fairly common to rank a horror series right before the latest installment drops. Once Evil Dead Burn comes out, we will likely discuss it on our YouTube page, but I think I may also rewatch the other films around that time and give another updated ranking with Evil Dead Burn as well. Still, that will take a while, so let us get into this one now.

Ranking

The major impact Evil Dead Rise has had on my assessment of this franchise is that I am no longer a 2013 Evil Dead apologist, and, in large part, that comes down to the Deadites. These Deadites are the weakest in the entire series, succumbing to mere amputation at times, and, outside of Mia, they don’t really talk so they might as well not even be Deadites but some other self-mutilating mutation the Book of the Dead can come up with. The more pressing problems arise with the new possibility for recovery that the film shows with Mia…but did not really bother to set up when they could have in the opening scene. I still don’t understand the purpose of that opening scene; people criticize the Rise bookend with Jessica, but at least the relationship between Jessica and her cousin parallels the sisterly bond at the core of Rise. 2013’s opening shows a grieving father set his Deadite daughter on fire, and the main plot has David so devoted to his Deadite sister that he basically gives his life to bring her back. Those don’t have anything to do with each other outside of both having Deadites.

Mia, herself, is a good character, but if the intent was to restore the agency to Cheryl (probably a necessary thing to do in a modern remake), don’t have the tree still assault her and then spend the entire second act disallowing the real Mia from being a character with agency, just to rush her into a boss fight at the end. Her initial possession is supposed to reflect her drug withdrawal symptoms, and that is a really neat setup that kind of justifies the cabin excursion, but they drop it almost immediately because what the film wants to be is the scariest, bloodiest film ever that uses the most blood ever. She still finds strength to overcome the Big Bad of the film, but I cannot say for sure that her sobriety journey ties into that fight. She was a Deadite but became clean for want of a better word, and the way she defeats the baddest Deadite of all is by ripping off her own hand and grabbing a chainsaw. That mirrors Ash, but Ash is only debatably canon to the events of this film, so we have to compare her post Deadite behavior with her Deadite behavior, which, in both cases, was self-mutilation that enabled her to hurt the person or persons nearest to her. Again, that is a really cool metaphor for drug abuse, but I do not think the film carried it through properly.

Similarly, Natalie and Olivia are basically nothing characters, David cannot handle the Ash shaped spotlight, and, for the entire second act, I am rooting for Eric not to die of his wounds because he’s the guy carrying the movie. I respect a lot of the authorial intent as I understand it; my issues are just with the execution. If anyone can explain what I am missing about the film (or if Evil Dead Burn gives me a newfound appreciation for 2013), I would appreciate it. I want to like this movie and have defended it in the past.

The difficulty I have in ranking franchise installments, especially franchises as esoteric as Evil Dead, is that my “favorites list” and the “worst to best films list” are distinct and often entirely separate orders. Army of Darkness appeals so much to me based on the nostalgia I have for Jason And The Argonauts, The Magic Sword and The Three Stooges, but it does not fare very well on the criteria I use to analyze most films. That said, as a comedy bordering on genre parody, it has one of the best possible excuses for some of its leaps in logic. Though the performances are not great, I think that the slow(er) progression of Sheila and Arthur into their Linda and Scotty archetypes makes them better fleshed out characters than most of the cast of 2013 just starting out as an expy of the original character and dying. The different Deadite rules make sense in context, since this is technically the prophesied final battle set in a time where Deadites were powerful and plentiful enough to take on the civilized world.

This is the most iconic version of Ash’s character, but unless you try to analyze the increasing wackiness as part of his character progression, it just comes off as abrupt. It also kind of retrospectively deals further damage to something in Evil Dead 2. Just from The Evil Dead, I buy the love Ash has for Linda, and I have argued that the montage at the beginning of Evil Dead 2 is not good enough to replace that for the context of his love being so pure that it temporarily brings him back from being a Deadite. Including another montage in the story where Ash moves on proves my point that the montage is not sufficient. Writing it all out, less of my complaints were justifiable than I initially could think of, and that is why this is 4th and not 5th, but it might even have some further upward mobility next time I do a ranking like this. Since I have also only recently seen one of the many cuts of this movie, I will probably also have to find the alternate versions and see if any of those fix my remaining issues with it.

This might seem like heresy, but I have bumped Evil Dead 2 very low here. I still respect it a lot for the marriage of terrifying horror and goofy physical comedy, this is the film I show people to get them into the franchise, and I think it is easily Ash’s best film for showing off Bruce Campbell’s range and sheer acting ability. Henrietta, along with Cheryl, is the ideal kind of Deadite performance and makeup, and I give Henrietta an edge over Cheryl. Aside from those two though, I think the characters are largely a downgrade in acting and writing from the original.

This may be an area where we have to agree to disagree, but I do not think Annie is anything more than a prop in the plot to go between her love interests’ arms and do what the plot needs her to do. If you watch Within The Woods, the scenes of possessed Bruce Campbell are reproduced towards the end of Evil Dead 2, and they are done better, but I lack the investment in Annie that I have in Ellen during that short. In the past, I have had a more positive view on her character, and I hope that I can recapture that by noticing some kind of nuance. In any case, aside from her, the other characters are Jake and Bobby Joe, who are certainly memorable, but not exactly important enough to rival Scotty or Cheryl. And Ed Getley, despite having a great Deadite form, seems like barely a character to me. (Of course, I understand that the tradeoff for this underdeveloped cast is the Bruce Campbell one-man show that dominates the first half, and I would not trade that for a better cast.)

The biggest reason it is this low, however, is because I think Professor Knowby’s ghost showing up and being able to influence the plot in the peak of Deadite infestation is either a plot hole or the sloppiest worldbuilding in the entire franchise. Pending another rewatch, I do not think Raimi and Tapert considered what they were doing by setting that precedent and then never following up on it again. Demons existing already do not necessitate ghosts, but if ghosts are also real and have some degree of power, the stakes already change considerably.

I contemplated putting Evil Dead Rise at the very top of this list, because it is the most polished of these films. It looks and sounds the sleekest, while remembering the core aspects of the franchise that 2013 forgot. If you want the Deadites to symbolize something meaningful to the main character, family is an important theme across the entire movie and not just part of it like the drug abuse in 2013. If you want a different kind of story with the same old kind of Deadites (down to chanting “Dead by dawn”), the Deadites being in a high rise trying to infiltrate a room instead of being trapped in a cellar trying to get out should suffice for you, and, front and center in the marketing, Ellie is a Henrietta-level Deadite performance but with the Cheryl-type personal connection to the lead. Also, and this is more for the worldbuilding, not only are these Deadites the most relentless they’ve been since Evil Dead 2, but in the film, you can hear Ash somehow time displaced to 1923 trying to stop their initial discovery, so this still has relevance to the old Evil Dead, just bringing it into a new era. Though this film made a lot of money, it has been popular to criticize it.

Many of the most prevalent complaints surround the lead character Beth, and I do not really understand why. While I would not have brought out the chainsaw so soon, her level of damage taken and personal stake in the plot is as good as Ash’s in The Evil Dead, so anyone saying she didn’t earn the chainsaw or doesn’t fit into the movie is being a little silly. Still, I agree that the chainsaw is more of a film 2 thing, and Beth’s struggle is only at first film Ash difficulty since she doesn’t even stop the curse. (That’s why I gave the chainsaw a pass in 2013; it seems to be drawing from all three earlier films for Mia and not just the first by the end.) Beth and Kassie contribute to the theme of motherhood by contrasting The Deadite Marauder’s antitheme, and if you thought that the Deadites stole the show, that happens a lot actually; it does not make the theme less coherent. I have a lot more intrigue in seeing Beth pop up again than I do for Mia, because she still has that underdog quality that Ash had going from the first film into the second and the second into the third. Also, about half of the female characters in this franchise have been rather underdeveloped; having an archetype for a lead that ties into the central theme while not “outdoing” Ash is a net positive.

So, why did I not put it at number one? Though the story is similarly slow and constrained to the first film, I think that the directing style and building of tension is a bit more effective in the original film. Across the first two films, I feel like I have been in that cabin with Ash, feeling the fear in each of those rooms, but the high-rise apartment is just an apartment. Outside of two rooms that get some Deadite encounters, I am more filling in the gaps of what I know apartment buildings to be like than I am experiencing the atmosphere through each room if that makes sense. I don’t know how they could have improved on that, but the creative team restored the Deadites so well, so there is still a chance that Evil Dead Burn could have the edge over the original that this film was missing. There is also a possibility that further rewatches will burn away the trepidation I have for ranking Rise higher; at the very least, it has pretty much everything I would want out of an Evil Dead film.

The Evil Dead is an earnest classic, and, as I write this, I want to watch it again, in part to make absolutely sure I am describing it accurately and partially just because I think it genuinely works as a film. Though the acting is less than ideal even from Bruce Campbell, the characters have a friendly rapport and chemistry that fills in the gaps of their writing and elevates their pre Deadite scenes. As the first film in this franchise showing off these unique camera angles and creature designs, the film also reads as hungry to prove something. At the same time, I also think Ash would not be as special if he started out his Army of Darkness self. He is a more reserved kid, barely involved in the action, that barely manages to win, still gets possessed at the end of the movie, gets Deadited next film again, can’t even kill his own hand and can barely bring himself to do what has to be done to his friends or self. There’s a genuine tension there in the first film that persists even if you know about the plot armor, and I think that is part of my problem with David in 2013. He carries himself with a swagger throughout the movie, and the plot plays out close enough to the original that even though he dies, you know he’s safe for so long that the film needs Eric to look so close to death for you to care about the proceedings. There is more that I will probably want to say about The Evil Dead, especially after Evil Dead Burn comes out, but I will close with this. Even though I’m not thrilled about the tree thing, I find it kind of funny to pretend that the film is implying that what the tree does to Scotty at the end of the movie is the same thing it did to Cheryl. That clearly wasn’t intended, but it works as a kind of equalizer in my mind, so I’ll take it.

Here are some links to some previous articles about the Evil Dead franchise:

Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: The Evil Dead – Fun Gorefest Entertainment!

Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn

Author Patrick provides compelling anti-hero in superb Mister Boogie

2026-05-25T15:25:53.299-07:00

Mister Boogie is a prequel to author Dean Patrick's Terra Drake dark horror trilogy. Hence, it's the first book of the series. It's a compelling tale that fully introduces a character, Rex Brody, from an earlier novel. Brody evolved into an alter ego, Mister Boogie, a superbly fit killing machine.

Dean Patrick is a superb writer, who slowly builds tension through the chapters. His tale is gory, but never exploitative. There are no wasted narrative passages.

Our protagonist, Rex Brody, is a survivor of extreme child abuse. Through discipline and an adult journey to the mixed martial arts pits in Asia, he has turned himself into an incredibly fit, sophisticated killing machine. He is also Mister Boogie, an anti-hero, a mass murderer who kills freely, but often as revenge on ordinary people who commit despicable acts, or against darker opponents of comparable strength.

As Mister Boogie kills, two police detectives try hard to stop him but they're generally one step behind and outmatched.

Mister Boogie crosses paths with dangerous adversaries that lead him on a quest to save his sister, Emma. Early in the book Patrick creates a thrilling battle to the death between our protagonist and two adversaries, one a prolific serial killer.

Patrick's anti-hero also matches his wits and strengths in interaction with demons, including Patrick's character Terra Drake. In his early life, Rex Brody, the eventual Mister Boogie, encountered Terra Drake, who then was assessing his future potential.

Author Dean Patrick has a real talent with writing action/horror and blends his prose with a strong knowledge of music, culture, police work, religion, history and the supernatural. Here is a YouTube promo for the book from publisher TWB Press. Author Dean Patrick's website is here.

-- Doug Gibson

For reviews of Patrick's books and an interview, go here, here, here and here

Bela Lugosi's sinister eyes a highlight of 1923 film The Silent Command

2026-05-20T13:59:00.361-07:00

Check out Bela Lugosi's sinister eyes! Nine years before close ups of Lugosi's eyes were a feature in "White Zombie," audiences at silent theaters enjoyed several scenes of Bela's piercing eyes in the 1923 feature film, "The Silent Command."

Lugosi was not a star in 1923, nor was he after this film. However, his screen presence and dark attractiveness was getting him noticed. Hungarian-born movie mogul William Fox was one who certainly was interested in Bela's talent. He likely saw him in plays such as "The Red Poppy" (in English) and "The Tragedy of Man." Lugosi performed that famous play in Hungarian in New York City. Authors Gary D. Rhodes and Kaffenberger, in "Becoming Dracula: The Early Years of Bela Lugosi, Volume Two," surmise Fox may have seen "The Tragedy of Man," and other Hungarian-language plays featuring Lugosi.

So, Bela got the call to be in his first U.S. film, "The Silent Command," a Fox film made with the participation of the United States Navy. It was a "Top Gun"- type propaganda film 60 years before Tom Cruise, and without jet fighters. Directed by J. Gordon Edwards, it starred Edmund Lowe as the hero, Navy Capt. Richard Decatur. Lugosi, (billed incorrectly as Belo), plays the villain, Benedict Hisston, an evil, wealthy, well-connected hater of America who plots to blow up the Panama Canal and subsequently split the U.S. Navy in half.

To stymie Bela's character's nefarious plans, Lowe's Capt. Decatur takes drastic steps. He intentionally strikes an admiral. He is kicked out of the Navy and separates from his longsuffering wife (Alma Tell). Hisston steps up and recruits Peg Williams (Martha Mansfield), a "vampire" in the romantic sense, to seduce Decatur. This is all designed to get Decatur, now working undercover, to help Hisston with the terrorist bombing.

"The Silent Command" was a higher budget A picture, partially filmed in Panama, and also in New York City. There are faux newsreels and excellent scenery shots, particularly on the sea. The climax involves an impressive action fight between Lowe's Decatur and Lugosi's Hisston on a boat. The film drags a little midway but it's a solid three-star movie.

It was praised by military leaders. "Becoming Dracula: The Early Years of Volume Two," has a 1923 newspaper ad with General John J. Pershing, commandeer-in-chief of the U.S. Army, and Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy, tub-thumping the film. Some showings included military recruiters at the theater. It was generally well reviewed.

Lowe, who was in four other Lugosi films -- including "Chandu the Magician" -- does a capable job. Lugosi is ridiculously listed sixth in the credits. He's clearly the second lead in the film. As usual, Bela has the best screen presence, evoking emotion and intensity in his role. He's also the best actor in the film. He was ignored in press ballyhoo but was interviewed about his role in Hungarian media. As Arthur Lennig has noted in the biography "The Immortal Count," Lugosi in America reconciled himself to not being a "Valentino" type, instead settling for sinister "villain" roles. Lugosi expressed amusement at being from Hungary, a landlocked nation with no navy.

Martha Mansfield plays her vamp role well. The actress would tragically die in late 1923 after suffering burns while filming a movie.

After "The Silent Command," Lugosi would continue his slow trajectory to stardom that would arrive in 1931. He continued to play villains in future films. In "Daughters Who Pay," he was a Russian spy. In "The Midnight Girl," he was a wealthy, insensitive rake who lusted after his son's girlfriend. He would continue in stage performances and roles in films through the Roaring 20s. "The Silent Command" is easy to find for free on streaming services. It can also be purchased.

-- Doug Gibson

Part 2 - Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry, Transcript version

2026-05-19T10:16:34.333-07:00

By Joe Gibson

The following is the second and final part of my review and literary criticism of Godzilla vs Megaguirus. (Here is part one: Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Transcript Version - Godzilla Vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities, And Sophistry PART ONE). If you would prefer to watch this essay, here is the link to the YouTube upload Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry. If you are stumbling on this without the context of either the first part on the blog or the full video, this part will pick up discussing Kiriko Tsujimori’s standout scene climbing on Godzilla’s back, but you really should look at the setup I described for getting to this point so you can understand my analysis getting to this moment.

The G-Graspers take samples of the felled Meganula, and Godzilla approaches the raft where Tsujimori and Okamura are. Tsujimori relocates Okamura back to the ship and puts on her protective gear in the same manner with the same confidence as she puts on her sunglasses. She swims over to Godzilla, the being that terrified her before she lost her commanding officer, and she clings to his back even though the radiation exposure registers on her suit. She shoots the micro transmitter into Godzilla and jumps off into the ocean, so that they can track him without using his energy. Finally, she calls him a lizard just as her CO did.

That scene is, for many, a stand out moment in the entire Godzilla franchise, but I seldom hear discussion about how this is evidence that she is acting as her commanding officer in this, her coolest moment. He died trying to get her to safety, with a strategic retreat, when she was so scared of Godzilla that she was not thinking rationally. Now, she swiftly and decisively removes her subordinate from danger, fearlessly climbs on Godzilla’s back and pushes herself to make sure this retreat is not a total loss by planting the tracker and escaping to curse the lizard once more. In that regard, she has surpassed her CO, but the question is if she realizes that. Another question would be if she was only able to do so because of her superior technology or her discipline.

Now comes the introduction of a scientist to explain what the child already told us and the film already showed us about the Meganulon life cycle, and this is another example of the film’s odd exposition habits. As a small SGS searches through the flooded Shibuya for Meganulon eggs and finds many, Tsujimori’s composure betrays her, and this makes sense as she is currently not wearing the sunglasses and in a deferential mood to Kudo, who designed the small SGS, and the other experts in the room. She might also have realized just how severe Jun’s mistake was, and she perhaps relates that back to her own mistake long ago. Sugiura plays with a chessboard, and this is the only bit of foreshadowing as to his later heel turn. Next, sans sunglasses but in more formal military wear, she explains the operation to lure Godzilla to Kiganjima island to shoot him with Dimension Tide, and she appeals to the next generation and children, indicating she is likely still thinking of Jun. Sugiura assures their backers that this plan will work.

Yoshizawa confronts Sugiura on his assurance to the government that Dimension Tide was ready before any tests, and Tsujimori, in full Major attire including a hat, takes Sugiura’s side but does so politely (so Yoshizawa has only kind words for Tsujimori). During the operation, there is another moment where a sunglasses-less Kiriko looks at Godzilla with fear but then steels herself, marking a change from Kiriko to Major Tsujimori in the operation. At the same time, the Meganula theme begins to play in all of its glory as soldiers floating in Shibuya try to shoot down as many Meganulon as they can before they mature. That is certainly a sentence. The CGI is noticeably bad, but the music augments this scene in a very important way.

When Godzilla finally arrives at the island, his suit finally shows the brighter green pigment it is known for, but very quickly, he is swarmed by dragonflies, so the contrast may be the intent there. It makes sense that the Meganula would follow him here; they found him before, and there are too many of them for him to kill before they can take some of his energy. During all of this, the Dimension Tide is on a timer, and Sugiura insists that they must proceed with the strike even if the bugs are there.

After Godzilla kills most of the Meganula, the strike fires on Godzilla, and Sugiura smiles prematurely. The strike merely displaced Godzilla, either sending him backward or possibly burying him (which will become important next time they fire the Dimension Tide). Godzilla contemplates going after the Meganula, then turns around to glare at Tsujimori and then starts heading to the National Chemistry Institute in Shibuya, which we learn from Sugiura on a phone call as he knocks all of the pieces off his chess board.

The Meganula return their stolen energy to their queen and die, but we do not have time to think about that as Tsujimori and Kudo argue. Though lacking the physical markers of the change, Tsujimori switches from aggressive to meekly apologetic in a very pronounced manner. Back in Shibuya, Megaguirus’ magnetic powers cause the technology to malfunction, and she bursts out of the water with her iconic design consisting of a reptilian face, tail with a stinger and rapid CGI wings. I like Megaguirus a lot, and I also think her parts of the film are the most unscathed from plot contrivance. It just takes a bit to explain her powerset as I have not adequately done in the past. Her flight causes sonic booms and uncomfortable vibrations in the human ear, and now she can harness Godzilla’s energy. In the past, she was merely fast, strong and territorial. So is Godzilla though, as he is still on his way to Japan. In a brief cameo appearance, we see Jun trying to evacuate with the crowd.

Tsujimori finally asks Sugiura why Godzilla is attacking, recapping that it was definitely plasma energy that summoned Godzilla in 1996 and that Japan no longer produces energy. Again, I think that means that the Griffon jet and other advanced technology cannot be plasma powered because that would mean that somewhere else is producing the plasma power and not getting attacked if the contained plasma plant within the Science Institute is enough to summon Godzilla now of all times.

Megaguirus interrupts the Griffon’s battle with Godzilla, and this battle theme is another highlight of the movie’s soundtrack. This review will not replace the experience of watching the film, and to prove that point, I will not recap the choreography here. I like this fight a lot and think it shows off the fighting styles of the kaiju involved very well. Despite being so climactic, it technically plays out almost as a cul-de-sac in the film.

I will say that as payoff to Megaguirus affecting technology before, she affects the G-Graspers’ tech including Dimension Tide now. In this scene where Tsujimori’s eyes are not covered, she looks more vulnerable than the rest of her team, and this corresponds to the raising stakes. When Kudo returns to the base after his injuries sustained from Megaguirus, Tsujimori shows concern, until he calls her out on it, and she resumes a gruffer mission-oriented demeanor. Throughout the film, she shifts her attitudes very deliberately and constantly, and you’ll see why it is important that I bring this up literally every time it happens in the sophistry section of the essay.

The dispatch of Megaguirus means that Godzilla can resume his rampage, and Tsujimori finally admits they are helpless against Godzilla. This is an important but very, very understated part of her arc in the film. As the Griffon becomes airworthy, it convenes with Sugiura, who fled to the room and Yoshizawa, who followed him there. Tsujimori, guard fully down, asks Sugiura very emotionally why Godzilla is attacking the Science Institute, and here is the exposition that plasma energy was explicitly banned but Sugiura is still using it anyway to generate wealth and, implicitly, though again this contradicts a lot of the inferences you have to make in the movie, fund and power the G-Graspers. Tsujimori accuses Sugiura, finally blaming him for all of the people he sent to die fighting Godzilla for the last 5 years.

