Gappa: The Triphibian Monster (1967)

akiratubo · July 19, 2014, 06:45:17 PM

Holy geez! This sucks!

Some Japanese people go to an island inhabited by a primitive tribe who fear the monster "Gappa". The Japanese find a baby monster on the island and take it to Japan. The baby's 200-foot-tall parents don't like this, so they go to Japan and walk around trying to find it. Instead of just, you know, giving the baby back, the Japanese government sics the military on the monsters. Finally, when just about all of the Japanese mainland has been destroyed, someone rubs two brain cells together and figures out that giving the baby back might get the parents to leave. It works. Everyone stands around feeling like a dumbass for not doing this earlier. The End.

The monsters themselves look pretty cool and have a decent power set. They're sort of dinosaur-owl things that can fly, walk on land, and live underwater for extended periods (hence triphibian). They also have fire breath because, hey, why not? I wish there had been at least one more movie featuring them, possibly vs. another monster. Unfortunately, their movie plays them as "just big, dumb animals", with an emphasis on "dumb". The Gappas have absolutely no personality whatsoever. Their sole motivation is "find the baby", which they kind of suck at. They track the baby to Japan easily enough then ... well, when I said they walk around in the above paragraph, I meant it. They casually stroll through several cities, knocking over buildings, completely oblivious to the damage they're causing. They destroy tanks and fighter jets readily enough but without gusto; they're just animals responding to aggression. Some might enjoy their monsters presented this way, I prefer mine to have more personality.

The human characters are even worse. I was perhaps being generous when I implied they had two brain cells among them to rub together. The worst by far is the business tycoon who has possession of the baby Gappa. Hell, I'm not even going to talk about him because thinking about any of his actions makes me angry. He does get the best line in the movie, however: "You can go on a South Seas vacation without leaving home, here, right here, here, here, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Worst of all, Gappa: The Triphibian Monsters is just boring. You've seen it all before, done much better. The Gappas are basically just Godzilla mashed together with Rodan. Their quest to rescue the baby is from Gorgo. The South Seas island cult built around a monster is from King Kong. The filmmakers behind Gappa: The Triphibian Monsters obviously didn't have any ambition beyond, "Hey, maybe if we rip off those monster movies that are so popular right now, we can make a few bucks." And it shows.

Note: the male (I think) Gappa carrying around that giant octopus for such a long time after making landfall in Japan really annoyed me.

Flangepart · July 21, 2014, 08:11:05 AM

I loved riffing this puppy.
Some films are a challenge, this just keeps on giving.

FatFreddysCat · July 21, 2014, 09:18:44 AM

I love this movie!! It's soooo bad it's good. It's prob my fave kaiju. It