Now is the most confusing part of the movie. Her ideals having been broken down by the reveal that the G-Graspers were founded on avoidable casualties and the Dimension Tide literally falling out of the sky, she puts the helmet back on, steels her demeanor again, has Dimension Tide lock on her in the middle of the capital city and detonates Dimension Tide to take out Godzilla. This only somewhat diminishes the strength of her character. The best analogy I can think of is the 1976 King Kong and how it misses the mark for the most part but still somehow has the best version of Jack Driscoll as Jack Prescott and the only actually believable love story in the franchise, yet the wonky themes still mischaracterize Jack briefly towards the end of the film. How can avenging her CO in the most reckless way possible wearing insignias that exacerbated the problem be the ideal way to end this story?

Well, that stumped me before, but let’s draw to make sense of this. That is the point of this video after all. The imagery is very similar to the later circumstances of Minus One’s final charge, but I only bring that up for your benefit to understand this scene better. Obviously, this film existed independent of Minus One for about 20 years, but nonetheless in the same manner as Shikishima putting Noriko’s picture on the dashboard, she puts the dog tags, the symbol of her lost commander in front of her, executes a kamikaze run and ejects her seat at just the right moment to deal a critical blow to Godzilla. In this context, I wonder if we can view this as the death of the split Tsujimori and the beginning of a character free to live as she wants to. She immediately makes fun of Kudo for his concern over her, so the reading also exists that the Kiriko part is what died, but then the film shows us that she let her hair down finally, and she stands on top of a building surveying the damage, quite literally where she was before her CO died. In a bookend, she visits Kudo once more for help but with her hair down and sunglasses off. They tease each other to close out the film, though I have made the mistake in the past of implying there is not still a dutiful formality to their interaction that muddles the romantic interest.

Of course, the real end of the film is a post credits scene where Jun, at school trying to move on with his life, hears Godzilla roar. Plot recaps indicate that Godzilla also emerges from the ground similarly to how he did on the abandoned island, but I never noticed that before, nor had I about it in the discourse of the film. The building rattles, and we hear an explosion, and he reacts in shock as if something happened. That’s what is actually in the film. I find it more interesting if Godzilla is trapped in some other dimension able to imprint ripples on the world still, but that is an idea popularized in the discourse that I have already established overwrites certain aspects of the film. Fittingly though, it is ambiguous and hard to tell exactly what it is trying to say. All evidence in the film suggests however that if you do not destroy every part of Godzilla decisively, he will come back very soon after.

(Partial) Conclusion (Keep Reading For Sophistry Section)

There is a tension in this review that may or may not be obvious to you at this time. I clearly like the film a lot because I spent so much time embroiled in this, and yet, as I indicated was a possibility, this review is far more negative than positive. There is also an air of incompleteness, I am sure, as we have only talked about the strengths and the stupidities, but I promised sophistry. Going into this project, I assumed that the movie would be a 2 out 10, but with the strengths in mind, as inconsistent as they are, I think the movie deserves a 3 out of 10 for including certain narrative short-hands that mitigate the problems without really solving any of them. For context, again, I believe a 5 out of 10 film would be perfectly balanced in strengths and stupidities and also would round up to a good film, so it actually is a sizable victory that this film achieved that extra point that takes it that much closer to being good.

One of the things reviewing these films has taught me is that my opinion on and feelings about a movie can be wholly separate to its actual quality, as best as I can determine it. Though it is tragic and often frustrating when a piece of art does not live up to its full potential, appreciating a film, respecting a film, and liking a film can be about honoring it, including its lessened quality. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a 4 out 10 movie (maybe lower), but I love it for how close it gets to crossing that threshold into being an actually good film. I do not need to pretend that there are not systemic issues in the film to like it, but also how much I like it and how much I care about appraising it fairly means I also try not to invent problems with it to be able to share my assessments without having to defend them. I like a lot of 4 out of 10 movies and will argue that people oversimplify every score below a 7 out of 10 as simply bad with no degree of nuance and thus no productive takeaway on what the successes and failures present should teach us about writing stories. At the end of the day, my argument is that if any film deserves respect, all do, and my opinion is that I like certain movies a lot.

But Wait, There’s More?

More than even just wanting to review it fairly, I now have a vested interest in trying to formulate a schema where this movie makes sense. And technically speaking, at least based on my forays into an English degree, that is generally where actual literary criticism comes from as opposed to what I define as a review. The bias that Hamlet should make sense and be cohesive is the point from which New Criticism analyzes it according to every single plot point to conclude, in opposition to authorial intent and audience consensus, that Hamlet has an Oedipal Complex. There are aspects of this that are important to the kind of reviews I like to write; authorial intent is not Word of God, the general audience seldom is as clinical in their assessments as a review should be, and the best stories have total cohesion and consistency across every plot point, theme and character arc.

However, New Criticism is an egotistical scam, allowing the Critics to write incredibly cryptically and teach each other’s works to keep each other employed all while getting increasingly self-important and pretentious about the role of the Critic as they define it. Indeed, I like to say that every literary theory basically serves to commodify tactics every audience member uses (whether consciously or subconsciously) to advance the careers of whichever old white man got to coin the term. As I see it, being a card-carrying practitioner of any of these theories means you are respecting the theory and its progenitors over the art. Similarly, someone that focuses on supplementary material (Word of God statements in interviews or a commentary track) respects the author over the art, and someone who reviews a film based predominantly on their own emotions respects themselves more than the art. Though each of those has their place in the discourse (and further, each of those aspects can and should appear in a review), I believe the art deserves the most respect out of these options in a true review.

However, to do what I am about to do, I have to ignore the film’s narrative shortcomings, not actually meeting the film where it is at and thus disrespecting it, because of my respect for Tezuka’s later films using these archetypes, my subjective like of this film and my participation in the institution of literary criticism. I will write any kind of essay that I can, but I will call out when I am not living up to the standard I hold for Reviews. So, for the Sophistry part of this essay, allow me to attempt to convince you that this 3 out of 10 film is actually a 10 out of 10 through the esteemed scholarly practice of using big words and abstract concepts as trickery to pretend a story I like is better than it is.

How This Movie Is Actually The Best If You Ignore Everything Except Me Right Now But Including Me Five Seconds Ago

So where to go about rehabilitating this movie’s reputation? The first thing we need to do is accept that everything needed to understand this story is in the film itself. In this cohesive experience with a collaborative script, a prolific director (in the Millennium series at least), some amount of studio meddling, and wildly variable audience opinion, the one true objective view of this film cannot come from any of those components, only the finished film itself. If the movie is good, for it to be good, the things within it must all work together toward it being good. Again, as I mentioned, good stories are cohesive, but cohesion is defined by the film itself, so the organic unity of this film’s execution is what legitimizes it.

We will ignore the ‘heresy of paraphrase’ for this exercise because that really only applies to poetry, and a ‘review’ is necessarily a separate experience from a film itself. Still, that is actually the main reason I did not describe the final battle, so that a New Critic cannot accuse me of ignorance about the “heresy of paraphrase.” Otherwise, I hope this to be an accurate depiction of the process and outcome of New Criticism. The marriage of structure and meaning in New Criticism means I cannot continue to complain about the exposition habits in this movie but must figure out why they are the way they are. The elements of form are also significant, as I have paired the soundtrack to the action as Godzilla and the Meganula both have significant leitmotifs.

In New Criticism, we have to be very stringent about what outside information we use. A notable allusion to a previous work counts, and, in much the same vein that New Critics read Hamlet and used his symptoms to justify bringing in a discussion about the Oedipus complex, the objective correlative can only include an external concept if you truly justify it. However, for the most part, the only thing that matters right now is the film and the critic, so if you have any notes on the director Masaaki Tezuka and his intentions, burn them now!

Or maybe don’t; you see, this is where it gets a little difficult. New Critics have to be well read scholars aware of major allusions in a text, as that becomes a narrative shorthand to group together concepts. Tezuka’s name, naturally, appears in the credits and thus within the film itself. Is that a notable enough allusion to the primary creative of the world we are seeing to implicate him in its creation? Even if that does not count, Tezuka actually plays a character in the film: the teacher in the post credits scene. Tentatively, I would still say we cannot discuss him without better reason, especially because his other films came after this one, but I am open to contrary opinions in the comment section. In any case, the allusions I made to Spider-Man 2, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Godzilla vs Biollante, and the Tell Tale Heart are all irrelevant and have to be ignored in New Criticism of the film. More to the point, my speculation that more of Godzilla 1954 is canon than we realize must also disappear. The film never mentions the Oxygen Destroyer and only juxtaposes rocket launcher guns to a black hole gun, so I do not have warrant to read that into the text.

The goal of New Criticism is to find the objective correlative that unites the film, the whole film and nothing but the film so help you God, and I did some of that in the Strengths and Stupidities segment in order to make this a little easier on both you and me. The relationship between Tsujimori and her commanding officer is the focus of her arc, as she takes on the role of him as a source of strength to alleviate her guilt. Nothing says this explicitly in the film, but I walked you through all the little moments that lead us there, thus proving, with every scene in the film, that she is a well-rounded consistent character. I still believe her character to be a great one, but it was ultimately circular logic, and to do the task I set out to do, to use New Criticism on this movie, the rational part of me that explains the trick of this sophistry will have to leave you as abruptly as the Jun left the movie.

Since I eventually settled on the themes of masculinity vs femininity in regards to understanding her personality split, firing a gun to prove her strength at two notable moments, and letting down her hair once she left her CO’s dog tags behind when defeating Godzilla, I could maybe read in specific stories like Mulan or the writings of Qiu Jin, but probably not. Even those still feel a little bit off topic, and we have more stuff to explain with the objective correlative.

The expository habits in the film are functional, bringing in foreshadowing directly when relevant and abridging very important events for some reason. The revelations about plasma technology feel like an afterthought, but character considerations are put in the forefront, as we see the scenes introducing Tsujimori and Sugiura in full, when they may have been better summarized, and even Yoshizawa’s truncated backstory still informs aspects of her character, see how the stilted snapshot nature of the flashback is likely how she allows herself to experience it. One of the few plot devices that gets set-up many scenes ahead of its payoff is Kudo’s Dimension Tide Operating System, first designed as a Nurse and then after Tsujimori. This connects to how he tries to protect the feminine side of Tsujimori in the gym and as a Chibi sprite, but, in both instances, she forces out the “real” Tsujimori to shoot a gun very well. In that sense, the character relation of the Dimension Tide to grief is more important to the film than the presence of black holes in the equation, and the fact that Tsujimori can use this endless grief for good even in reckless circumstances means that the characters are primary to the theme as well.

Within this film, it seems that the optimal morality in this film is a system wherein we judge actions and plot points by their consequences, specifically the Godzilla related ones. So, Godzilla-repelling ends justify the means. Society bans nuclear energy because it attracts Godzilla; once plasma does the same, they ban it as well. The emergence of Megaguirus uses material from the Meganula and Godzilla, so even the Big Bad of the film can only become such with Godzilla and his power within her. Before this, the child that carries her to Shibuya is a sympathetic character; after, we do not see him in that same light, mainly because he disappears from the movie. But what this means is that this sympathetic aspect of the Meganula is gone after that point. The grown Megaguirus is coded with the reptilian ferocity of Godzilla, not with the childlike innocence of an egg. The flooding of Shibuya is not a holy baptism or necessarily a yonic image but relates Megaguirus to Godzilla further as they both rise out of the water. Also, the Meganula seek energy but only Godzilla’s, making it reflective of him rather than continuing the motif of plasma summoning monsters.

The averted fate of an all-consuming Godzilla-caused nuclear meltdown juxtaposes the all-consuming deluge of Shibuya, which juxtaposes the all-consuming nature of revenge and a black hole gun, but the actions of Godzilla and of the power of Godzilla in the Meganula are what is evil, and the actions that prevent Godzilla are good. This is what the film shows us, and it remains entirely consistent to this theme, as this understanding solely resolves the paradox of Tsujimori’s recklessness and the ambiguity of Dimension Tide and the G-Graspers. Furthermore, Kudo’s presence wholly augments the G-Graspers’ efforts, debatably being what redeems them. The Dimension Tide can only work if he helps, the Godzilla tracker is his invention, and he develops a mini version of the Search Godzilla System just in time for it to help them with the Meganula infestation. Furthermore, his automated chibi Nurse operating system takes on the visage of Tsujimori when it fixes the problems with Dimension Tide, communicating that the union of Kudo and Tsujimori is what can win against Godzilla in this movie.

Under the schema of New Criticism, the horror imagery is more important. We are ignoring other kaiju movies except for possibly Rodan (but it is safer not to even bring him in anymore), and the Meganulon in this film stars in a suspenseful and gory scene against a human couple in Shibuya, then the horde menaces Godzilla. In the final battle, Megaguirus sneaks up on Godzilla several times, stabs him and smiles wickedly, flying over the Griffon in the same kind of misdirect as the two city workers that the Meganulon passed before striking the couple. It does not matter that the director had no considerable horror experience; that is actually preferred. The art speaks for itself, and this is a film with deep horror elements.

The film’s confusing morality, ambiguous storytelling and withholding of certain crucial information until it is almost pointless to know also effectively puts the viewer further on edge about the experience. I cannot invoke specific strains of horror, but I can conclude by saying that this means that Godzilla vs Megaguirus, like a New Critic’s poetry, is a work that you cannot just summarize, because it behaves as its own experience, inspiring all sorts of different feelings to make its own unapologetic whole. I started this essay off by explaining how Godzilla vs Megaguirus is overwritten in popular discourse, and though I am showing disdain for New Criticism while doing this, I think New Criticism gives us a schema for how to visualize that, very effectively.

Thank you for getting this far in the essay; whether you found it through the blog or previously watched the YouTube version, it helps us all the same, and I hope this gives you a reason to revisit Godzilla vs Megaguirus, which you can stream for free on Tubi. If you do, I would ask you to do so without Godzilla 2000 in mind, without knowing that Misato Tanaka will actually play a nurse in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, a film that makes the plot points of this one seem more cohesive and without a tendency to overwrite the film's meaning...unless you find it more fun that way.

Transcript Version - Godzilla Vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities, And Sophistry PART ONE

2026-05-17T20:38:55.622-07:00

By Joe Gibson

Godzilla vs Megaguirus has an interesting place in the discourse surrounding the Godzilla series, underappreciated and overshadowed by both what came before and after. This is the second film of the Millennium series, produced as a response to Tristar’s 1998 Godzilla, and Godzilla vs Megaguirus is actually the only Millennium Era film to actually come out in 2000. However, if someone were to say Godzilla 2000 or Godzilla 2000: Millennium, they would be referring to the previous film titled such from 1999. Godzilla 2000 overwrites Godzilla vs Megaguirus in that one simple way, but also the Godzilla suit in both films is functionally the same one, with a more exaggerated color scheme on the Megaguirus suit. When discussing these suits, MireGoji summarizes both itself and the slightly adjusted GiraGoji. Within the Godzilla series, Godzilla vs Megaguirus represents director Masaaki Tezuka’s first attempt, but fans remember a lot more fondly his later attempt, Millennium series films 4 and 5, fans focusing on how he improved tropes from Vs Megaguirus for Against Mechagodzilla. Megaguirus, herself, is a popular monster, but the discourse often surrounds the potential of bringing her back to fight Rodan as her base form the Meganulon originated in Rodan’s first film. I cannot say with certainty that few people care about the film, but few people focus solely on the film itself when discussing it in a way I find interesting.

Because of this, I find it prudent to test out a new format, this Triple S review, on this film in particular. The title of this article invokes Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry, and, so, my goal is to review the movie per my usual standards and then experiment with some literary criticism to overwrite the film’s meaning myself as is so uniquely popular to do with this Godzilla film.

I need to lay out a couple terms to clarify what I am trying to achieve with this article before I can get too deep into it. A review is a very odd thing to be as poorly defined as it is within modern discourse. At its most basic, I am engaging with a text to test if it functions properly, such as a peer review for an argumentative essay. But at its most extreme, it can get quite messy.

When we review a film, we are trying to encapsulate the entirety of it, its characters, plot, theme work, shot composition, soundtrack, special effects, symbolism, etc, into a single explanation of a score or rating. For someone as young and inexperienced as I am, this is difficult to do effectively without a lot of time and space.

I have experimented with different formats to do this; an article that leads with the conclusions and brings in textual evidence to serve the argument is shorter, sweeter, simpler and always reads (to me anyway) as a stronger and better organized rhetorical appeal. That said, it is both substantially harder and a little more dishonest to write that way. I end up forcing the art into a direction I set instead of analyzing its aspects as they come about naturally. The other strategy I have tried is to recap the text in as great of detail as necessary, putting special emphasis on the most important aspects to the case I am trying to build for the eventual conclusion. Depending on how meticulous each essay is, I am basically participating in a close read when I do this, and I find that to be a better form for a review to take than most of the alternatives.

I do not want to name names since they almost exclusively have larger audiences than I do and still do make good points with the format and framework adopted, but the general trends I see with reviewing this movie is that the negative aspects of the film and an overall disdain for it color their interpretation.

Few people tackle the entire movie with each scene, subplot, flourish and blemish getting its own consideration (and even I have some difficulty doing so). Though I am less qualified than these other commentators, that is what I try to do, truly view a movie again to chart the strengths and weaknesses of the entire movie to hopefully feel confident in an argument about the overall quality that can prompt a score out of 10 and also a discussion that better represents the art going forward. Though I focus on the Strengths and Stupidities, I cannot merely balance them. That would be more disingenuous, as it requires me to pretend that both are equally valid and prevalent. Though every movie is a mix between Strengths and Stupidities, some films genuinely are more stupid than good or more impressive than idiotic, so my approach has to account for that. That feels like enough preamble though, and this essay is difficult enough without adding further goals, so let us just begin with the review section.

Strengths and Stupidities

This film begins with a broadcast from Nichei News, explaining that in 1954, Godzilla attacked Japan. However, in this continuity, the creature in 1954 was in his spikier green Giragoji look and did not die. That is the general understanding of the differences between this universe and the standard Godzilla timelines, but upon a rewatch, I am not exactly sure that is what this is saying. Likely, this is due to the wonkiness of the translation, but the newscaster says that Godzilla “again” attacked Japan, brought "back to life" by the advancement and threat of nuclear weaponry. The monologue does not explicitly reference any previous attack from Godzilla, but it also might not preclude the actual 54 events we are used to if the Giragoji design is meant to be a regenerated 54 Godzilla in a similar vein to GMK’s Godzilla. The sloppiness of the exposition in this movie is a major weakness, so I want to emphasize it appropriately. But also, perhaps more importantly, this exercise is to look very closely at this film and see what it is trying to say, not what we expect to see. The organic unity of this story is what will legitimize it, and that sentiment will guide us far later on, so let’s get back into the film.

The film switches to a nondiegetic narrator explaining that Godzilla attacked Japan’s first nuclear power plant in 1966, so they replaced nuclear with renewable energy sources. This narration includes other journalists on the field reporting the news as it happens. In 1996, the government established the Bureau of Science and Technology, and this organization will be dominant in the film, employing the main cast and developing tools for the G-Graspers. The first diegetic dialogue from a named character starts with the words “As you all know,” and that is the third example of this sloppy exposition as Motohiko Sugiura, the man who is going to go on to drive the entire plot is first written as a plot function to catch the audience up on a plot point the narrator just explained in detail. In the actual context of the scene, it makes sense as a cliche for Sugiura to say on his podium to reassure the public about their new plasma energy, but there are better ways to write that, and the scene itself is unnecessary as it is redundant and wastes time getting to Kiriko Tsujimori and the inciting incident of her journey.

The narrator trails off and introduces us to Kiriko Tsujimori in the middle of a defense force operation to stop an attacking Godzilla. Many commentators have criticized these characters using mere bazookas against Godzilla as incredibly stupid, and, in the past, I have defended this plot point with the argument that this impotent effort in 1996 is meant to contrast the BST and G-Graspers’ tech in 2001. (Also, these bazookas are actually the same type of recoilless rifle that Goro Gondo used against Godzilla to fan acclaim in Godzilla vs Biollante.) Two things can be true however, and this is not exactly an unimportant cul-de-sac of a scene; it will serve as the inciting incident and motivation for our heroine, and it is the tragedy that will endear her revenge quest to us, a revenge that the film lets her achieve even when later themes would indicate she should not. So, a very important scene to get right. Because of our lead's takeaway of this mission, there is a theme here about the utter powerlessness of humanity against Godzilla and also about the importance of process. Tsujimori hesitates to respond to her commanding officer, stares at Godzilla in fear, wastes her shot on Godzilla’s neck instead of his legs to fell him, stays in position too long so her CO has to evacuate her, and finally her CO gives his life to save her from falling rubble. She retrieves his dog tag and fires his bazooka on Godzilla. Her resolution in this film will include a very contentious decision, but the idea here is that while their weaponry was insufficient to win, she specifically made a mistake and thinks she needs to take on attributes of her CO, including the guilt and shame for his death in order to win the day.

On a technical level, this scene is very good. The Godzilla suit is gorgeous, the dark lighting and low angles make him even more imposing, and the miniatures and composite shots are sufficient for the budget. Some shots include an orange glow that could be the result of his destruction or serve as foreshadowing for the manner in which the plasma energy summons Godzilla, an aspect of the film that is sorely lacking if we just focus on the script as I am prone to. Finally, Michiru Oshima’s score for this movie is incredible and augments every scene of Godzilla and the Meganula.

Finally, we get into the main bit of the story in 2001 as Kiriko, now with the G-Graspers and wearing sunglasses, tries to recruit inventor magician Hajime Kudo into the fight against Godzilla. As he performs a trick using robots to mix ingredients under a microwave shaped like a bowl (just go with it, it actually makes more sense than the bazookas in context), Tsujimori immediately guesses the solution and then proves it. I believe this is here to immediately contrast her more timid nature and inform us more about what she believes the ideal type of leader would do, how she is romanticizing her deceased commanding officer. This type of plot point actually happens three times in Attack on Titan, so I do not have to give any specific spoilers, but the idea of a character losing an authority figure or friend and then trying to act like them in a way that ultimately tells us more about the surviving character is a really interesting plot point when done right, and it is the main difference between Tsujimori and the later evolutions of her archetype Akane Yashiro and Koichi Shikishima. For that reason, further discussion of Akane and Shikishima is mostly irrelevant, as, outside of the obvious posturing in the story and a couple key scenes, they are actually very different types of characters. However, again, you only realize this difference when you let go of the noise and discourse and just focus on the film, which can be done responsibly and irresponsibly as I hope to demonstrate both in this article (though this transcript version will be two parts).

Tsujimori and Kudo disagree about explaining the trick to the nearby kids, as the kids leave the building in response, but Tsujimori justifies it, saying that the kids are old enough to know the truth, and she will later on be able to have a healthy friendship with another child, so it is merely a matter of perspective, not a trait of alienating children on her part. I wonder how old she thinks is old enough to know the truth. These were actual children, but this new stage of her life is only 5 years old, younger than they appeared to be. She takes Kudo to the Self Defense Corps Shibaura Base, and he criticizes the look of the warehouse turned G-Grasper headquarters. Kiriko explains that even though, in theory, Godzilla only responds to energy leaks, the only way to be sure they are safe “would be to eliminate Godzilla once and for all.” It is worth mentioning at this point that the subtitle for the film is The G Annihilation Strategy and that Tsujimori, despite acting like the mentor character bringing Kudo into the fight, is actually the protagonist, but this is again because she is acting like what she thinks her CO was like. Still, he talked of saving lives, and she talks of eliminating Godzilla. Keep this in mind for when she detonates a highly dangerous superweapon in public to destroy Godzilla at the end of the movie.

As she explains, different sections exist in the workforce of their fight; the first searches for Godzilla, the second studies his behavior, the third handles statistics for evacuation scenarios, and the combat section are the G-Graspers. Tsujimori introduces the small team she leads on the G-Graspers: Makoto Nikura, Kazuo Mima, Seiichi Hosono, and Tomoharu Okumura. Our last main character, Professor Yoshizawa, has a preexisting connection to Kudo, having taught his high school physics class. This is a lot to cover in just a few minutes, and I will pose the question of why the film allowed this exposition to play out in dialogue between characters with complicated yet understandable relationships to each other, when so much else was left up to dueling narration between newscasts and a real narrator. I am not claiming one is better than the other, just that this film is not purposeful with how it delivers exposition to the audience. People would not criticize Tsujimori’s tragic backstory as much if we did not see the types of weapons they were trying to use, and how irresponsibly everybody used them. Similarly, the film has barely even hinted so far that plasma energy is anything less than the magical clean energy source Sugiura told us it was, so the later plot points concerning Godzilla and the illegal plasma energy are going to seem to come out of nowhere.

Yoshizawa now asks Kudo to join them, and his flippant response about not wanting to die young brings still images of Yoshizawa’s own tragic backstory with Godzilla to her mind. She lost her team before and has similar trauma to Tsujimori, just that she was the one in charge, not cosplaying as her superior now. And this is what I was talking about with how the film truncates some things and lets others play out dramatically. The film effectively communicates Yoshizawa’s grief without showing me a contrived setup to distract from it. It also works to characterize Yoshizawa, since we just saw her flashback, but she cannot bear to remember it as more than a series of still images, so that is all we get to see. Kudo apologizes, and she states her desire to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again with a plasma black hole gun. Let us table the obvious stupidity for one second.

At this point in history, Godzilla feeds on plasma energy. The film is a bit half-hearted as to whether or not an energy leak is required to summon Godzilla because that was the coverup response, and it certainly wasn’t the case for the nuclear power plant attack in 1966. Plasma is a symbol of caution, at best, and a bad idea masquerading as a viable replacement at worst. In other thematic considerations, an ever-expanding void that swallows Godzilla fired from a gun by Tsujimori is actually an excellent visual metaphor for her all-consuming grief. The issue is that it is Yoshizawa’s idea and will be Kudo’s invention. And now we can talk about how stupid it is. A black hole is obviously one of the most dangerous cosmic events, quite literally uncontrollable destruction. Miniaturizing the black hole does not fix the problem, and the logical leap from trying bazookas to using a black hole is a chasm in the plot, especially as there is no hint of satire here.

Kudo, as our established super genius, sees no issue with the plan, and his later Deus ex Machina levels of plot importance and technical prowess means he again is not the subject of satire. Somehow, working with black holes is enough to resolve Kudo’s “Refusal of the Call.” Again, that does not really matter, as the Hero’s Journey is Tsujimori’s, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Now, we jump three months into the future, and insect obsessed child Jun Hayasaka enters the movie for complicated reasons. We need him here to progress the plot and also humanize Tsujimori. The movie does not need him through the entire runtime though, so he will abruptly disappear eventually. He tries to enter the cordoned off Dimension Tide testing zone because he is an easily impressed distractible child and, more importantly, to me anyway, he looks old enough to know the truth. (I say that partially because his knowledge of the Meganula is on par with or possibly better than that of the scientist our heroes bring in to replace him, because, unlike the scientist, Jun will directly identify the extinct Meganula out of any of the thousands of types of insects he knows.)

In a conversation between Sugiura and Yoshizawa, we learn that the Dimension Tide black hole is necessary because they do not want to make the same mistake again and must make sure no trace of him remains, so this feels like the Oxygen Destroyer did happen in the universe, but he grew back within the same year. That would explain the escalation, and, crap, that would have been a good Cult Film Curiosities video idea. I won’t actually be able to use that for the Sophistry part of the essay for reasons you’ll eventually see, but uh, let me know in the comments if you want that Cult Film Curiosity “What Really Happened to Giragoji in 1954?”.

Once again, the film associates Yoshizawa with Dimension Tide even though the subtext only really matches Tsujimori, and she launches a miniature black hole at an abandoned building. The test works as intended, only it opens up a wormhole in the place of the building. The wormhole dissipates for some reason, but it’ll be back soon to facilitate some plot points. Wormholes are an odd scientific topic that I understand even less than I do black holes, but as far as I know, a wormhole needs to connect between two points of spacetime, insinuating a subject that has been in both places at once. Again, it is possible I am wrong about this, but this may be a major contrivance for Megaguirus’ egg to make it through the wormhole, and it is at least a small contrivance that the wormhole appeared to close for everybody except Jun later.

An agent catches Jun, and Tsujimori tries to handle the situation, first by taking off her sunglasses and then crouching down to his level. If my analysis of her taking on the role of her CO is correct, then this is her relinquishing that identity for a moment, showing Jun her eyes that we, the audience, have not seen since 1996. She speaks more softly, and, in opposition to her previous sunglasses laden attitude, she says that he should not tell anybody else about what he saw, specifically his parents who would definitely be old enough to know. She picks up his insect display and leaves, putting back on her sunglasses. This connection between the humanity in the jaded, ashamed veteran and the innocence of a young child is better handled in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, but you can see many of the same building blocks in a different but equally interesting package with Masaaki Tezuka’s first attempt here. I will continue to point out the presence or lack of sunglasses or military equipment as masks, as it pertains to this idea, sometimes shakily, but always at least a little bit.

Jun sees a Meganula fly past his window, and he returns to the testing site, where the wormhole has reopened so that the Meganula could fly through, lay an egg and fly back. Once again, the darkness, camera angles (higher up this time to emphasize the small stature of Jun) and the soundtrack show off the darker horror movie tone this movie will dip its toe into soon. A small fog on the ground surrounding the egg makes the scene somewhat dreamlike. Jun taking the egg back to Shibuya is a massive mistake, but the far larger one is disposing of the egg in the sewers. This one action will result in a flood that consumes the entire city. As it stands, this feels arbitrary too, but it fits the motif of a small action, the grief for one man that consumes Kiriko and a gun that can consume Godzilla. Once again, the film does not associate it with Tsujimori until later.

At this point, Kudo visits Tsujimori while she is working out with her platoon members. Trying to flirt, he diminishes her pursuit but then gives her Chekov’s micro transmitter that she can use to ask for his help. He strolls over to her personal effects and picks up her CO’s dog tag; we learn his name is Miyagawa. She snatches it back and storms off. Now, in this scene, for practical reasons, she was not wearing the sunglasses, and she also was not warm to Kudo, mainly because he insulted her discipline and then implied he could save her. But, as soon as she grabs the dog tags, she composes herself and tests off his micro transmitter with a dead shot on a large weight across the room, basically winning the phallic measuring contest, and that only makes sense because she is embodying her dead CO, a man. For this project, I sort of married myself to the imagery of clothing as symbols, but I would ask you upon a rewatch to look out for her hair as well as the other symbols, how rigid in her beliefs and process she is when it is tied up and what other emotions she shows when it is done.

Deep below Shibuya, the egg breaks off into multiple, and this is as good a time as any to explain the lifecycle of these beasts. So, Meganulon is an insect that originated in the original Rodan film, sort of a bait and switch monster that attacks the cast before we realize that the true threat is Rodan, who feasts on the Meganulon. In this film, Meganulon is what we will call the nymph or larval form of the creature, and, once it sprouts wings and flies, it is the dragonfly Meganula. Megaguirus is their queen, who probably would be special on her own in the past, but she bears reptilian facial features because Godzilla’s DNA and energy winds up inside of her. Jun sees the initial sewer overflow and immediately recognizes his mistake. This is a sort of Telltale Heart situation, but Jun’s mistake has not killed anybody…yet.

So anyway, two city ordinance workers also spot the flooding, and a Meganulon perches on the wall above them. In Hitchcockian suspense, the two workers are talking about their job, and nobody cares because there is a violent murderous bug above them that they haven’t noticed yet. It starts to move, and then we meet a couple out on the town nearby. The man sits, smoking, and the soundtrack kicks into high gear with the shrill string noises that accompany the Meganulon as it creeps closer. The movie even puts us in Meganulon’s perspective for part of the kill, because there is a very effective horror movie somewhere in here. The girlfriend is next, and much of it is offscreen. Following the kill, the Meganulon sprouts wings and becomes a Meganula, leaving its original skin behind.

In the past, I have likened that scene to the hospital scene in Spider-Man 2, because it is the same kind of idea. This superhero movie suddenly became an Evil Dead film for a few minutes just because the director wanted it that way, and almost everyone agrees that was the right choice. What makes it strange here is that I cannot find any evidence that Tezuka directed any horror films, and he served as assistant director mainly on Toho kaiju films, samurai films, and political crime dramas. One of the films he was assistant director on, in particular, was Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, which could inform the similarly confused morality that we’ll get into later, but I have no idea why he directed the film this way, especially as it was his first directorial feature and his later Kiryu duology does not include this same talent for horror on display.

A guilty Jun meets with Tsujimori, who again has taken off her glasses to address the child. She takes full responsibility for the tragedy, claiming that the test must have mutated a nearby insect. Because Jun will leave the movie very soon, we do not get as much to follow up on this as in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, but Tsujimori is able to try and absolve Jun of the blame in a way she is not willing to do for herself in either personality. Still, Jun then shares his knowledge of the Meganula life cycle.

The G-Graspers discover through their sensors that near the Ogasawara islands, Godzilla is emitting heat rapidly and strangely against an enemy, which turns out to be a Meganula, and the soundtrack gives a sneak peak of its evolved version of the Meganulon theme that adds a vibrato and dissonance to the downward violin strokes. The G-Graspers take off in the Gx-813 Fighter Griffon ship, and this is probably the best time to talk about the film’s advanced “present day” technology. I refuse to believe that the monorail and the Griffon are plasma powered, because I noticed nothing in the film to indicate such, and the emissions should summon Godzilla wherever they go. Still, plasma power is the easy answer for the futurism on display, and there still is plasma power tied into industry, underground as it is, in this movie.

This is an abrupt stopping point, but the video version of this essay has debuted alongside this post (Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry). You can watch the full thing there, but if you would rather read this argument, the second part of this essay will go up on this blog in a couple days.

Next Time: The Thrilling Conclusion

Part 3: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy - Attack On Titan On PCP - Transcript Version

2026-05-14T10:26:55.680-07:00

By Joe Gibson

The following is the third part part of the transcript of a recent video on Plan9Crunch’s YouTube page that you can watch here: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP

You can find the first two parts of this transcript edition through following these links:

Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Godzilla’s Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP, Part One

Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Part 2: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy - Attack On Titan On PCP - Transcript Version

Why I feel the way I do about this trilogy will become clear with the final installment, what all of this was building to; officially known as Godzilla The Planet Eater, for this exercise, let’s call it…

GODZILLA: The Pill Eater

The film opens with Metphies confessing to the audience that the Exif have been watching humans since before Godzilla even appeared, far before in fact, before the dawn of civilization. His conclusion is that religion does not actually work to keep humans in check, but they seek a leader that can carry out God’s message and embody the culture of the era. This reframes the trilogy’s events thus far because it explains why Metphies likes Haruo so much and helped him so much. Just put a pin in this though; there’s a lot more to say once Haruo finds out.

Godzilla is sleeping once more after expending so much energy in the last battle. It is 4 minutes into the movie; let’s play a game and see how long it takes him to wake up this time. As Martin watches the sleeping Godzilla, he speculates instead of humans’ mistakes birthing Godzilla, maybe humans were the opening act for Godzilla as the ultimate life form. As Martin is pretty much always right, we must accept this going forward. The idea kind of makes sense; that is what certain contingents of people believe about dinosaurs and humans. If we examine this in the context of the larger mythology of the trilogy, I wonder why the Hoututa exist then? That is a case of nature recreating humans but faster, stronger, smarter and more psychically aware, an adaptation that came after Godzilla and can live in symbiosis with him.

Because of the events of the previous film, there is a lot of fallout to explore. The Bilusaludo on the Aratrum see Haruo’s actions as treasonous, while the humans and Exif agree with the filmmakers about the nanometal. Yuko is in a permanent coma kept alive by the nanometal, and Adam has seemingly joined Metphies’ religion offscreen due to the latter’s role in their survival. In fact, Metphies has leveraged Haruo’s miraculous nanometal resistance as proof he is a hero, and, as Metphies said it would, that got everybody in line. In other words, a 180-degree character shift was achieved not through showing us a transformation but with 5 second foreshadowing via narration at the start of a film. The difficulty with comparing three movies to a 4 season show is that the show always has more time to develop themes and characters…except for Pastor Nick, a side character who is mostly in the shortest season of the show, whose devotion to his religion gets so much complexity for a bit part. It makes him obstinate but also brave, a roadblock for the heroes and also helpful in a moment. AOT also has a lot to say against religion, but it does so a lot more fairly.

Anyway, Haruo is in anguish over Yuko’s functional death, but Adam’s ramblings snap him back to his default anger, this time against something Metphies caused (keep this in mind, it’ll be a surprise tool that can help us later). That scowl persists as he watches Metphies’ religious ceremony, and Martin takes Haruo aside to explain the miracle as being the Houtua’s angelic scales as I’ve already mentioned. Martin calls the religion a cult, and Haruo gets angry but it is difficult to tell at what. He asks Metphies if they can talk and passes along Martin’s diagnosis. Metphies explains that he is manipulating the survivors to ready them for another attack against Godzilla using his God, and for some reason he is a lot less sly saying it than he usually is, prompting Haruo to scream asking why their God couldn’t have helped sooner, why people had to die? And now it is clear that this is about more than just these characters. This is a rant against organized religion given three yellow heads and beam attacks.

Now okay I do not want a Plan9Crunch Essay to be for or against religion. The cults we are interested in here pertain to entertainment culture. I cannot deny that many of the worst movements and organizations in history have had religion on their lips as they operated. Nor can I deny that the relevant God or gods have not stepped in at those times. But I also literally can’t deny that belief in a God is a major part of 12 step programs because I chose psychoactive drugs as my lens for this article. And I also think back to Grimm season 5 episode 16 where a Wesen used his unique ability to give absolution to followers in his religion, convincing them he was literally taking their sins within himself. Though the episode interrogated his monetary incentive, the way it resolved showed that without a doubt what he truly cared about was the people he helped.

These questions of religion have motivated so much art, and they are natural ones to ask. I just do not think it is best praxis to relegate the religious characters to mindless background drones against their prior characterization in the last film of the trilogy because it makes it so incredibly obvious that Haruo will not choose them. It’s the nanometal problem all over again but worse. I do not want to prescribe a specific path and say the story must take it, but if you are interrogating religion, do it sooner and deeper. Up until this point, characters like Adam only existed to take potshots at Metphies’ religion. The commentary becomes so much more potent if he were converted sooner and his radicalization unfolded before our eyes.

Metphies answers that he needed Haruo to become so angry his hatred for Godzilla would overcome his disbelief in their God, that only Haruo was angry enough and proud enough and sure enough in what humanity ought to be. That is apparently why Metphies selected Haruo. Wait… I thought, based on the previous scenes I pointed to, that Metphies molded Haruo this way, that Haruo was always intended to be the hero, and that’s how this wannabe terrorist made Captain. No, at some unspecified point, Metphies noticed the anger and pride, a trait Haruo thought no one had which should logically include himself, and then took an interest in him and started manipulating him.

The Bilusaludo turn off the Aratrum’s power, demanding Haruo’s sentencing. In a moment that has been memed to death, Martin walks in a room to talk to tell Haruo about it, forgets what he was there to say, goes on a big rant about religion and then remembers what he was in there to say. Martin pitches that Haruo pull a Trotsky and run away, and since Martin and Miana (who is in on the plan) are literally the only people Haruo can trust right now, he has to go along with it.

Conversing with Miana, Haruo learns that the Houtua philosophy is different from Metphies. They define winning as surviving and connecting life, with losing as dying. She then undresses and offers to connect life with Haruo, such a big step from the relatively chaste kiss last film. I’m more concerned though about the fact that Haruo is so important that one of, well, actually both, as we’ll find out, of the powerful priestesses in the Houtua culture instantly want to sleep with Haruo. Miana claims it is to get to know him better, but both twins winced when they witnessed Yuko kissing him. This is a weird power fantasy. Now that Metphies’ influence on Haruo is temporarily severed, I can diagnose this as the plot and writing using Haruo for these delusions of grandeur and invulnerability and not Metphies making Haruo feel this way. And that is important for the overall PCP thing because it means that this is not a clever deconstruction of this type of character, how making someone into a special hero will make them fall in line, it is just here to be here.

Anyway, thankfully, Haruo declines her offer…for now. I’ve also seen memes taking the piss out of this situation, and though this has no value as an appeal about film quality, I think it is very telling that the only way a large amount of the audience knew how to interact with this movie is through relentless memes. During Haruo’s sleep, one of the twins stumbles upon Metphies and confronts him for keeping secret that he too communicates psychically, while the other one attempts to remove his spacesuit and sleep with him. I’m still not exactly sure on the logic that because Miana took off his spacesuit before and Miana struggled to a little bit ago, that means the currently struggling Miana is actually Maina. In any case, Haruo sleeps with her. We don’t see the action, but we see the side of her naked body as she embraces him, and I don’t mean to pearl clutch but you gotta remember that City On The Edge of Battle was the second Godzilla film where main characters kissed, and now one of those characters is sleeping with someone else. This is weird for the franchise. Also, both twins’ subplots demonstrate some aspect of detachment as a motif. Haruo is so detached from who he impregnates that he can barely tell her apart from her sister, and Metphies detaches himself from psychic communication with the Houtua while monologuing about how detached he is from frank human open expression that he just observes them for the most part.

Metphies restrains Miana and threatens to sacrifice her to Ghidorah just as Godzilla opens his eye at the 32 minute mark. That actually would be a pretty good pace for a standard Godzilla movie (if the film didn’t show Godzilla waking up again at 43 minutes in, which is literally halfway if you adjust for the closing credits). At the same time, Haruo walks in on Metphies preparing a soup for a ritual. After trying it, while Metphies rambles on about how the angry observer Haruo is the only thing that makes Godzilla a kaiju and not a giant creature, Haruo peeks in the pot and finds Miana’s dead body. This is the most memed moment of the entire film; one really good one has Metphies’ head on Gordon Ramsey’s body. Okay this was a dream. Haruo was nowhere near Metphies in real life; this is a memory manipulation from Metphies, and Maina wakes up in terror because she heard her sister say the word Ghidorah.

(This is not exactly what I described, but this was the best I could find.)

The soup is real, even if Miana was not its main ingredient, and it basically becomes the Kool-Aid for Metphies’ cult. As Metphies tells his followers to embrace God by losing their individuality, the similarity to the nanometal debacle is probably intentional, but that was still very recent so it really is not logical that this is working. Like I get what Gen Urobuchi is trying to say here about religion making people act against their own self-interests, but this was like between hours and a week ago that the Bilusaludos were demonized for trying this. Ghidorah’s shadow emanates from artifacts Metphies and another Exif hold and massacre the believers. Now, this feels like an allusion to Heaven’s Gate especially with the alien and liquid components to it, and I think the film should be a little bit more tactful if this is the form of religious commentary it wants to provide, but I have my opinions which may become reality and I have Godzilla The Pill Eater, which is reality.

A singularity opens up, and one of Ghidorah’s impossibly long necks comes out to destroy the Aratrum. This version of Ghidorah can warp space and time, and its ties to the Gematron crystal override the ship’s features. Consequently, their vital signs read as dead before they actually experience that happening. This causes Ghidorah to draw nearer to Earth with three singularities nearby for each of the heads. Haruo and Godzilla both race into action, Haruo to save Miana from Metphies and Godzilla to face the singularities. I will spare you any reproduction of Martin’s play by play of the final act of this film; if I were to include it, we would be here all day. Basically, Ghidorah is not fully real in the world and so it can attack Godzilla, but he cannot touch it. We are deep into the PCP use now; reality is bending in on itself, and nothing makes sense anymore.

Metphies starts monologuing about the flowers of nature and how the prime monster is always the last and greatest flower, and then Ghidorah, the Golden Demise devours those fruits. As far as Metphies has told Harou, Ghidorah destroyed the Exif’s planet, but now he explains that some priests were spared to spread Ghidorah across the universe. This gets Haruo angry and is coding religion as seeking destruction. Metphies has put an artifact in his eye that hypnotizes Haruo, transferring these two into his memories, and this is another area where the awareness of one’s body and mind, where it starts, how ideology is inseparable from the human and their tools and their purpose, grand purpose invulnerable avatars of the fight between Godzilla and Ghidorah all that stuff comes into play.

And this is also where we have to give The Planet Eater its flowers. The next few minutes of the movie is where it beat Attack on Titan to the punch on one of its most beloved plot points.

This trilogy first went into production in 2015, and this film was released at the tail end of 2018. The part of Attack On Titan’s manga where blonde manipulator War Chief Zeke takes Eren through the latter’s memories in order to convince him of his nihilistic worldview started to debut in the middle of 2019. The anime trilogy somehow predicted that the older blonde character would go into the angry one’s memories and try to convince him of his worldview. It was not without its fair foreshadowing in AOT; memories were very important to the way Eren and his Titan functioned, and Zeke clearly needed Eren for something, but it is uncanny. And I saw this before AOT, so these scenes impressed me on a first viewing even though I still did not think the reveals were the smoothest.

Haruo resists Metphies’ sermon on the finite nature of the universe with great pain even though he never once talked about immortality. Then we flash back to Haruo’s memory of his parents’ death, but now it is Metphies that saves him, not Yuko’s grandfather Daichi. Metphies hands Haruo his first ration aboard the ship. In the real world, Metphies cradles Haruo’s body, reenacting La Pieta while trying to convince Haruo that all of these memories lead to the single truth that Haruo has just wanted the pain to end, a very suicidal mindset, so let’s go back to the chart.

Metphies made Haruo dizzy, which led to loss of balance at which point he gave him hallucinations of falling into his memories in a state that could be a seizure since Metphies stabilizes him all with the goal of implanting delusions and suicidal thoughts so that Haruo will take to the violent behavior of ending the planet. This was the motherlode of PCP symptoms, and I gotta say I am enjoying myself with this project.

More than just memories, Metphies also conjures apparitions of Leland and Yuko and visions of atomic bomb testing. Metphies also refers to himself as a primate, which I find kind of weird. Metphies’ manipulation starts to take, despite this gaffe until Maina and Martin pray to the God Egg Mothra to invade the dream. Before, it was established that both twins were necessary to amplify the psychic strength enough to reach a large room full of people, but now Martin can sub in for Miana to overpower Metphies from an entire Mountain’s height away. It's fine, don't worry about it. Metphies reveals that he is responsible for blowing up the Tau-e ship, and this does not immediately enrage Haruo because Metphies has sufficiently broken him down. Haruo picks up the pendant he lost when his parents died, and a flashback to something we’ve never seen before restores his autonomy, the symbolism behind a flower. So Haruo starts getting angry at Metphies, and that turns the tide of battle, shattering the artifact in Metphies’ eye. Confusingly, this allows Ghidorah to become corporeal, which was only supposed to happen under the condition of Haruo becoming the anchor, but whatever. Godzilla immediately beats Ghidorah, and each head vanishes after one strike each. To pay off that foreshadowing from the start of City on the edge of battle, Ghidorah’s singularity destroys the Aratrum, and Godzilla destroys that singularity with an atomic breath from the Earth’s surface.

As Metphies dies, he tells Haruo that his anger can still manifest Ghidorah if he chooses to, and Haruo embraces the corpse (this is meant to mirror the last shot of City On The Edge of Battle) because Metphies still was one of his only friends for years. With all of the bad guys except for Godzilla defeated, Haruo, Martin and the other survivors assimilate to Houtua culture, and a montage in a different art style shows them burying their weapons and rearing children. Eventually, the humans even adopt the Houtua’s style of clothing except for Haruo, though he is otherwise clearly happy. (You could use this to claim that Haruo still is not happy, but that would be forgetting that a major detail of Eren Jaeger’s clothing style was that he never took off the Shiganshina style shirt even after fleeing from there, so no, this is a reference to that.) He takes great joy in seeing spring flowers (the symbol for Haruo’s humanity we introduced at most 20 script pages ago) and it is Martin finally salvaging a Vulture that gets Haruo to remember his crippling anger against Godzilla and Metphies’ machinations. So, to prevent Martin from using the nanometal to restart the process of creating monsters, he makes sure Godzilla will destroy the Vulture and Yuko’s body, and to prevent himself from summoning Ghidorah, an act coded as suicide, Haruo puts himself in that Vulture, fulfilling the kamikaze charge he attempted twice before. In other words, to prevent his own suicide, he caused it. (Technically he had no way of knowing that it wouldn’t summon Ghidorah to do that.)

But more to the point, this time he’s leaving behind a family and culture that depends on him. The conceit is that he asks Miana if she hates Godzilla, and he starts to feel that only he feels hate and must die. If he remembered City On The Edge Of Battle, he would know he is capable of not letting his hate consume him, if he remembered earlier in this film, he would know he is capable of not letting his hate draw Ghidorah into the world and consume everything. And he Houtua will reward this by making Haruo into a God. So, no, this is a terrible ending, but let’s wrap around these topics. So, Martin restarting industrialization with the nanometal being destructive per Metphies’ diatribe.

You must consider that if acts of pollution and war truly are the reason these monsters showed up, it does not make sense that they started appearing in the late 1990s. But whatever it’s not like the Exif mentioned timing as being important for their plan, and it’s not at all like this is an ironic statement.

If the late-stage civilization of humanity and their polluting technology were bad and created the monsters, then the humans should not be able to live happily ever after joining the Houtua with their highly advanced civilization and language capabilities and their technology that includes the nanometal that was literally poisoning the land. Well, you might say, okay, but the Earth made them resistant to nanometal through their scales. Well, they still chose to use it. Remember that Hedorah, the ultimate environmental evil, was reimagined as a successful biological weapon harnessed by the humans as one of their last actions of biological terror against the Earth and its creatures. If I look back from Houtua to Martin to Houtua to Martin, I do not see a difference as all he wants to do is use the nanometal as technology. Also, Miana may claim that the Houtua do not experience hate, but that doesn’t make it something to demonize. Anger and pride are what makes someone human according to this trilogy, so Haruo is feeling bad about himself because he is human. Also, the Houtua can conceptualize enemies, enemies that take each other’s lives in combat such as what happened between Godzilla and their God Mothra, so the movie can piss off with that.

Furthermore, one of the evilest machinations Metphies did was use Haruo’s leadership as a religious messianic symbol. How are we meant to regard the Houtua making Haruo a God of Wrath to commemorate him? The film does not explore this because it cannot, but the myth of Haruo as well as his likely inheritable mental health issues could lead to a manipulative charismatic leader that once again mobilizes support for war against Godzilla, but that point is getting away from me.

Haruo killing himself comes literally out of nowhere in the film, and we are literally in his head to see his turmoil. The final stretch of Attack on Titan takes us out of Eren’s head to keep us in suspense about his self-destruction. The Houtua subsequently immortalize Haruo as a God of Wrath with no runtime left to explore what that means, while Eren literally becomes a God of Wrath, and his story fully explores what that insinuates. Those certainly are two approaches to a similar story, and I think one was better, and the other was on some kind of depressant drug.

Conclusion

This has been a long video essay, so I’ll try to keep this conclusion quick. The trilogy is bad, I think Attack on Titan is good but I have not substantiated that, and I have drawn comparison between this trilogy’s storytelling and hard drug use.

Attack On Titan is not the kind of story to show the obvious temptation Haruo is going through and use every aspect of the story to try and get through his thick head that he shouldn’t fall for it three times in a row. If this were Attack On Titan and, again, I mean if the crew had the benefit of knowing how AOT ends and working backward to see how the Eren archetype inevitably leads there, if that were the case, then how this trilogy would end is Haruo would use being the avatar of Ghidorah to overpower the nanometal hive mind in order to become a giant Mecha King Ghidorah monstrosity to fight Godzilla and the Servum and Mothra and the Houtua. And then instead of signposting in every way possible that this is wrong, the art would ask you if it’s wrong and where he went too far and if there was ever any hope of a different outcome. And that’s the heart of my critique here. The arc Haruo has in City On the Edge of Battle about choosing to save his humanity even if it means not killing Godzilla should logically prevent him from needing to learn that again in The Planet Eater, and seeing that he was able to overcome both of those and start to be happy with the Houtua means that he did not need to kill himself at the end. But this examination of human nature is just his violent and detached suicidal dissociation that got substantially less fun to talk about once he went through with it.

And it’s not even paired with action in a way exemplified by AOT where you can match the rising personal stakes with the existential ones. This story is slow, more introspective than it can really afford to be with those moral training wheels rigidly rejecting the nanometal or Exif religion as even options to rush us into assimilating with the Houtua. Captain Levi’s speech about still not being sure about what the right answer is between trusting your team or trusting yourself is a more human, more sober, and deeper evaluation into the kinds of questions this trilogy tried to tackle. It is strange that this story is an even darker scenario for humanity than AOT and yet every major conflict has a clear theme and anti-theme, a kind of moral simplicity that should leave a story that intends to demonize religion. This might be a very strange comparison to drop into the conclusion of this video, but it reminds me of the way that the Barbie movie showed a toxic matriarchy as an allegory against the patriarchy but still felt the need to argue that the matriarchy was better because we, as writers, cannot afford to show a bad scenario and let it speak for itself. There is an indecision I feel in showing Haruo as an individual in showing these dueling worldviews as valid alternatives and everything was doomed to either end in the destruction of the Earth or Haruo killing himself for some reason.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this transcript edition of my review of Godzilla’s Anime Trilogy. If you have not watched the video, that is a more unbroken and smooth presentation of these thoughts, and you can find it here (Godzilla's Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP).

What Does Lucky Represent In Animal Farm 2025?

2026-05-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

By Joe Gibson

I recently went to see the new(ish) Animal Farm in theaters (as I have ascertained, it technically debuted at an art festival last year between Netflix shirking the distribution rights and Angel Studios picking them up). As you can probably tell, given that this is a focused editorial on a small part of the movie and not a review, my reaction to the film is such that I do not care to go back to it for a more in-depth review. I did not like the film, I think it is actually pretty poorly told, I only laughed out loud once at an unintentionally funny part, and it is a terrible adaptation of George Orwell's book. However, it is very important to me that you understand that those are four distinct claims I shared and not one half-baked argument. Liking or not liking a film is subjective, as is humor. Why I think the adaptation is pretty poor will become clear with the rest of this article, but you must keep in mind I regard adaptation changes as "sideways" in quality, neither inherently good nor bad. As for why I think the film is bad, I think there are unfortunate interruptions in the arcs of Napolean, Lucky, Boxer and Puff that make me unable to track their growth and changing attitudes in many cases because of the jokes in this movie taking the easy shortcut to appeal to I-Pad babies. I am still open and willing to have discourse on this movie that can change my assessments; there are just four distinct areas to have those conversations. If you like the film and have watched it multiple times, your recollections of the film are probably more precise than mine, but I have done my best to remember and double check the plot points I will be discussing, as well as cross-referencing these decisions with Andy Serkis' stated goals from interviews. With that out of the way, we can begin the actual topic here.

One of the most puzzling changes from the outset of this project is the inclusion of Lucky, a young piglet played by Gaten Matarazzo, who is both student to Snowball and protege of Napolean. Andy Serkis has said that Lucky is supposed to be an innocent audience insert to frame this story, and he has also said that he pursued animation for this project to make it easier for kids to relate to the story, so the obvious answer for why Lucky is in the story is to make it more palatable for children with a likable lead and happy ending, already a concerning direction to take this story but I digress. (Making it a parable with animals is already enough to help it teach children important lessons. I think Andy Serkis should have consulted Aesop or the Brothers Grimm if he still thought children needed to be talked down to with these stories. Similarly, in contexts set after the fall of the Soviet Union, I understand Animal Farm better as a warning against revolutionary populists; "corporatism is the new communism" is probably not a theme you should include in a story where the happy ending is that the surviving characters all recommit to a new communism.)

Upon a first glance, Lucky's role seems to be the standard liberal archetype of 'being unable to do anything except token gestures against rising authoritarianism and getting swept up in the increasing compromises until they become the new bourgeoise and get backstabbed.' Once Lucky realizes Napolean has gone too far, his plan is to appeal to the pigs and humans' sense of decorum by showing in video how Napolean is actually crass, pathetic and irresponsible, the most fecklessly liberal plan imaginable (especially because Seth Rogen seems to be playing Napolean as though he were Trump, but that might have been unintentional yet inevitable the moment they dumbed the Stalin character down into a fat materialist celebrity with an exaggerated cartoon voice). Add back in the fact that Lucky never lost his privilege even once he rejoins with the oppressed animals and becomes their de facto leader, and it is actually very, very difficult to root for Lucky.

However, there is potentially more to Lucky's character and what he represents in this film than may be obvious. I mentioned earlier that there was one moment that I busted up laughing in the theater, and it wasn't Napolean shaking his butt or Lucky's plan destabilizing into suicide terrorism (I'll get to that in a moment); it was a 'touching' moment of Lucky using the memory and martyrdom of Boxer and Snowball to rouse the impoverished starving animals into a second revolution to purge the 'rightists' that have taken power from Animal Farm. It all clicked place into me there, and I could not contain myself. Lucky is, whether intentionally or not, Mao Zedong, and the movie is actually fairly propagandistic in shaping our view of Lucky and what he represents to Animal Farm.

I admitted that it is difficult for me to root for Lucky, but the film does not share those qualms. Boxer actually narrates the film, immediately casting Lucky in a positive light. Boxer was chosen to narrate this film because Andy Serkis resonated with the character all his life, but the fact that Boxer, the paragon hero doomed to die, vouches for Serkis' OC transfers some of that inherent goodwill onto him. Indeed, Lucky is Boxer's best friend and tries to share the milk Napolean hordes for the pigs with Boxer early on in the story. Though Boxer starts out as a mentor character to Lucky, we all know that Boxer is very naive and assumes the best of this movement, working himself to the grave. That is the first misspeak in the film; his narration is far more nuanced than he has the capacity to be, and Lucky even says in one of his last monologues to the Animals that even Boxer was not correct about their movement. The closing moments reveal that Boxer was narrating this film from heaven (the stars specifically, but if a fat pig can be Stalin without that ever being stated in the text, spirits in the stars can be Heaven), but, in order to keep that twist intact, when Boxer dies, his narration ceases, and it cuts to Lucky telling this story to the new generation. Lucky's narration also gets a wrap around in the ending, and, in lieu of a better way to square away two characters both claiming to narrate the film, I have to assume that the heavenly martyr Boxer is part of Lucky's propaganda.

Consider this. Lucky is the junior partner to Snowball during her illegal forays into the farmhouse and protege to Napolean as they make every other compromise through to the book's original ending of looking back from pig to human and being confused which is which. (The "cautionary tail" version of this story, as it markets itself, should obviously end there, and the POV switch to Boxer would be very chilling as we, the audience, could debate if Boxer was right about Lucky or if Lucky was this adaptation's version of the rose-colored glasses Boxer has for the regime.) Instead, Lucky flees and returns to the downtrodden animals, regains their trust and launches an assault on Animal Farm's dam. Though his plan is peaceful in the biased version of the story we hear, let us consider what actually happens, the suicide terrorism I mentioned. Napolean has a bunch of fireworks planned to show off his strength (for whatever reason he has started dressing like Stalin instead of a gang leader, as he was for the rest of the movie) as he holds a large rally of pigs and humans. Lucky wants to sabotage the fireworks, and so he unplugs them and the fireworks themselves wind up in a pit that just exists in the dam for some reason. Squealer plugs it back in, and the Andy Serkis voiced rooster is on guard to stop the fireworks. He stops the spark from going down the line to the fireworks but catches on fire himself, which sets the lines on fire. The rooster falls in the pit with the fireworks, and, as they explode, he says a nationalistic chant about fighting for Animal Farm. The dam explodes, killing countless humans directly and leading to the circumstances where Lucky gets to kill Napolean. (The rooster does not show up again for another tenish minutes, leading us to believe he died, until he pops back up to reveal that Lucky also survived, as the film was desperately trying to convince its child audience that Lucky had died escaping the deluge.)

It does not matter if Napolean deserved it, and it does not matter what the film shows Lucky's intent to be. This story is about questioning revolutionary populists that say the right thing and focusing on the indistinguishable actions of the Tsar and the Stalin. Lucky's Continuous Revolution immediately became the most violent action in the movie, and this is after he was complicit in the mistakes of Snowball and Napolean. Why, oh why do the other animals forgive him? Why is he the defacto leader in their charge on the dam? Why is it okay for Lucky to let the falling silo crush Napolean when it wasn't okay for Napolean to let dogs kill Snowball? The simple fact is that, after his arc two thirds in the movie, the movie does not allow us to question Lucky's motivation or his actions. (The cult of personality of this film is Lucky's.) As soon as he has reunited with the peasants and started to liberate them, all nuance disappears from the conversation. Ending Animal Farm with a continuous revolution where the animals are happy (even though it has been done before) removes the satire and reclassifies it as textbook revolutionary romanticism, specifically Maoist peasant fiction as the film make a point to show much poorer the proletariat animals have become since Napolean rose to power. (Also consider how much literacy is emphasized in these animals, how Lucky knows how to read and tries to teach Boxer, how Lucky's girlfriend Puff teaches the illiterate peasant animals, and how Maoist propaganda was the earliest form of writing education for peasant writers such as the prolific award winning author Mo Yan.)

Alright, even if you are still following me, Mao Zedong specifically is a little random. I've been sprinkling a few hints throughout this article, but I really should make this reading a bit more blatant. This film very clearly distances itself from the Russian allegory by having a 'Big Bad Duumvirate' of Napolean and the owner of Wal-Mart. That is obvious from the trailers, but the story also very deliberately removes Old Major (the Marx/Lenin of Animal Farm). I cannot speak to the intent of this decision as, to my knowledge, no one has asked Serkis about that yet, but it means that the communism of Animal Farm can mean other things with other figures. The way that we can know Old Major is Marx or Lenin is in his archetypal stylings and position in the story. How would we write an allusion to Mao Zedong? Well, he was a student during the earlier revolutions surrounding May Fourth 1919. Wait, Lucky is the student of Snowball during the first revolution against Farmer Jones. Before the revolution, he is merely an educated animal, failing to read the obscured S in slaughterhouse and getting in the van with the other animals, but after he is present for every major decision, the same way that the May 4thers became activists and political leaders (whether communist or nationalist). You have to admit there is something there, but I must again return to the moment I found so hilarious in the movie.

Within Maoist propaganda, there were certain ideal communist figures that Mao would valorize with propaganda. The thing is that pretty often these people all died for the cause, so the unfortunate implication is that Mao's ideal worker is a dead one, his ideal woman a dead one, his ideal communist, if they survived the great famine and depression of the Guomindang, starved in Mao's famine. Lei Feng was one such figure, the ultimate loyal and hardworking soldier. Selfless and devoted, he links up to Boxer in several key ways, and like Mao, Lucky uses his martyrdom to get the other animals into line. I am not a scholar on Mao, and the notes from classes into Chinese history are pretty much useless for me because I could not write the names down in time due to less familiarity with how to spell those pronunciations. But of the women martyrs that Mao valorized, I can at least tell you about Yang Kaihui. She was one of his wives that died in the 30s, but I think that Puff would actually map better on to his later wife Jiang Qing (gaining political power after a split with Lucky but then falling in line at least for a while). The idea here is that the people that Lucky valorizes are not the living members of Animal Farm, and he leads a much smaller force of peasants against Napolean's larger army because Lucky advocates for a continuous revolution of purging rightists (purging rightist authors often meant simply ejecting them from the society, such as Lucky's original plan for Napolean). Lucky's peasant underdogs succeeding against his enemies could match the underdog communists winning the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which means that Lucky's Animal Farm is still doomed to go through the Great Leap Forward (especially since Lucky alludes to hard work and communes for his future plans) and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Forgiving Lucky for his mistakes when they are still in dire straits due to destroying the industrialized dam and nearby humans is tantamount to forgiving Mao for the Great Leap Forward.

I might seem overly cynical about the propagandistic nature of this movie, but redeemed heavenly Boxer telling us a story from the stars he used to look at with Lucky is cloyingly sentimental, unless there is a purpose in the text for it. Initially, I thought it was one of those tropes that wound up in there because Angel Studios released it (because all of the Angel Studios movies I have seen have something subtly in there to point the kiddies back to Christ), but Angel Studios acquired this film very late in its history. This was going to be a Netflix film, which certainly means that they were not intentionally including Maoist imagery but also means that Christ is not on the forefront of the creative's minds. Realistically, the answer is that Serkis likes Boxer so much that he wants to think of him as going to heaven, but that is also how Mao felt about Yang Kaihui. The following is two lines in two translations of Mao's "Reply to Li Shuyi" that directly concern Poplar (Yang).

"I lost my proud poplar, and you your willow,

Poplar and Willow soar lightly to the heaven of heavens..."

"I lost my proud poplar and you your willow.

As poplar and willow they soar straight up

into the ninth heaven...."

Mao was a revolutionary romanticist. Though he censored a lot of Chinese authors, his own poetry is not as rigid as you might expect. He includes romantic appeals to nature, but he believes the collective that conquer it easily. From "Return to Well Ridge Mountain" - "We can clasp the moon in the Ninth Heaven and seize turtles deep down in the Five Seas. Nothing is hard in this world If you dare to scale the heights..." So why is this important. When the Animal Farms works together, their yield is higher than it ever was under Jones. I am not pleased that they included this scene, but early in the movie all of the animals trade with some humans at the Animal Farm farmer's market, and they still pull in more cash than Jones ever did together. At the end of the movie, the Andy Serkis rooster goes out in a fiery blaze to take down the dam, but he survives it. The whole of the new Animal Farm survive the deluge wiping away Napolean's regime. In the most literal sense (outside of Rocky Balboa punching down trees and climbing a mountain), these communists conquered nature as Mao himself told them they could. The film ends by telling us they can all do it again. (If you think it is unrealistic for Mao to inherit a bad economy and famine and then balance the budget and restore the economy, he technically already did that in reality. Chiang Kai Shek's wartime policies against merchants led to an unparalleled famine and depression decades before Mao tried to skip Marxism's middle stages and starved everybody.)

But okay this still all feels random. Communist animals commenting on humanity, Mao Zedong, what's the connection? Well, I'm sharing a bit more of Mao's poetry than I meant to today, but here is one last poem from Autumn of 1965, "Two Birds: A Dialogue."

"Leviathan-roc spreads his wings

Rises ten thousand miles

By the whirlwind's force propelled

The sky on his back he surveys below

Walled cities where humans dwell:

Horizons lit by gun-flash

Shell craters all around

Startle a sparrow from a bramble dell

'Whatever to do?

Oh! I want to fly off as well'

'And whither, sir, shall you journey?'

Now comes the sparrow's reply:

'There's a fairyland, I hear tell,

Where a year or so back, when the moon was bright

Three clans contracted in peace to dwell

They've lots to eat there too

Potatoes piping hot,

Plenty of beef to sell.'

'Bullshit, my friend:

Just watch heaven switch with hell.'"

There are also other translations of this poem, but I am not copying a full poem in here twice for Mao Zedong of all people. I am not going to say if Mao was aware of Animal Farm when he wrote this poem or if he was merely engaging in the long-held tradition of Aesop to Grimm to Orwell of using animals to explain human concepts, but I am more confident in my reading of Animal Farm 2025 for knowing that Mao has also used animals in his communist writings. I think we are well past the point where a New Critic could read Mao into this story, and we are just left with "this clearly is not what anybody making the film intended." I will be the first to admit that as I have done so already. But that is kind of the lesson here, is it not? If you are writing or adapting such an important story as Animal Farm, you have to be really extraordinarily careful about what changes you make. If you want to valorize your own characters in a story with a moral about how you shouldn't let populist strongmen get away with anything, and you also want to undo the very purposeful logical negative ending of a retelling of Stalinism, you need to be very careful to not accidentally rediscover Mao. (If you would like a more in-depth version of this in video format, I can make no promises. I really don't want to rewatch this movie.)

In the Ghost Hours captures in poems the diverse sentiments of death

2026-04-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

In The Ghost Hours: A Volume of Gothic Verse, by Andi Brooks, (Kikui Press, 2026), is a slim volume of poetry that captures the many emotions and mysteries that death offers us. There's a strong gothic flavor in the verses that capture many sentiments, including fear, love, regrets, resignation, as well as touching on the supernatural.

My favorite poem is Reflections in the Ghost Hours. It expresses the feelings we have as we've moved through life into the later stages, where we begin to reflect on whether we've had a successful earth journey. Another poem, In Words of Truth, is a deeply affecting passage depicting a love between a father and son, and the immortal expectations young sons have for their fathers.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Lady in White (An Irish ghost story). Enjoy the atmosphere of this verse:

Out of the dark and o'er the fence

she’ll suddenly appear,

To walk awhile by your side

‘Till the crosswords draw near.

The Shriving of a Lost Soul is a marked poem of regret, anguish and madness from a father who has committed a great evil. Eidolon finds a romantic partner yearning for a kiss from the lover who kneels at his grave. The Old Forgotten Cemetery reminds me of the many abandoned cemeteries found in ghost towns of the American West.

These are just a sample; all of the poems show considerable talent from a writer who can touch our feelings. Included are a poem that talks of Christmas and another that may make the reader dread the sound of bells.

There are 32 poems to enjoy and re-read often.

– Doug Gibson

Part 2: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy - Attack On Titan On PCP - Transcript Version

2026-04-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

By Joe Gibson

The following is the second part of the transcript of a recent video on Plan9Crunch’s YouTube page that you can watch here: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP

Previously, we covered the first film in the trilogy, describing its similarities to the first few arcs of Attack On Titan (which you can find here: Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Godzilla’s Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP, Part One),. This entire project will spoil AOT and the anime trilogy quite heavily. Make sure to watch those first or proceed with the utmost caution and discretion. At the end of the first film, after they kill the average size Godzilla Filius, an absurdly large specimen called Godzilla Earth showed up.

All in all, this moment of false confidence from Haruo constitutes the first couple episodes of Eren’s first battle in Trost in terms of challenging his confidence leading his comrades into battle. But whereas those episodes used that opportunity to flesh out Armin, Mikasa and Jean Kirstein, Haruo gets rescued by one of the humanoids that watching them earlier, a young girl with buglike antennae, and we will focus again on his perspective as he finally starts to have an arc in Godzilla: City On The Edge Of Battle, but right now I’m going to call it–

GODZILLA: Cigarettes On The Edge Of Battle

Okay, we are now reaching the section of this essay where I have to go beyond the first film, and that also means spoiling more parts of Attack On Titan. If you are so inclined to proceed, I would encourage you to find this trilogy and AOT whether in print or animation. The trilogy is on Netflix, and Hulu has Attack on Titan. Okay so in Attack on Titan, something very interesting happens in the Battle of Trost, and this is a spoiler for the first season but in the marketing of every subsequent one: Eren somehow becomes a 16 meter tall intelligent Titan. In order to destroy that which he hates, Eren literally becomes it. I’m going to be a lot lighter on the AOT spoilers from here on out, because I want you all to watch it, but when, at the end of the season, Armin tells Eren that in order to defeat monsters, they have to let go out of their humanity, that is built into the stakes of the show. That statement from Armin comes back in every major plot point after, and that is the question City On The Edge Of Battle tries to explore through its 100 minute runtime: is it worth it to defeat your enemy if the cost is your humanity?

Okay so you already know two of the titles by which to refer to this film. Well let’s add a third. The direct translation is GODZILLA: Battle Mobile Proliferation City.

Okay so the film opens with the central committee offering a bit of foreshadowing on the Aratrum. Meant as an “oh crap” moment, they ascertain that anything on the scale of the 300 meter Godzilla Earth could destroy their mothership by shooting its beam into the sky at them. There will be no payoff for that in this film, and it won't even be Godzilla that destroys the ship, but the purpose of the scene is clear. Plot twist that jeopardizes the perceived safety of their enclosure that the characters are reacting to with reasonable fear.

This is the “the damage at Stohess district reveals there are Titans inside of the walls” moment, in other words. And I want to take a brief moment to again talk about how the action adventure show handles foreshadowing for plot twists as opposed to the melodramatic philosophy lecture.

I told you Eren is a Titan. Well, a couple episodes before the reveal, you see actual evidence of this. When he gets injured, his head steams to heal, a trait unique to Titans. It is a very subtle thing but lays the groundwork for the first major plot twist of the show. To solve its mysteries, you have to take note of what cuisine and technology our heroes have and what our villains have. Some plot points are as obvious as Metphies’ manipulations, but we see those characters acting in ways that the reveal contextualizes not, as this trilogy did, one of our first scenes of Metphies being him and a Bilusaludo member both casually admitting to each other that they both tried to take over the Earth before and are manipulating things to take the coalition back there.

Again, the point of this essay is not how AOT is the only way to tell this story. Different approaches work. NBC's Grimm has a surprising amount of plot points and arcs in common with AOT, but it plays those out in its own unique way. This trilogy just oozes of pretension when the runtime gives us more quiet moments to solve its mysteries, and they are easier.

Alright I should clarify the point I made a few paragraphs ago about how the chain of command should have prevented Haruo from taking control even though you can chart a chain linking Leland then Metphies then Haruo. For one thing, Yuko is directly Haruo's superior on this mission and has to give him a power suit later, but she wasn't the one to free him. That was Metphies against the orders of Leland who was still alive at that point. And then he is risking not only his company's materials and soldiers but other companies, and Belu-be, Galu-gu and Martin have all been able to move more freely on this mission than Haruo and at least have comparable power to Metphies when he was advising Leland earlier. Though they are friendly with Haruo, as I pointed out, the film was more concerned with showing the technological means of transmission for his message reaching all of them and less so about his charisma to convince them. After his speech, I guess I have to take for granted that he can convince them to go on the same mission that just killed Leland, but the film didn't show us why they would go along with it. They just do and for some reason don't take any of the available outs to discredit him that they have. The reason I bring this up is again that scene about the Aratrum that opens this movie.

Even though their literal captain is giving them the order to stay in Earth's orbit under risk of Godzilla beam, they have different privileges, responsibilities and expertise in their sectors so they argue because it is a matter of operational security. Since it concerns probabilities of landing team survival, the Exif delegate gets a say. Since it concerns physical vessels, the Bilusaludo have a say. And it's just really interesting that the conversion that should have been happening about Haruo's death march is happening based on a hypothetical about Godzilla's beam being capable of reaching their altitude.

The title card uses the imagery of replicating nanometal twisting to form the title, and the movie will utilize the nanometal in a way that ties into my PCP analysis so just keep that in mind.

Haruo wakes up, his maladies treated and skin covered in a fine powder. Now, this powder over his skin, some very sacred scales, is actually going to effectively grant him immunity from some of the other physical ailments that will lead to reduced respiration, reduced blood pressure and coma in the other characters. And why I find that important to note here is that it is an angelic dust granting Haruo immunity, an immunity that will amount to invulnerability that empowers him to use violence and anger to singlehandedly reverse the status quo. The whole PCP aspect of this is technically ‘Begging The Question’ in order to actually have a platform to talk about the storytelling of the trilogy, but you must admit this is the most apt comparison so far.

It takes only like 10 minutes for Haruo to reunite with the crew from the last film, and it does so in a way that removes so much of the tension that could have been there. We see a Houtua girl tending to Haruo’s wounds, and another identical one attacks Yuko, Adam, Marco and Belu-be, but the film makes it pretty clear almost immediately that they are two separate people, never allowing us as the audience to worry what she might do to Haruo if she is that hostile to the other humans. At the same time, after the Houtua people take our human survivors into custody, we almost immediately see that Martin is there, and he confirms that Metphies is not there (but says so in a way that implies he is still alive), and Belu-be and Galu-gu reunite. Not only are we confirming so soon that every main character survived, but we are literally just biding time until the Bilusaludo realize what the Houtua use for their arrowheads.

I do not want to be impossible to please. Yuko is finally being treated as a main character, even a leader among her group at the beginning of the film, and this film will show us friction in this coalition as the Bilusaludo have their own goals independent of the humans. Haruo is allowed to show more than one emotion, and this is the beginning of an arc he will have though it is against the way he was characterized. He genuinely believed that Godzilla robbed all of the attributes that made them human, but when he defeats them again, he is fine. Sorry I’m complaining again. This Haruo is a lot more pleasant to watch even if it took literal angel dust to get here.

Martin puts together that the people with antennae living in tunnels in the ground evolved from bugs, and the Bilusaludo expose their technologically based racism against the Houtua, all while the people still ultimately look to Haruo and accept it when he decides to go fight Godzilla again. Specifically, the old Haruo returns when he gets angry about the Bilusaludo casually talking about slaughtering the Houtua, and a flashback to Metphies reminds Haruo he should be angry at Godzilla.

A question I have to ask myself in this process is “how often can I just keep pointing to the same narrative confusion, the same detachment and violent tendencies from characters, sometimes the exact same dialogue, as unique talking points for this PCP comparison?” Well, the rage transfers from Haruo to Yuko for a good bit of this movie while she gets jealous about the attention and care Haruo seems to have for the twin Houtua girls Maina and Miana, the angry one and kind one respectively. This means that PCP-induced rage is an aspect of the trilogy, not just Haruo.

Martin’s exposition teaches us that the Houtua communicate psychically when the twins channel the Mothra egg’s power and that the Houtua, though seemingly primitive, have a rich culture. He has even also learned that Godzilla Filius was a subspecies and that the entire surface is mimicking Godzilla. Logic be damned, Martin will always be right because he is a mechanism in this story. I find the approach taken with Hange more suitable: someone who obsessively spearheads the search for truth because of the odd kind of person they are not for what the story can make them say.

At some point, I need to mention that during the initial landing of this Earth advance team, they had to drop some bombs to land, and the Houtua understood this to be terrorism on their home. Haruo earnestly tries to explain otherwise, and I think that is the actual reason his character needed to be more even tempered in these scenes. It’s the prequel Anakin Skywalker effect. A smart and empathetic woman like Padme is not going to fall for the emotionally stunted, genocidal fascist like Anakin unless he is really, really nice to her. Even so, our heroes suffer no consequences, and neither Houtua nor human/Bilusaludo blood is spilt. Now, obviously the lesson here is to be more like the Houtua, but this is a very shallow exploration of these actions in such a talky show. You may not have seen AOT, but you’ve probably seen Kong Skull Island, which used the Vietnam War as the lens through which to analyze the journey to Skull Island instead of colonialism, and the bombs they drop at the beginning are the first tangible effect of the violence that the film interrogates and punishes as its theme.

Now, Marco does confront Haruo about wanting to fight Godzilla again, but that conflict is pushed aside to favor the aforementioned resentment of the twins from Yuko, and that leads to worm-type Servum using their tentacles to pull her legs apart and then trying to ambush her. Since the filmmakers refused to give Yuko characterization in the previous film and are now borrowing objectifying imagery in having her be preyed upon when Haruo was not when he was in this area earlier…it puts a bad taste in my mouth. Even this escapade, Yuko’s biggest moment so far only exists so that we can see Galu-gu realize that the Houtua’s arrowheads are made of nanometal, and then Metphies does a Deus ex machina to save the characters from some flying type Servum.

Earlier, we saw Haruo question himself again and cry out for Metphies, which shows the hold this Exif has over him. I actually cannot complain too much about this. I think the very simple and subtle way of showing that Haruo’s sense of self-worth and justice ties back to Metphies does the legwork of the foreshadowing here. As you will find out whenever I get around to reviewing Gamera Rebirth, I really appreciate foreshadowing that subtly reveals character dynamics through their relationships to each other. I guess that means Seshita does too. As you’ll see though, liking Metphies and Haruo a lot more in this movie is not going to affect my overall assessment of this film’s conflict and themes.

The argument aboard the Aratrum between the committee members representing the Bilusaludo and Exif sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Bilusaludo look to technology, and the Exif use their mysterious God to make decisions. When Metphies tells Haruo of the committee’s plan to leave the solar system, Belu-be and Galu-gu come up next to them, and Haruo is framed between the two delegations. After the Bilusaludo tell Haruo they can win using the nanometal, he addresses the survivors of their mission. Once again, Marco speaks out of turn, and Haruo invites Belu-be and Galu-gu to explain the nanometal. Haruo’s moment of asking the remaining men if they want to stay but not blaming if they do not is something Erwin did in Attack on Titan, but Haruo steeps it with his thoughts on living in the ship, which can best be described by how Eren regarded living in the walls, living like cattle.

Now, are we meant to assume that seeing Leland’s sacrifice and being influenced by Belu-be as well as Metphies has led Haruo to mature, or should we assume that this dialogue and plot point was the starting point and Haruo was the easiest for the narrative to make say these words? I am clearly arguing for the latter perspective, but if you believe the former, we can have that debate at a later time.

The scene of the surviving cadets choosing to join Erwin’s Scout regiment was a very emotionally impactful scene because while we always knew our main trio was going to stay, the characterization of Jean throughout the last dozen episodes leads to a very difficult decision to stay and fight and avenge the people he has lost. There’s not really a moment like that here. Haruo was always going to stay and fight, Yuko was always to stay with Haruo, and Metphies needs to manipulate Haruo, with the Bilusaludo spearheading this part of the mission. Martin was always going to keep studying the planet’s curiosities, and Marco…was always going to leave because the story was never interested in exploring dissidence in Haruo's leadership outside of bastardizing the Bilusaludo in this film and the Exif in the next.

Martin, as the primary tool for exposition, explains monster factors in changing the florafauna and that Earth seemingly has restructured to serve Godzilla’s needs as if it chose him. Haruo already viewed his mission as taking the Earth back from Godzilla, and this justifies his perspective on that, inflating the self-importance of this mission. He defensively declares that they will have to take the Earth back. This also plants the seed for Haruo that humans should liberate Earth from this state and not accept that kind of control over the Earth coming from anyone other than them. You should keep this in mind when the characters then stumble on a city made entirely from the nanometal in Mechagodzilla’s carcass that spreads and consumes a few Servum. The Houtua twins warn Haruo that Mechagodzilla City is poison, but, since they use nanometal in their tools and technology, we can understand this warning to be of the same caliber as “hey be careful if you walk into an oil refinery, and just make sure to be safe around the product.”

The nanometal’s AI explicitly serves the directive of fighting Godzilla, and the nanometal has reproduced Mechagodzilla’s production plant at a larger scale. And a Giant Mechagodzilla is on the poster, lording over even Godzilla so you would be forgiven for thinking that the nanometal will form a giant Mechagodzilla. The characters just handwave that aside immediately and end up augmenting the power suits into flying Vulture Mechs. For what it is worth, Metphies is the final person to speak against rebuilding Mechagodzilla, but Galu-gu this whole time was talking of other projects. The city itself becomes the very specific terrain needed for Haruo’s Godzilla Defeat strategy, and, though I think the film is only kind of aware of it, there is a very clear parallel between Haruo and the nanometal AI.

Both operate mainly under the goal of defeating Godzilla, and both push aside ideas like Mechagodzilla to favor one singular ideal strategy. Consequently, unless we are drawing these similarities to their logical conclusion, the Bilusaludo created AI should have made another Mechagodzilla. That would have made more sense. The idea is supposed to be that the Bilusaludo will try to tempt Haruo into merging with the nanometal and becoming a monster by showing that the nanometal will be the only way to defeat Godzilla and the only conscious agent that cares as much about doing that as Haruo does, but already he is a synergy with the nanometal that Galu-gu, passionate creator of Mechagodzilla, isn’t.

As the movie develops, more and more Bilusaludo allow themselves to join with the nanometal, and this shapes the vague ‘destroy Godzilla directive’ into a more well-defined misanthropic worldview of submission. If you are familiar with Attack on Titan, you might know what comparison this naturally brings, and it is a pretty spoilery one. So I will put this in simple terms. Of the intelligent Titans, one is near omnipotent, however it comes with a certain mindset, almost a hive mind of all of the holders of this power. The arc in question is also the one that broke down Eren’s philosophy, making him question if his mission truly was the best one. And so for that to happen to Haruo now when the nanometal is on his same page makes more sense if they started with AOT and then extrapolated outward.

Metphies asks the Bilusaludo for the ability to repair his religious artifact, and Yuko practices flying in a Vulture. The former will diverge from the Bilusaludo’s intentions, and the latter will actually embrace them. First, however, Yuko reassures Haruo after he voices his insecurities, though it does not exactly work. Right after the film first alludes to it, Martin explains that the Houtua’s treatment and scales has made those treated with it functionally allergic to Mechagodzilla City, and so Haruo, who is suffering those symptoms, leaves the City briefly to ask advice from Metphies. Metphies spoonfeeds Haruo the author’s assessment of the nanometal as monstrous and parasitic, and then whispers the name “Ghidorah” into Haruo’s ear as the name of the Exif world’s monster. Now, when this scene was in the trailers, because of the art style and the way the camera pulls back, a lot of people thought Metphies was kissing Haruo. In the very next scene, Yuko kisses Haruo after his ego is sufficiently inflated to declare that they need to defeat Godzilla, will defeat Godzilla and that he will show Yuko what being on Earth was like. Checking back in on the PCP symptoms, yes that is the sense of invulnerability but also the allergy to the nanonmetal could be interpreted as nausea and dizziness depending on how you view Haruo clutching his chest and stomach. This is only the second Godzilla film to include two main characters kissing, and the first was Invasion of Astro-Monster. It’d be really funny if the next film jumped to a different milestone and featured the first sex scene in the franchise with just one of these characters and not both, but there’s no way that can happen right?

So Godzilla wakes up an hour into this movie. And when he finally starts moving, a single step takes over 7 seconds. That might contextualize what I mean about lethargy being a major motif on his end.

Anyway, Adam informs Haruo that the City is eating some Bilusaludians, and all of the humans in the room instantly think this is too far even though it is a volunteer thing. Yuko, who overhears only part of this, wanders in and defends the practice. Having Haruo and Martin, the POV character and exposition machine respectively, both oppose it kind of poisons the well and takes out the suspense. Haruo is not even considering joining the nanometal now even though it flows so easily from his wants, and the way you write a suspenseful climactic decision is to make either choice seem possible based on cause and effect, think Luke’s temptation to the dark side in Star Wars episode 6, the suspense is there because of his struggle and the fact that his dark clothing and force choke usages suggests to us a level of compromise between light and dark. The only reason Haruo gets into the third Vulture for this final campaign is to resolve morale after the argument. It’s really taking the teeth out of the film’s central question to have the answer so clear not only to the audience but also the major characters aside from Yuko who spoilers will choose to regret her opinion.

The battle reenacts last film’s climax, but this time Godzilla Earth can weather the attack because he is a lot stronger than his offshoot. This manifests as Godzilla attaining a Scarlet Mode that somewhat references Burning Godzilla from the 90s films, and Martin explains this. At least this time, it makes sense to explain to people why they must evacuate, unlike his rants earlier and later. Martin leads the remaining humans away, while the Bilusaludo merge with the nanometal, and Galu-gu holds out hope that Harou will join them. Scarlet Godzilla is too hot for the Vulture pilots to approach, and since only the human inside is susceptible to heat, Galu-gu starts to fuse the pilots to the nanometal. Being rubbed with the scales earlier allows Haruo to resist, but Yuko loses control of her craft until Haruo can save her.

Still, this is where Haruo realizes that it is not worth it to become a monster just to defeat one. His options are fusing with the nanometal to be able to kamikaze run into Godzilla and destroy him or follow Metphies’ advice to destroy Galu-gu and the City control center. Though I have voiced major criticism with the arc, this is Haruo’s arc in the movie, and it should make the next movie’s conflict impossible based on Haruo choosing his humanity, but we’ll get there. He does agonize over it in the moment though. Changes in body awareness is one of the weird psychoactive properties of PCP use that is hard to fit into any reading of media except insofar as merging with the nanometal changes the boundaries of your body and mind. That is all that we can use to describe that here really. Oh, and Yuko winds up in a nanometal induced coma, another side effect of PCP that we have not gotten to yet. This movie gives us a bingo.

The morality has also shifted in a notable way. For probably the first time in this series, we are meant to view Godzilla destroying a City as the lesser of two evils. While Godzilla was explicitly evil in the first film of the trilogy, he is a more amoral figure in the latter two. That is why it is so interesting to compare it to Attack on Titan. Armin, the wisest of the main trio, tells Eren that they have to let go of their humanity to defeat the Titans, and boy does Eren listen? But the point is that there is likely a point where you will stop agreeing with Eren. According to this film and most that try to tackle the problem of losing humanity to defeat an inhuman threat, that point is at the adoption of the belief not its fruits. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In the kaiju genre as a whole, the audience has a certain level of detachment that allows them to condone certain operations. It is not just that it is an underdog military going up against an inhuman threat, though that certainly helps, but the audience also can quickly accept and move on from a plot point wherein the government severely raises taxes to build an anti-Godzilla mech that promptly gets destroyed. In the real world, there would be outrage for that. Not so for the kaiju audience. One question Attack on Titan asks you is how much will you reconsider the blank check you grant the heroes striking back at their Titan oppressors when there is a civilian cost or when they are using those same tactics against humans? Unlike this trilogy, where you are watching a rudimentary morality play, your introspection is part of the conversation within Attack on Titan.

That will be all for this upload. We will cover the third film at a later date. In the meantime, please watch Attack on Titan and the anime trilogy so that I have not spoiled everything for you.

Andy Milligan's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me! - Domestic discord

2026-04-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

The recent Severin Gutter Auteur Blu-Ray release features two previously thought-lost films from cult director Andy Milligan: The Degenerates and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me! a filmed-in-1966 soft-core domestic -- New York City -- melodrama that was released in Britain in 1968; and in the United States a year later.

Kiss Me ... was a hit for William Mishkin, Milligan's tight-fisted producer and money man. The tale of a brassy, adulterous, sometimes-alcoholic housewife (Natalie Rogers) was reviewed by the New York Times (below) and Boxoffice Magazine trade publication (further below). Even Variety gave it a plug.

The plot: Rogers and Don Williams are lower-middle class couple Jean and Stan Novak -- with one child -- living in a cramped '60s tenement. They're a dysfunctional pair, with Stan -- consumed with self-pity -- occasionally beating his loquacious wife.

Jean appears to love her husband despite his abuse. But beneath her Type A personality and chattiness there are unsatisfied sexual needs that result in affairs, particularly with her husband's close friend, Eddie (Peter Ratray). Eventually Stan and Jean introduce Eddie to Stan's sister, Ellen (Joy Martin). Eddie and Ellen fall in love. That leads Jean to alcohol binging when she realizes Eddie won't sleep with her anymore. Chaos results. The final 15 minutes is pure Milligan screaming, violent dysfunction that ends darkly.

This was not a film that Milligan wrote the script for. Josef Bush, a screenwriter who also acted in two currently lost Milligan '60s films, Depraved and The Naked Witch, wrote the screenplay. As a result, this is more restrained Milligan through most of the film. Non-Milligan touches include a montage, a long scene in an art gallery, and another with our four principles enjoying a double date at the beach. Also, as Milligan historian Alex DiSanto notes, there is little of the long Milligan-style dialogue stretches between characters.

Still, it's a Milligan film, with in-depth, close-up shots of the characters with the wheezing Auricon 16-mm camera. The crowded tenement life is well captured. The film also beautifully shows New York City of that era. Outside shots, including the beach, the tops of the tenement, its crowded stairway, beds on the floor, sleazy cafes, and trips to street stores capture the era. Several Milligan "troupe" actors have small roles, including Gerald Jacuzzo, Veronica Radburn, Robert Dahdah, Matt Baylor, and even Ron Keith. The Novak's small child, Jimmy, is played by Sean Martin, Joy Martin's son.

This is Natalie Rogers' film. Finding this movie provides a glimpse at her considerable acting talent. Rogers was a method actor, and her portrayal of Jean dominates. Her character is a full-of-life overt who nevertheless is struggling to maintain her sanity in an environment she clearly wants to change. The cord that keeps her relatively sane eventually snaps. Her relationship with her husband Don is dysfunctional but fascinating. They argue, he beats her but there are still intimacy and comfort between them through most of the film. It's certainly a sinister form of enablement. According to DiSanto, Rogers was paid $500, twice the amount of the other main actors received. Today, $500 would be about $5,000.

Producer Mishkin saw the handsome Peter Ratray as a Marlon Brando type, and Natalie Rogers as a Marilyn Monroe type. That's not a bad interpretation but I'd argue Rogers is a combination of Monroe, Judy Holliday and Barbara Nichols. Ratray moved on from low-budget films and has enjoyed a distinguished career since. Nichols married, helped run the Dove theater in New York City, and entered academia. Her accomplishments include writing a best-selling book on public speaking.

Watching this low-budget, soft-core (R-rated today) chaotic drama, one might think today that it might have been a film that an up-and-coming director would make before moving to A features. But we know that didn't happen with Milligan. On the bright side, however, had he moved up we likely would never have enjoyed the rest of his considerable, unique cult films.

I hope more Milligan lost films can be discovered. I believe they will be.

-- Doug Gibson

Thanks to Alex Disanto for providing the images of the New York Times and Boxoffice Magazine reviews.

Final Fabulosities/Frustrations For Ultraman Omega; Episodes 18 to 25

2026-04-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

By Joe Gibson

As you know, I have been reviewing the episodes of Ultraman Omega (which, as you know, is about a red-faced amnesiac Giant of Light battling monsters on Earth with the help of three Meteokaiju). You can read those thoughts here:

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/08/some-truncated-thoughts-on-ultraman.html

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-mini-reviews-of-ultraman-omega.html

In due time, these three articles will be condensed into a supercut video review, so stay tuned for that.

Over the course of the show, we have seen Kosei grow in maturity, Omega grow in ability and a research team start to form consisting of our main characters. The show has consistently been enjoyable and often really impressed me.

But now comes the day we can truly weigh in on the important question surrounding this show: does this show have Ultraman’s most fabulous labors or is this show a frustrating fall from grace following the acclaim of the last two shows?

Episode 18, Fabulous or Frustrating?

I was hesitant going into this episode because Barossa, in the Ultraman discourse, is one of those characters that has gained public ire from being overused, and, based on the trailer, this had all the trappings of a filler episode making us wait even longer to learn anything more about the mysteries. Still, this was actually a very fun and interesting episode that does a lot to characterize the meteokaiju in their miniature toy forms.

While episode 16 had much in common with the formula of Scooby Doo, this episode seems to be drawing from classic fairy tale scenarios. A traveling Barossa Seijin kidnaps the boys and the meteokaiju, but a young girl aboard the ship called Gilda wants Kosei to be her doll of an Earth prince. Ayumu gets involved trying to free Kosei, and the imagery as I have already described it, just has a Grimm’s Fairy Tale feel to it.

I will have more to say about this episode in a later video, because it is also very interesting to examine under a critical lens.

Episode 19, Fabulous or Frustrating?

Episode 19 is a triumph, demonstrating the growth and maturity these characters have attained over the course of the show. Rather than regress Kosei to acting like a child (again), this episode invents a new child, establishes a plot mechanism that makes adults act more immature and still has a wistful Kosei reflecting on his past to help that child learn the lesson of the story. At the same time, it also functions as a sentimental reflection on the art of tokusatsu itself. The young boy, Eiichi, finds his joy in creating dioramas of kaiju scenarios with his friends. When he finds an emotional resonance crystal that summons the monster Bagrigon (just go with it), he uses it as the centerpiece of his photography. Though it amplifies either emotion, this episode shows it feeding on negative emotions and, so, it alienates him from his friends. That is when Kosei and Ayumu start to mentor him, and, by the end of the episode, Sorato and Kosei are helping him set up his kaiju dioramas, and the crystal glows with their positive emotions. This symbolizes how all generations can come together to enjoy these Ultraman shows and Godzilla films. It is so inspiring that I am going to ignore the fact that Tsuburaya Productions has begun to partner with AI platforms until that becomes necessary for a critical analysis. Again, I will have more to say on this episode in a later video that will partially examine the state of suitmation and tokusatsu storytelling.

Episode 20, Fabulous or Frustrating?

Okay, this is the worst episode so far of this batch, but it is not bad. Simply put, it is just uneven. The opening suggests a conflict in the way that Sorato and Kosei deal with pests; Kosei puts out a mousetrap while Sorato feels sympathy for mice that fall victim to mousetraps. This tracks with the previous characterization, as Sorato viewed even vicious monster Graim as part of a race in neutral enough terms and only killed a Graim when he had to. The issue is that this does not really connect to the Monster of The Week as well as they might have wanted it to. A time traveling dinosaur called Chronoceros is the MOTW, and, this week, they are trying to save it, not fight it. It appears very frightening at first, even accidentally pulling Kosei through time with it, but the team pretty quickly deduces that it is separated from its flock and so tries to help it. This reads as preserving an endangered species more than it does having mercy on a pest.

Aside from that, the goofy comedic hijinks as they fail to get to it before it time-travels are well done. However, right after that, it keels over and dies, and the show tries to get serious as Ayumu tries in vain to resuscitate it (one of her best moments in the show so far though), and then she gets Kosei and Sorato to help her. Even though that scene was doing its best to convince us there was nothing they could do, it suddenly works, and the tonal whiplash kicks into a triumphant gear, and there's still more episode left. The ultimate lesson Kosei learns is compromise; he puts red peppers out as a mouse deterrent instead of a violent punitive measure, but the episode’s climax featured Kosei and Sorato traveling to the future to revive the Chronoceros’ mother and then destroy the advanced (possibly human) fleet trying to kill both Chronoceros, so the reasonable payoff with mice would have been finding a lost mouse's mother, not teaching a concept that has no relevance to the rest of the episode.

I can't even be mad though, because, once it got to the future, this was genuinely great; Sorato applied the CPR he learned from Ayumu, Rekiness got to protect the young Chronoceros, and the cinematography of Omega slashing the UFOs and motherships was very inventive. The last two episodes were great across the board; this one just has higher highs and lower lows. The comments on the YouTube upload were also predominantly positive.

Ultimately, the main reason I am notating this as frustrating, though, is because, in order to create the Chronoceros suit, Tsuburaya Productions modified the Doglf suit from Ultraman Arc's movie, and now we'll probably never see Doglf again. That's what frustrates me more than anything.

Episode 21, Fabulous or Frustrating?

This episode feels like it was missing from the first half of the show, so my issues are less with the events than their presence now.

It revolves around an annoying side character making life difficult for our trio, and it gives Ayumu another sorely needed episode in the limelight. At the same time, the gimmick of Gabora this week makes him a sufficient counter to any of the Meteokaiju Kosei has, and the motivation of Gabora seeking Kaen-102 remnants of a meteorite would work better to foreshadow Bagrigon and his emotional resonance crystal than following that up. I suspect Kaen-102 will be even more important later on, and I am beginning to think that it is what powered that fleet in the future. I suppose I should explain more before I get going.

Ayumu Ichido is a very understated member of this team. She is very studious and very driven, deferential to her other teammates in acknowledging what they bring while trying to be the best she can to live up to them. She is very mature in her outlook and offers advice and data analysis that saves the day. In the chain of command, Uta names her temporary leader while she is gone, and Ayumu steps up. When Makoto Raoniji prevents them from carrying out their duties, she takes responsibility for their actions and his mistakes.

I have my suspicions about what world figures Raoniji could be parodying but I like his character anyway and think he would have been a very interesting main cast member. Imagine if someone like that got his hands on one of the meteokaiju or, God forbid, the power of Ultraman himself. If done right, that would make for an all-time great arc of gaining maturity.

Gabora is a kaiju from the original 1966 Ultraman show that is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Gabora is one of the Baragon Brethren, that is to say, the exclusive list of kaiju made from modifying a Baragon suit on loan from Toho: Pagos, Neronga, Magular and Gabora. Pagos, Neronga and Gabora appeared in Shin Ultraman as both a reference and cost cutting measure, but this is actually the true return of Gabora to the Ultra series since the original Ultraman (he was in Ultraman Powered, but that was basically a loose remake of the original show anyway). As far as I can tell, this Gabora is modified from Neronga again, but I am unsure if this is the same suit that portrayed Pagos a few episodes ago. That many modifications in that short of a time frame would be standard fare for the first Ultraman shows but seems very strange for something right now. Gabora’s gimmick this go around is that his segmented frill can spin, allowing him to fly faster than Omega can react. And yeah, that works to address the power creep of a knowledgeable Omega and Kosei partnership; Gabora has a beefy enough body to where he will be hard to move, his beam has increased in width, and he can fly so powerfully and unexpectedly that Valgeness cannot down him with telepathy.

Episode 22, Fabulous or Frustrating?

This episode ushers in the last leg of the story, answering many of the questions we have about Omega, his backstory and what he represents in the story. One criticism I should also levy against the last four episodes is that they did very little to address this mystery. The introduction of another Sorato talking to himself seemed to mean answers would be immediate, but even as of this episode, that other Sorato is still slightly anomalous. Here is your last chance to share your predictions in the comments. In any case, Omega is a Space Gazer, non-interventionist beings of light that exist to document the happenings of each planet, especially in their Time of Awakening where monsters arise every few thousand years to terrorize the humans. Geness is the name of a planet and formerly humanoid people who created Zovaras and other such technologies in order to fight off their own monsters, inadvertently destroying their planet. They tried to invade Earth, but Omega stopped them. In the battle against their controlled Vagsects and subsequently against Zovaras, Omega lost his memory and startled the surviving Geness when he started to actively fight for humanity on Earth. The non-interventionist policy is presumably why no other Space Gazer tried to get Omega to stop until episode 17, if that other Sorato even is another Gazer and not just Sorato’s missing memories like what I speculated that child from the Mons-Ahgar episode was.

You might be thinking this is a lot to tell us in an episode where I have not even described a MOTW yet. That is because this episode takes the form of a prolonged exposition dump where Kosei and Sorato follow clues left behind by a mysterious figure telling them all of this: a kind old man who rescued Omega immediately after he fell to Earth. As this episode reveals, that old man is a Geness Seijin called Ahdel. Even though he is a token good teammate that opposed his compatriot’s Earth invasion plan, Ahdel is a far more complicated character. Though he, himself, was dying, he rescued Omega, and, once he saw Omega start saving humanity, he actually grew very bitter and died while preparing this path to return Omega’s Space Gazer memories to try to dissuade him from helping Earth.

Despite being a larger scope villain in this episode, Ahdel poses an interesting question. Why did Omega break code to help humanity and not the Geness Seijin? Sorato has an answer, even though this all shakes him: the people of Geness destroyed their own planet trying to defeat the kaiju and then ended up trying to colonize Earth, while humanity just innocently could not defend itself from Geness’ army or Earth’s own kaiju. The Geness Seijin are humanoid but converted their bodies into energy and invented other means to control kaiju so my working theory is that either the Vagsects were being controlled the same way Zovaras was or the little ball of energy Geness guys were literally inside of the Vagsects during that big fight scene. And this should strike a chord because the future scenario from a few episodes ago could be Genessian invasion…or it is the consequence of Earthlings doing the same thing. That is the tension that would likely exist on a temporal scale for Omega: did he really do the right thing or did he essentially empower Geness even sooner? This episode starts with a new international squad forming to deal with the kaiju. I, for one, trust them less than I do the KSCT.

I would be remiss not to at least mention the MOTW, since there actually was one. I did not catch his name during the actual upload, but it is the Ultraman Blazar monster Taganular, who seems to be a new regular since he was also in Ultraman Arc. Apparently one of Zahgon’s trophies from episode 18 included some Taganular claws. That could have been a hasty modification to put those back on here, or they just had multiple suits and props as there seem to be multiple Taganular individuals in his other canonical appearances.

Episode 23, Fabulous or Frustrating?

Episode 23 picks up right where the previous one left off in Sorato’s anguish and drops the additional nugget that the other Sorato that he has been seeing for the last 5 or so episodes claims to be the real Omega trying to get Sorato to remember. Now, this would be a good time to decide to differentiate these characters going forward by calling the one who has been in 23 episodes Sorato and the one who has been in 6 Omega, but, for reasons we will get to at the end of this episode, that will also be very difficult. Otherwise, I would throw a picture on screen to show which one I am talking about, but they’re identical. Let’s get back into the plot recap.

Sorato, in this episode, really struggles between his old and new self with a lot of inventive psychological drama for the Ultra series. The show thus far has given its share of foreshadowing, but it is still abrupt given the nature of the previous few episodes, so the specific scenes of Sorato’s fatigue and when he loses awareness conversing with his other self help to ground this plotline effectively.

For the other main plot of the episode, the Time of Awakening is here upon us or has recently accelerated toward its peak with monsters popping up all over at unforeseen rates. The MOTW this time is Gairyuga, a Spinosaurus whose body converts Kaen 102 into a devastating beam so powerful it can destroy a mountain with one blast. The last few episodes in this batch have had threats that were not necessarily stronger than those faced earlier, just weirder ones, but Gairyuga is doubtless the strongest one in a while and at least top 3 of the show so far in general. At the same time, and your mileage may vary on how contrived this is, another Pegunos has popped up to make life more difficult for the KSCT during their attack on Gairyuga. To really show off how much stronger Gairyuga is than the other monsters, he gets to fight Trigaron, Rekiness, Pegunos and Omega with Valgeness armor all in one episode.

The KSCT together with Mr. Taira have developed a weapon that converts Kaen 102 into an energy beam the same as Gairyuga, something that should concern us based on the trajectory of the Geness Seijin from before. When it fails, Kosei does the coolest thing imaginable through Rekiness, redirecting the missed beam back at Gairyuga, but this new Pegunos finally gets his revenge for what happened to the previous one, oneshotting Rekiness. While Pegunos celebrates, Gairyuga gets back up, and if you are as attached to Pegunos as I am, you will not want to see what happens to him.

Sorato can finally muster enough willpower to stand up and fight, but, midway through, his personality snaps back into being a Space Gazer, so he gives up the fight and goes to witness the arrival of a new potentially world ending monster far away, Zomera, who will be the main villain of these last two remaining numbered episodes. Omega also took the meteokaiju with him, so humanity has to depend on the often ill-advised technology of the NDF.

This is a very impressive episode that I cannot do justice just describing. It really proves my point about the maturity of this half of the show, especially compared to something like Ultraman Orb that still felt somewhat juvenile throughout even while dealing with depression, terrorism and self destructive rage. Notably, the end of the YouTube upload usually features a picture of Ultraman Omega with cards for what videos and playlists are relevant, but, once he leaves, Omega leaves the end of the video too.

Episode 23.5, Fabulous or Frustrating?

This episode, while having the sloppiest use of recap stock footage, is actually probably Nariaki’s best so far, because it slots nicely into the arc of the show’s storytelling in a way I will struggle to explain for the next section. If you will recall, the directly previous episode featured a MOTW but the focus was on Sorato’s slipping mental state as visions of his true self keep happening around the depressed Ultra hero. It was an innovative form for the episode’s storytelling to take. In this episode, Nariaki Akaji is depressed about how the kaiju are costing him business, sitting at his desk listening to the radio for comfort while stock footage events happen around him and take over the screen, even clips he would have no way of knowing about (the fight scene in the future). This proves less effort to tie Nariaki into the narrative, but it matches what Sorato was going through last episode perfectly. You may accuse me of the intentional fallacy, and you may be right, but I think it is pretty clear that the intent is to juxtapose Sorato and Nariaki.

Okay, to what end though? The episode is called The Hope of Nariaki Akaji, and usually just thinking of Sorato and Ayumu is enough to get a depressed Nariaki playful again. That is where another thing clicked into place for me. This is the Recap episode. The only reasons to watch this are if you made it this far in the show and want more or if you watch the show but got confused about the airing schedule and misclicked. Anyone watching this episode already knows that Omega reawakens and leaves the fight against Gairyuga, but the news anchors and Nariaki do not. The dramatic irony is palpable as the secondary trio reflect on Omega’s adventures out of order and without the context of the being’s sanity slippage to regain hope that Omega will defeat Gairyuga. (This episode is set in the middle of episode 23.)

When Nariaki finds his hope and writes a message into the radio show trying to inspire the common people, it twists the knife a little more because we know that Omega is going to leave no matter what epiphanies Nariaki has. Furthermore, it now reframes the hope and trust the public has built in Omega painstakingly over this half of the show into a vain pursuit because he will leave. That was the point of this arc. It was not that we were going to have an episode where Omega or the NDF turn against each other for a neatly resolved episodic conflict, but that Omega won everyone over…only to leave when they need him the most, when the two most powerful kaiju in the entire show awaken back to back. Make fun of me all you want for only realizing where they were going with this in the dumbed down recap episode, but this has the potential to be even better than a single episode of an Imitation Omega style scenario would have been.

And again, this proves my point about the maturity of the show. Nariaki is a manchild, but the show uses him to shift its tone darker and restate the increasing stakes through showing another side of the world. All that said, there are some issues: the clips themselves are a bit superfluous, the episode kind of has a false ending by including a song that summarizes Sorato’s arc and possibly hints at its resolution, and it is most evident here that this episode was just the camera crew and one guy in maybe two shoots instead of another chapter of this story (Nariaki is usually dynamic enough for this one-man show to work, and sometimes they have other characters call into the radio in these episodes). Also, the episode placement is intentionally frustrating because as the audience, we want to know if Omega will come back, and instead, the schedule had this episode the week after episode 23 and then a brief hiatus. That is why I have both Frustrating and Fabulous selected; it was not a mistake.

Episode 24, Fabulous or Frustrating?

Episode 24 begins the last two parter of Ultraman Omega with the highest stakes in the show so far. Zomera is a potentially world-ending villain created through mankind’s hubris in trying to study and harvest the cells of Eldeghimera and Zovaras for their own use. This directly ties back into the mistake Geness made. Sorato, now fully Omega once more, watches the rampage within interest and even Henshins to full size and pulls out his slugger (in other words an Ultraman’s detachable mohawk dagger). However, as it turns out, this is merely part of his observation and cataloguing process; as Zomera is a new kaiju, Omega needs to see Zomera’s abilities in action. If you will recall, every fight has begun with Omega looking at the kaiju through the gap between his finger and his thumb, and this is because his true purpose has been to examine them.

Now is probably a good time to explain Zomera’s abilities. As Eldeghimera’s cells are dominant in this fusion, it can absorb other kaiju to gain their powers (so arguably this is less Zomera than it is Eldeghimera post snacking on Zovaras), and the main ability it inherited from Zovaras was the control of other kaiju. Rather than build an army to take on the world however, Zomera wants to consume all of the monsters, drawing out a new Demaaga, from which it gains the fire projectiles, and a new Gomora, from which it earns the special energy power that specimen had. As the KSCT and NDF find out when they use the Kaen-102 beam on it, Zomera also found and assimilated Gairyuga and its beam offscreen. That is a little bit frustrating to resolve the Gairyuga situation offscreen, but it helps elevate the drama with an “Oh Crap” moment because evidently Zomera is so strong that a fight against Gairyuga was of such little consequence we do not get to see it. In its place, Gomora puts up a better fight, and I am happy Gomora got more to do this season than just his episode. We never see Zomera control Gomora; it just eats him when it gets him off balance, so I am going to assume that Gomora’s will was simply too strong for that.

At one point Kosei reaches out to Omega, trying to get him to fight for them one last time. This does not work, but Kosei’s invitation to remember their time together gets Omega thinking. This scene leverages their connection across the entire show so well and, in retrospect, makes even the filler episodes feel important. Omega also witnesses the little girl they saved in episode one and has a flashback. You could view this as a contrivance or consider that Sorato, somewhere deep down in Omega, made sure he gazed at those people. While this happens, several disembodied voices including the radio hosts bemoan Omega’s betrayal of humanity.

Some aspects of this episode seem evocative of Shin Godzilla. The KSCT and NDF, mostly shown through our main group of oddballs, meet in a nondescript building to discuss the slow approach of Zomera, a monster who constantly mutates to overcome its weaknesses. That said, it is different enough to where it is either coincidental or just a reference. This episode is not satirizing anything, just earnestly playing into the drama of what happens when an Ultraman stops protecting humanity, and it is far more action oriented than Shin Godzilla. The episode ends with both the promise of a chemical solution to Zomera from Ayumu (which is similar to Shin Godzilla) and a roused Omega/Sorato possibly preparing himself to fight Zomera, so we will see what happens in the last episode of Ultraman Omega.

Episode 25, Fabulous or Frustrating?

Cutting right to the chase, the episode opens with Ayumu’s idea about defeating Zomera. If they aim their Kaen-102 laser at the Kaen-102 conversion organ that Zomera gained from Gairyuga, that should weaken Zomera, at least removing that power and hopefully killing it. This does not work as planned; based on the changing color of the beam, it seems it merely taught Zomera to convert Kaen-102 into energy more efficiently. That said, it still felt the need to sabotage the attack by boosting its brainwaves to agitate humanity and cut off the wireless connection, so maybe this was about to work.

Kosei, seeing this has failed, runs off to the downed VTOL with a power source to aim the Kaen-102 cannon at Zomera manually. All this time, Omega has been pretty much stuck where we last saw him, watching the proceedings but with turmoil in his expression. Despite the captions saying Kaen-102 as I have been typing it, the apparatus labels it as Ka-N102.

Kosei calls out to Sorato, telling him that Sorato helped him find his purpose, and this rouses Sorato from within Omega, who argues with himself again. Omega argues that the way for cosmic stability is strict observation until a solution presents itself, but Sorato points out that they never found an answer that way. Based on how humanity accepted him even knowing he was an alien, Sorato speculates that the answer to lasting peace might be found in harmony with humanity. Let us think about that for a moment. Yes, humanity is responsible for Zomera, but the original sin of Geness with Zovaras still remains within that abomination. Humanity was less developed when the Time of Awakening began, as Sorato points out to Omega. This incredibly confused being that contains both the personalities I am designating Sorato and Omega finally drags himself over to Kosei to finish this monologue/dialogue, saying that they must join with all life hand in hand to figure out the answer.

Omega embraces his identities of Sorato Okida and Ultraman and rises once more to fight Zomera. Kosei declares he is fighting with Ultraman and advises Sorato to get rid of Zomera’s chest armor so that Kosei can land a Kaen-102 strike on the beast. Zomera returns fire, and Omega flies into the beam in an effort to save Kosei. Instead, they both die. Bear with me here. If you are consuming this review, you likely have already watched the show in full. If not, what are you doing here? You can binge it on YouTube or Prime.

As Kosei and Sorato walk through their shared memories, the pair talk about what their partnership has meant to each other. Kosei declares that it cannot end like this, and Sorato agrees, so Omega proposes an option that should be very familiar to fans of the Ultra series…though it usually does not happen this late in a show. You see, in the original Ultraman show, Ultraman inadvertently killed agent Shin Hayata and so tied himself to Hayata in order to save the man’s life. That was the beginning of that show, but here, it pays off the arcs these two men have had about saving humanity.

This new Ultraman Omega fights with newfound fervor and strength, ducking and blocking Zomera’s strikes. Their brotherly bond gives this Ultra further strength to pierce Zomera’s forcefield and summon all three meteokaiju at once, which also allows Omega to switch between the associated armors. As the crowning jewel of this innovative spin of the classic Ultra hero merging, this fight takes three minutes, the original limit for how long Hayata could be Ultraman in one sitting.

The radio hosts conclude with some exposition about the (immediate) future of this world. With more funding, the actual international kaiju response organization that springs out from the KSCT tries to focus on coexistence with the kaiju and even possibly communicating with the Space Gazers. Sayuki Uta, who I have not mentioned that much for brevity’s sake was against the Zomera project in the first place, drained by the meetings with her more militaristic compatriots and initially drawn to Ayumu for her curiosity and tenacity, naturally has a high up status in this new organization. She has been a very strong mentor character in this show, but these are mini reviews. Anyway, the new organization is called KSSIT, short for Kaiju Special Investigation Team, and Ayumu and Kosei work for the Tokyo Branch. This feels like the beginning of a classic Ultraman show, but, as Sorato tells Kosei, it is more than that. It is Earthlings, aliens and kaiju all working together to make a new Earth.

Verdict

All in all, this show blew me away and is going down in my book as an all time great season of tokusatsu. That may be a little bit dramatic on my part as I have not seen nearly enough tokusatsu shows yet, but you can see for yourself the fabulosities outweigh the frustrations.

You can expect further coverage of this show from me; I still need to rank the show’s monsters in full, and I will adapt these episode reviews to our YouTube page, so stay tuned for those.

Here are some more screengrabs I found entertaining:

Andy Milligan's Compass Rose, 1968, a look at Caffe Cino of the '60s

2026-04-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of filmmaker Andy Milligan, you are familiar with many of his trademark film characteristics - impalement with a pitchfork, beheadings, actors dressed in cheap period costumes, and his unique camera technique of the swirl camera. Compass Rose (1968) deviates a bit from these characteristics but is still an important film in the Milligan canon. The film explores the lives of struggling actors and bohemian types in New York City at the off Broadway Cafe Cino in the 1960s. (Above and below are two stills from Compass Rose)

The opening sequence shows a couple (Anthony Moscine, Anne Linden) having sex on a bed, kissing and rubbing each other. In true Andy Milligan form - the sex on screen is not very erotic or sexy. These are not bodies that are in perfect shape or very sexy in any way. We can almost smell their body odors as we see their scars, pimples, moles and other imperfections on full display on the screen. Any sex shown in a Milligan film is not intended to arouse or sexually stimulate the viewer. These are real, everyday people engaged in sexual activity, and not body perfect porn stars.

Milligan's wife-to-be, Candy Hammond, wastes no time disrobing for the camera when she first appears on screen. The viewer is treated to a quick glimpse of her pubic area when she runs into a bedroom after disrobing. She is nude in all of her scenes until she commits suicide in her final scene. Hammond always appears to be confident, if not aloof, about her nudity on screen as she frequently touches her breasts. Hammond would eventually marry Milligan in 1968 during the production of Compass Rose.

The viewer is also treated to the inside world of Caffe Cino. The walls of the cafe are plastered with posters, fliers and other visual ephemeral that keep the viewer looking everywhere. Decor and drapery hang loosely from the cafe ceilings. The entire environment is visual overload, which is likely the point. Actors perform strange drag impromptu dialogue on a small stage as patrons of the cafe watch casually while smoking cigarettes.

If you purchased the Severin films Blu-Ray set of Gutter Auteur: The Lost Legacy of Andy Milligan, the print of Compass Rose has sound which cuts in and out throughout the film. Small segments of the film have no sound at all, and sound sequences are often hard to decipher during conversations between actors. This is not a complaint from this reviewer. We are very fortunate to have this film to view, so we can overlook the sound imperfections.

The final scene of Compass Rose is a chaotic orgy of naked sadism. Twisted bodies squirm around in an S&M playground, smeared with food in the same basement that Milligan shot The Ghastly Ones (1968). The film ends abruptly with a statement on screen which mentions that Milligan never completed the film. The film was likely unreleasable due to sound problems.

Milligan's next project was - The Filthy Five (1968), another lost film in the Milligan canon. The Severin Blu-Ray of Compass Rose has an 18-minute interview with film historian Stephen Thrower about the film. Thrower gives us great insight into the career of Milligan and the making of the film. The Degenerate Blu-Ray set also includes Milligan's post-nuke film - The Degenerates (1967), Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1968), House of Seven Belles (1979), and the documentary - The Degenerate - The Life & Films of Andy Milligan. The three discs are packed with lots of extras. Don't miss it.

Steve D. Stones

Godzilla’s Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP, Part One

2026-03-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

By Joe Gibson

The following is the first part of the transcript of a recent video on Plan9Crunch’s YouTube page that you can watch here: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP

Hi. Welcome back to Plan9Crunch. I am Joe Gibson.

In all my time talking about Godzilla here, I have been quite open about my disdain for Polygon’s Godzilla anime trilogy. In the deepest part of my being, I know these movies to be terrible and among the worst the franchise has to offer, and I have never really given myself the opportunity to lay out my best arguments for that case. However, even now I don’t really want to do that. Let’s set aside how that is poisoning the well to the audience about experiencing what is perhaps the most niche sector of this franchise that still involves feature films; it is just not that interesting to me to try to tear down a trilogy without some nuanced gimmick. I have also grown to appreciate these films in their own way. The design for Godzilla Earth, while slow, immobile and barely qualifying as something that only animation could create, is actually probably one of my top ten designs for Godzilla. I just think it’s neat with some sleek muscle patterns and a very meme-able face.

I also have a warped kind of nostalgia for these films because I was there following along with the updates before the films came out, catching every new report about what the first Godzilla anime would be like. I witnessed when the officially reported title for the first film changed from Godzilla: Monster Planet to Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters, and I was there when we got early translations for what would eventually become City On The Edge Of Battle as Mobile Battle Breeder City. In both cases, the earlier title was technically more accurate to the film than the later, but that’s not the point. I have experienced both hype and letdown with this trilogy, and I’m really not that devoted to trashing on it outside of throwaway jabs and tangents in other videos. That said, I still think the trilogy deserves a slightly negative video essay exploring some of my issues with it. One common critique of the trilogy is how derivative it seems of Attack on Titan, and, don’t worry, I’ll unpack what all that means in a second, but the discussion I want to create here is that the Godzilla Anime Trilogy is very much like AOT but far less mature in its storytelling and implementation of themes.

And this is important to note. Even though I am using Attack On Titan as the positive example by comparison, my criticisms will not simply be “this is not what Attack on Titan did so it is bad.” That wouldn’t really make much sense. This trilogy never had a chance of doing exactly what Attack On Titan did because the manga was still ongoing when this trilogy was in production. Heck, this trilogy managed to preemptively include a plot point from AOT before AOT’s manga even got around to that (I’ll explain that when it comes up later), so if that were my metric, rest assured it wouldn’t be an unfair hindrance to these films.

So how else do I frame this comparison if not “living up to a source material.” Well, have you ever heard the expression that X thing is like Y thing on crack, as in crack cocaine, the drug? Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t. Essentially, it is a comparative tool wherein I acknowledge base level similarity but through the lens of hyperactive, frenetic or melodramatic exaggeration of certain elements. The problem is that it does not really work in this instance. Though undeniably similar, as we will get to, the anime trilogy is a lot more subdued and restrained than the comparative high energy battle anime of AOT. Okay so then it was all about finding a different drug with the desired exaggerations from AOT’s tone, and that was difficult to find with an innocuous google search term. But eventually I settled on PCP, so please indulge me as I run through the side effects of PCP we’ll want to keep in mind. This part of the video is technically a drug abuse PSA, so if the YouTube algorithm suppresses this video, well I shouldn’t finish that thought. On that note though, this essay will discuss topics pertaining to drug abuse obviously but also depression and suicide, so viewer discretion is advised.

Phencyclidine, known for the purposes of this essay as PCP or Angel Dust, is a hallucinogenic and dissociative drug that can lead to many side effects but especially lethargy, disorientation, hallucinations, sense of detachment, lack of concentration, loss of coordination, agitation, bizarre behavior, a dangerously inflated sense of strength and invulnerability, memory loss and unconsciousness. I am getting this information from Americanaddictioncenters.org. The image you see on your screen is from The Carolina Center recovery .com and adds suicidality and coma to this list. So, basically, the methodology of this exercise is to pinpoint how the anime trilogy expresses its themes about humanity and see if the tone registers with a certain disorientation and sense of detachment or lack of concentration or if the choreography entails a sense of lethargy and relies on unconscious hallucinations or if the ways characters act are informed by the side effects of dissociative drugs instead of rational acting. If the lead for example demonstrates violent suicidal behavior, delusions of grandeur, a sense of detachment from his life, stupor and notable memory loss, then there you go. I think it is a fair criticism to say “the emotional maturity of this series is akin to that of someone addicted to PCP.” Ah yes and the ways people abuse PCP are plenty: it can be a white powder, a yellow liquid, a tablet, eye drops, an injection or in a cigar. So very adaptable and I think ultimately very fair to use for such a sweeping analysis. In any case, let us proceed to some background information on the trilogy itself so we can actually begin the analysis proper.

Between 2017 and 2019, Netflix released three Godzilla anime films. Animated by Polygon Pictures, these were to be Godzilla’s first official feature film foray into animation, though as I understand it the 2021 Netflix series Godzilla Singular Point went into production first. Recently, I have heard commentators posit that the trilogy is not really that good of a demonstration to anime fans what Godzilla represents nor to Godzilla fans what anime entails, and that is largely because the style of animation was a costly 3DCG that simulates live action but resulted in a very sluggish Godzilla with very little screentime. So a limitation of the technology, same as the goofy suits between 1955 and 1975. Also a very experimental format that settled the uncanny valley in regards to how tokusatsu and anime are usually shot. (Consider the way this distorts our sensory perceptions of the ways characters can move and their body awareness.)

The premise is equally uncanny between old and new, traditional and experimental. Giant monsters have pushed the remains of humanity into one cramped area (that’s the Attack On Titan part), but it is to the spaceship Aratrum, and, while humanity is in space for 20 years before they decide to come back, 20,000 years have passed on Earth. The Xilien and Simeon aliens from the Showa series are back but as members of this defeated coalition, as their plans to defeat the monsters have failed. Also, it is best to get to this out of the way now, the Xiliens became the Aryan Exif aliens, and the space monkey Simeons became the dark skinned humanoid Bilusaludo aliens. This is not a Critical Race Theory Essay, so I’m not going to read too deep into that except to say they act more like deconstructions of fantasy elves and dwarves than they do real world stereotypes. The lead character is Captain Haruo Sakaki, and you can recognize his first name from the original Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima and his fierce and petulant anger from Attack on Titan’s protagonist Eren Jaeger, but, as you will soon find out, there is a lot more to talk about this trilogy as a whole than what just came before. Still, maybe I should expand on that history first.

Running between 2009 and 2021, Attack On Titan, originally called Shingeki no Kyojin, is a very popular manga and eventually anime series by Hajime Isayama. The basic premise there is that man-eating ogres called Titans have forced the remnants of humanity that they have not already killed into German towns housed within three massive walls, and everything appears to be somewhere between medieval times and the 1800s, though the title of episode one clarifies that 2000 years of history are relevant to this world. Within the desperate struggle to survive, one teenager is angry enough to try and fight all of the Titans to reclaim his world. That is Eren Jaeger, and his best friends Mikasa and Armin seem skilled and smart enough respectively to help him achieve his goal if they and their allies can survive long enough to see it through. I am trying not to spoil too much…Yet, but that is roughly what you will need to understand going into the first few arcs of AOT. After that point, twists and turns abound with realistic government corruption, dangerous political intrigue, betrayals, doomed love, and a final stretch that decodes the subtext of the Titans and lays bare as text what the whole story was really about the whole time. I think it is really a masterclass and an amazing political thought experiment while delivering on amazing fight scenes. Not everyone sees it that way, and, fair enough, Attack on Titan is not on trial today. Maybe you will prefer the approach of the trilogy. With all this context out of the way, let us begin.

So the title is Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, what if I call it–

GODZILLA: Planet of PCP

In this film, Haruo is the driver on the mission to return to Earth. Put as simply as possible, he comes up with a battle strategy that could have defeated Godzilla in the past that motivates his human, Exif and Bilusaludo allies to help him test it out.

Haruo is very clearly an Eren expy because of his tragic backstory and how that shapes him into an angry yet cunning and charismatic leader among his equals. Eren always wanted to fight for his freedom even when he was a child, but, in episode one, we are there with him when Titans breach Wall Maria and eat his mother in front of him, and, from that point on, we empathize with him and understand why he takes military training so seriously and how he inspires the other cadets in the battle of Trost. Even though Haruo also witnessed Godzilla killing his parents, traumatizing him as a child, the introduction we as the audience get to him is not that, but we see him attempting suicide terrorism, threatening him to blow himself up in an effort to prevent their scout ship from leaving to a nearby prospective planet.

Okay there is actually more to it than just that. Haruo justifies his dissidence by giving a fair argument that the central council is knowingly sacrificing the elderly people aboard the ship just to make sure there are less mouths to feed. This is driven by necessity with willing participants as we find out but still represents an inability of the existing governmental structure to take care of its people. This plot point of sending the elderly on a mission outside of the walls also appears in AOT, and it was the first of many scenes showing a logical but terrible human cost to survival, raising the question of if it is worth it. The trilogy does not have the same time or space as a four season show, but this, as the introduction to this question, is sufficient and snappy. Haruo is vindicated as the scout ship explodes, and he is remanded into military custody. And then we learn his backstory. But why, oh why did they choose to write it this way?

PCP is not the reason this trilogy is the way it is (that’s post hoc wishful thinking); Gen Urobuchi was the writer, and Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita codirected. As I understand from post-mortem interviews after the fact, Gen Urobuchi is to blame for the nihilism on display, Seshita brought an enthusiasm for using the Godzilla IP and its staples to bring in a new audience, and Shizuno had no prior knowledge of Godzilla and adjusted the other two men’s suggestions into new trajectories. So stuff like the technology obsession and worship migrating from the Xiliens to the Bilusaludo is more likely an inconsistent reference changed by Shizuno than the work of Seshita or Urobuchi, and, well from Gamera Rebirth, we know that the details of Void Ghidorah were precious enough to Seshita to retrofit onto Viras though with a more weighty flesh and blood fight. So all this to say that yes, a trio where one man is writing a depressing treatise on nihilism with franchise references, another guy loves the franchise and wants to expand the audience, and the third guy has no clue of the first thing in the franchise and shoots down or warps the other two guys’ suggestions is absolutely a scenario that fits the PCP abuse side effects of lack of concentration, sense of detachment, and memory loss in a very unique way that I hope you can appreciate.

In Attack On Titan, despite being the protagonist through the entire run and the main character by runtime for the first three seasons, Eren is not the narrator; his friend Armin is. And immediately that works into the themes and tone the show is portraying. Armin, as a character, has an unparalleled hope for the future, and framing Eren through his narration allows for us to see a great range of Eren’s emotional capacity. In Planet of The Monsters, Haruo gives the narration of the backstory of the monsters and fall of humanity, and, again, the way that we explore these events are through his perception and worldview, so very angry and bitter. He has characters to balance out his extremism, but the script does not elevate them to major characters until the sequel.

It kills me that right after Haruo’s failed suicide terrorism, almost every shot has warm hues cast over it and lights going in and out of focus that make it hard to focus on what we are seeing, but when he literally narrates that he still remembers the flames from Godzilla’s destruction, the shot is the clearest blue it could possibly be. And yes uh I bet you didn’t expect so early to find a match for the blurred vision and dizziness PCP symptoms, but yeah. I didn’t even draw too much attention to those, but already the film is playing along with me here.

Okay, this whole visual element is actually very odd because the characters make a point of space and the Aratrum being functionally a frozen hell. The planet they are seeking, Tau-e, is warm, so it is more interesting to look at complicated shots that incorporate both, but the juxtaposition would be better served if Earth wasn't also blue and Mechagodzilla City also a dead and sterile environment.

Okay back to the guiding narration. I actually am a proponent of telling and not showing a good deal of the time. There simply is not enough time in a movie to show everything you need to get across to the audience, especially in diegetic ramblings. I mean that more in the regards to “kaiju started appearing in the late 1990s, Godzilla came last and was unstoppable by human or monster, then the aliens came and also failed to stop him, then the survivors evacuated.” Haruo has a very personal connection to Godzilla that takes a more show don't tell approach, but the majority of information in this flashback has to be told. Still, I do criticize Haruo's moment with Godzilla because I think it could have communicated its point better overall, and actually Attack on Titan does that plot point better so we can look at that again.

When it comes to Godzilla's emotions and intent, he is often ambiguous especially now that we don't have the benefit of a human acting in his suit. It is very difficult to understand Shin Godzilla's motivations just looking at him moving forward and spewing beams. Actually ironically enough, that movie has to tell us through the nondiegetic lyrics of Who Will Know what is going through his head. That's not a critique of Shin Godzilla, just evidence of my point. The Godzilla in Minus One is much more easily understandable because you can see his rage when he steps on people, tears through buildings and tries to bite the Shinden. The tooth and nail destruction Godzilla does in the original film is the most visceral, and the crocodile melee crawl and slashing of Kong he does in GvK sticks with you as much as his best atomic breath finishers do.

Eren Jaeger has to witness a very disturbing Smiling Titan eat his mother, and Haruo has to witness Godzilla shoot down a transport that also contains his parents. This is not a measuring contest, but let us compare for a moment how hard of a punch that packs. Eren is ripped away from the rubble of his home, dragged as he tries to go back and save his mother, while Haruo is at a much safer distance, dragged and unable to go back for a necklace while we don’t even see his parents die. Yes, there is such a thing as subtlety (we’ll actually soon get to why I don’t think this trilogy understands it as well as AOT), but this is supposed to motivate us to follow Haruo on his journey because of our attachment to revenge for what Godzilla did to him. It would be a small change but admittedly might balloon the budget because of this art style to have Godzilla actually crush Haruo’s parents and then we see how Yuko’s grandfather saved him so that his death on the emigration shuttle a scene ago now retroactively carries more weight. This is a minor point; let’s carry on.

Haruo finishes his recap monologue by asking variations of the same question why. Why are they still alive? Why did this happen to them? And those are what we will have to examine throughout the film, but he also states that kindness and pride are gone in this Aratrum culture. For one thing, the film will later prove him wrong on the kindness part, and he very clearly is prideful by thinking he is the only one who can or wants to draft a plan to defeat Godzilla, but genuinely having thought about this, I think the only reason he said that is so we can have the immediate juxtaposition to Metphies being nice to Haruo and think ‘maybe this guy is manipulating him,’ Metphies of course being derived from Mephistopheles and being the main Exif character and I guess priest in their religion who offers forgiveness rites to prisoners.

The way that this trilogy builds up to plot twists in comparison to Attack on Titan is a lot more simple. “What if the character that is high up in a cult and literally gives Haruo information about the past while lying to the council is lying to and manipulating Haruo’s psyche and memories?” is one such example. Also, let’s have Haruo ask if the reason this happened to them is that it was an inevitable punishment for humanity but he then says no and that it is because they did not give it their all against Godzilla so that when the trilogy ends and they all failed to kill Godzilla again, the only other option on the table is that it was punishment for humanity and their technology when Godzilla, especially one that is made of plant life, could come from anywhere for any reason.

Again I do not want to just say “well this isn’t Attack on Titan so it’s bad.” It is just inviting comparison by ripping off Attack on Titan and then self aggrandizing over its themes and foreshadowing even while it strips down the amount of characterization and action that went hand in hand with AOT’s reveals.

Haruo releases his manifesto/Godzilla battle plan, and it is important enough for the council to discuss it amongst their bleak survival possibilities because everyone on the ship is reading it. Earlier, Haruo broadcast his terroristic opposition to the Tau-e emigration to the entire ship. And this matches how especially pre Trost in Attack on Titan season one, Eren was very charismatic, setting a standard for grit and determination that inspired the other cadets…notably before he had to watch some of them die too. Eren ends up questioning himself a lot after that, but the point that I am making here is that we are entirely replacing the other cadets seeing Eren barely manage to balance in a training ODM gear rig and then realizing that it was busted, and he actually did something more impressive than any of them, we’re replacing that with broadcasts and an anonymous battle plan.

Still, this is when the film actually begins to introduce us to more characters. Uh, Colonel Leland, Dr. Martin Lazzari and Adam Bindewald are all white blonde humans with the major design differences being their hair style. Leland we’ll put a pin in since he’s actually my favorite character in this whole trilogy, Adam winds up in Metphies’ religion though in this introductory scene he is very cynical about how quote “the ship leaders turn to the gods, as usual,” and Martin will give exposition about nature but also becomes anti religion once Gen Urobuchi decides Adam isn’t I guess. We have had several shots of Yuko Tani reacting to things, and Metphies has a conversation with one of the Bilusaludo Mulu-elu Galu-gu, which reveals they are on the same page about using Haruo’s research paper to undermine the committee and return to Earth. As the flashback briefly showed, Galu-gu was behind the failed Mechagodzilla project, and Metphies speculates that, had it worked, Mechagodzilla would have then subjugated humanity after Galu-gu insinuates that that was the purpose and aim of the Exif’s cult.

Adam’s friend Marco sits with some other characters, who voice an earnest wish to see the real Earth and see the ocean, and if you have experienced Attack on Titan, particularly season 3, you will have in your head how this story would be able to leverage so efficiently two characters talking about wanting to experience the sea. It is the dream that Eren and Armin share but gradually begins to take on a different meaning for each of them. Here, a bunch of nameless extras gather around and instantly see the blue ocean, gazing at how beautiful and blue it is when the ship that was their hell is the same dull blue. Haruo even has his moment of angrily staring at the sea and only seeing their enemy when Attack on Titan used these same pieces to paint a much more poignant picture.

But again this is not about Attack on Titan; it is about how this trilogy’s immaturity seems to manifest as a diluted Attack on Titan. The focus of the scene is on scout drones scanning the new Earth and finding Godzilla. Earlier, Eren’s charisma was replaced by Haruo utilizing technology, and his strategy for defeating Godzilla hinges on details he can only find out through Metphies’ technology and the Gematron calculator, so it is official, that as a motif, this trilogy is diverting from more personal human connection and ingenuity into using technology, so let us put a pin in that.

The Captain of the vessel, Unberto Mori realizes with horror that although thousands of years have passed and the terrain has changed, Godzilla still remains on the planet in some form. Haruo also realizes this somehow, but he does not have the benefit of Martin Lazzari’s dissertation to the council on how Godzilla cannot be considered a normal living creature and thus any number of explanations could explain why at least one remains. Metphies pushes for the extermination of Godzilla and negotiates dropping the charges on Haruo, and now Haruo is in front of the committee explaining his plan as good diegetic exposition…until it dips into literal “As You Know” dialogue and I am reminded of my feelings for the trilogy. Mori opposes the plan because it will cost lives, and he does not want to risk the 600 people Haruo needs (Deputy Director Hamamoto also declares it out of the question). Somehow, Haruo gets his way anyway, and I really am not sure of the cause and effect that got us to this point from one scene ago. The council members were discussing how it would drastically affect public perception of them if they were unable to land on Earth, and we never saw Mori too torn up about sacrificing the elderly to Tau-e (even if he did not think that would happen, the calculations given in the film still revealed it was not an optimally safe planet). Unless the Exif and Bilusaludo came together to strongarm the literal captain of their ship, there is really not sufficient justification for Mori to immediately reverse his stance, but we know that isn’t true because somehow human Colonel Elliot Leland becomes commander of the Earth Landing Brigade and not Metphies or Galu-gu.

Leland is a very different character than Commander Erwin Smith from Attack on Titan, but they share a voice actor, hair color, insubordination to the government and willingness to put their own life on the line in these risky military maneuvers, so the inspiration is evident. Leland’s selfishness is on display sooner, as he claims that defeating Godzilla will appoint a new era for him as a pampered hero, a much more shallow and stock secret motivation than wanting proof that more is outside the walls in order to vindicate your father’s secret theory that you feel a lot of guilt for outing to the government as a child. That contained some spoilers for Erwin, I am sorry, but we are already exposing both the official and hidden motivations for Leland in his first scene, a hallmark of great writing. Where Leland comes into his own as the most dynamic character of the movie though is his past with Haruo. They are childhood friends, and, since Haruo is the criminal on bail that they are technically following in this mission, Leland has to weigh following chain of command against listening to his friend.

I am not sure if this is from lack of subtlety in the storytelling, inability to read finer emotions in the art style or to further show Metphies’ manipulation of Haruo’s emotions, but he feels the need to say outright that Haruo is still angry even though he is getting his goal. Haruo responds that he is unsure if everything will go to plan, and Metphies repeats a line from Leland about trusting in a hero, but Metphies says that the hero he trusts in is Haruo. Now, again I mentioned how Eren was singularly confident in himself before he faced any real opposition from the Titans. Haruo said earlier that kindness and pride are dead, so this would almost further that except that his ego clearly informed his terrorism attempt and his confidence in writing, updating regularly and presenting his paper to the leaders of the ship. Heck, forget all that, Leland is Haruo’s childhood friend and is as proud as ever. True, we are only seeing him now after they are within Earth’s orbit, but he had to have this belief to choose to be commander of this mission, and if he was a child same as Haruo when they entered this ship but became his superior, he needed his same motivation to achieve his rank. In any case, it is just strange that Metphies has to elicit in Haruo what his archetype already bore from the beginning, and Metphies’s AOT analog and actual role in this story is a foil to Haruo/Eren.

When the party lands, they unload their mechs, traps and command centers to begin their plan. I do not think it productive to give an exact play by play of the conversation between the characters, but Martin slots into the Zoe Hange role from AOT, and Yuko Tani becomes Haruo’s official handler 38 minutes into the film as a scout team goes out, at which point they realize how different the flora/fauna have become. Leaves are sharper than razors, and a masked humanoid watches the operation from the razor bushes. Yuko now explains her motivation; she joined this operation because Haruo was here. She always wanted to meet him and is curious if the central committee used his bombs to destroy the Tau-e shuttle. Haruo shuts this down, stating that he does not want to be so judgmental of humans, but this is against his own philosophy expressed through the opening scene and then the narration of the committee sacrificing them and kindness being dead. Yuko’s grandfather is who saved Haruo as a child and talked him down from his terrorism attempt, so maybe there was a double meaning to his “kindness is dead” remark that he could rediscover in Yuko, but that would be if the trilogy cared about Yuko outside of her obsession with Haruo, which is not likely because instead Haruo blames Godzilla for taking away justice, pride and faith. He says that fighting Godzilla again can take back that dignity, but clearly they never lost pride or faith through Leland and Metphies but also they have a working justice system as he got court martialed for terrorism. This primes us for a story where he realizes they still have humanity, exemplified through Yuko, but she will entirely orbit his character and eventually get fridged to make room for other characters.

Okay so the three leads of Attack On Titan are Eren Jaeger, Armin Arlert and Mikasa Ackerman. Mikasa is another childhood friend of Eren who the Jaegers took in after human traffickers killed her parents, and the moment when Eren saved her by killing one of the traffickers and then wrapped his scarf around her awoke something in her that indebted her to Eren. This also manifests as romantic feelings as the cast goes from ten years old to mid teens to young adults over the show. Mikasa bears a strength that Eren never gets though, and she has to save him as often as he saves her. Mikasa is the least developed of the three main characters, but she still grows a lot in her outlook, and she winds up the deciding factor of many of the action scenes in the show. Eren, Mikasa and Armin balance each other, and this trilogy took Armin out entirely and relegated Mikasa to a weak damsel that completely loses agency midway through the story. I feel the need to reiterate that Attack On Titan is not the only way to tell a story of this scale, but legitimately, as I think you will come to see, this trilogy is the kind of story where failing the Bechdel test legitimately does make it is somewhat misogynistic, and Mikasa is an example of a well written character that is still obsessed with the main hero that they chose to deviate from because their inspiration was clearly AOT.

The party stumbles upon the ruins of some buildings that have almost transformed into the Earth. As Martin explains, lichen attached itself to the buildings’ rubble and fossilized, with further flora growing on top of that. Haruo loses his balance, a symptom of PCP addiction, nah kidding he intentionally drops to his knees, and declares, as the music swells that “Although we’ve forgotten, this planet has always remembered us,” and that they must take it back. This is a very effective emotional moment, but we have to actually examine what happened here because Haruo is wrong and that is part of the point of this whole trilogy. As we learn in scenes before and after this one, the florafauna of the Earth changed while they were gone.

Leaves are stronger than steel, and the native animals are just as strong but seem like offshoots of Godzilla; these Servum as they are called attack the base camp, and this batch is winged but there are also terrestrial ones later. The metallic and magnetic properties of the Servum and the plants are in common with Godzilla, and the trilogy later confirms it is not Godzilla’s doing but natural mimicry across nature. So nature has absorbed the humans’ buildings, yes, but did so to become Godzilla. There is an old poster that came out before we knew much about what the 2014 film would entail, I believe it was a Comic Con exclusive, and it showed building rubble coalescing into an effigy of Godzilla. It equates Godzilla with destruction and dominion over what he has destroyed. A Monster-Planet (now you can see why I said that title made more sense) growing over the remains of humanity is a win condition for Godzilla not an inspiring moment for humanity. Haruo is of course allowed to be wrong, he’ll be wrong a lot, it just is important to note that as often as it happens.

Leland listens to Martin’s explanation of the florafauna and comes to the reasonable conclusion that they need to retreat, saying it would be the height of stupidity to fight Godzilla for a planet like this. Haruo has an emotional attachment obviously to staying but he gets so angry at this that he literally attacks his good friend Leland, pinning him up against the wall. Haruo confronts Leland on abandoning his goal of being humanity’s hero by taking down Godzilla, and Leland, again correctly, explains that they have already taken heavy losses, their manpower is not trained in fighting, and he frankly underestimated the mission. Now, since Leland is now abdicating the “hero of humanity” title, and Metphies applied it to Haruo’s holy mission, we can fairly expect it to be Haruo that this journey immortalizes into some kind of legend (we’ll get there) and not Leland. Now notably, Metphies followed these two when they ran off, so he is able to manipulate Leland by saying he agrees with him, but the Servum damaged their equipment so they cannot leave. Metphies keeps going, explaining that the only plan for retreat they even have is pretty much verbatim the choreography of Haruo’s attack plan. Later, Metphies tells Haruo that he knows that Godzilla will not let them escape and will seek them out.

There’re certainly things to appraise as well or poorly written in this trilogy, and that’s not my focus here. The movie has been functionally speaking good so far. Haruo is not going to have an arc until the next film, the side characters are more of a Greek chorus than individuals, and the specific details built up in this movie are going to destroy some plot points of the later films, but, so far, nothing has contradicted itself, and I think Leland’s arc ground this film pretty well. Still, now Godzilla shows up, and we have another point of comparison to AOT.

Eren Jaeger winds up in military custody after his actions in the Battle of Trost, and, after a trial, Captain Levi becomes Eren’s official handler, Levi being humanity’s strongest soldier, a very dynamic role that toes the line between mentor and main cast member. Levi’s deal is that he is so strong and skilled that eventually he has to watch everyone around him die. His “Levi Squad” consists of very skilled handpicked soldiers, and, on a mission outside of the walls midway through season one, they are responsible for protecting Eren. Now, at that point, an intelligent 15 meter Titan starts hunting after Eren, and Levi Squad races through a wooded area as this huge Titan follows them. Levi Squad begs Eren to trust them and not go off and fight the Titan by himself. Eventually, Levi Squad has to fight this Titan because the plan did not work, and Eren chooses to believe in them. Levi tells him that, after all of these missions, he does not know which is the correct option, if he should trust in his comrades or in himself. Levi tells Eren to “do as his conscious dictates,” and then Eren watches this intelligent Titan systematically kill the other soldiers in Levi Squad, and then Eren fights the Titan himself. That scene is so crucial to the entire show and Eren’s development, and Planet of the Monsters has a scene so similar I think the inspiration is clear. (Just so you know that the reference is possible, you should know this movie came out in 2017, and season one dropped in 2013, so yeah they had time to copy this part.)

When Godzilla appears, it is in a wooded area where he poses a big danger to their convoy. Even though by all accounts, Yuko is Haruo’s official handler, Metphies has control over Hauro’s handcuffs and releases him. Specifically, Metphies says the words, “Do as your soul is crying out to do,” and Haruo races off on a speeder to fight Godzilla. In this case, he wants to record Godzilla’s force field pattern, which is crucial to his annihilation strategy, but all of the speeder’s attacks are too light so he preps a kamikaze run. This is at the beginning of Haruo’s journey, and it would be rather embarrassing if this exact visual becomes the wrap-around to the end of his arc, but I digress. Delusions of grandeur and inflated strength as well as violent suicidal actions are side effects of PCP use. Taking a scene that was so complex and driven by the strong personalities of a large cast and turning it into Haruo distracting Godzilla to selfishly advance his plan while killing himself is just so weird to see as a consumer of both pieces of media.

The only reason Haruo does not go through with it is because Leland commandeers some heavier artillery to get Godzilla’s attention, and Godzilla returns fire, killing Leland. As I am rewatching and reviewing this, I am realizing that this film is rather light on Leland, and this is not a case where he has a top 10 or even top 20 character arc in this franchise, but I gravitated toward him because his is the only character arc in the film, he is a well-intentioned and level headed character, and the conflict between his ideals and Haruo’s is actually very interesting in a movie where the only other main character is Metphies, who just agrees with Haruo. I like Leland because he had a simple arc of choosing between his military role or his childhood friend, that is to say choosing between what is best for humanity and his childish goal of being the ultimate hero, and it always felt to me watching this movie that there was a complexity to his choices instead of just vague confused writing that I see in the trilogy as a whole. He died to save another soldier, but that soldier was specifically Haruo, and, in so doing, he helped Haruo get the data he needed for the plan Leland at least professionally opposed (but Leland must have been on board enough to initially take the mission).

Metphies immediately defers leadership to Haruo, which confirms they will do his plan. Despite there being an entire chain of command composed of a coalition of three humanoid species, Haruo’s acceptance speech is enough to convince everybody there not to mutiny and instead follow him to their certain death fighting Godzilla. Again, AOT being a good show is not really relevant to this point, but this specific plot point made a lot more sense when it was cadet Eren Jaeger who finished top 10 of his training year inspiring other cadets, one of which was Armin, in the lead-up to the Battle of Trost. There is no reason that Adam Bindewald, Belu-be, Galu-gu and Martin should all listen to Haruo, and we cannot argue that the earlier scenes of Haruo not being confident in this mission means he had an arc because he was willing to ask the entire ship to implement this plan anonymously and then also presented it to the central committee. Nothing changed in Haruo from the beginning even though his friend died saving him from recklessly carrying out this plan. The Servum swarm also poses a major roadbloack in operational security.

Godzilla’s part of the battle is looking around and firing his beam. Throughout the entire trilogy, Godzilla will be very sluggish and lethargic, another symptom of PCP we haven’t covered yet, and believe me it is actually very notable how lethargic this Godzilla is. During Leland’s death, Haruo’s attacks were not hard enough to register on Godzilla’s force field, and yet after sustaining those, a volley of shots from Leland that did register on the force field and shooting one atomic breath at Leland, Godzilla was spent and retreated instead of finishing off the people Metphies was so sure he would not let escape. This is not even a case like in Minus One where using the beam hurts him. He got so tired from doing nothing that he had to retreat. And Godzilla will spend most of film 2 and like half of film 3 sleeping, actually Godzilla has spent most of this film sleeping, and you’ll find out soon enough how I can say that so confidently.

After a battle where Godzilla can barely register how fast (comparatively) the machinery around him is moving, Godzilla explodes. Now this still required Haruo risking his life, but it kind of screwed with the stakes because no one saved Haruo, he just managed to survive the guns shooting on his power suit like there was no tomorrow. Okay so Godzilla just died, and we’ve got 14 more minutes and then two more movies. Martin starts talking to Haruo, because Martin is the exposition guy as I am sure you remember, about how biologically the Godzilla they just killed is unlikely to be the real capital G Godzilla let’s say because nature always changes. And yeah that wasn’t the Godzilla this trilogy bears in its title. That 50 meter creature was Godzilla Filius, and the original Godzilla now wakes up, demolishing the mountain he was sleeping under because he is 300 meters tall and has a beard. Okay so anyway he issues a super oscillatory wave out of his mouth and creates a huge shockwave from whipping his tail, and that destroys at least the vehicle Haruo was in, knocking him out.

It is difficult to actually use the built in stopping points of these films for one thing because it is meant as one big story but also because the novel adaptations literally chopped the second film in half in order to make the whole story just two books.

Even so, we will stop here for now. The video upload (Godzilla's Anime Trilogy: Attack On Titan On PCP) of this still wound up at an hour and thirty seven minutes (the whole thing was 15,000 words), and I invite you to watch the video while you wait for the next part of the transcript. Also, watch Attack on Titan in the meantime, as the next parts will significantly spoil several plot points.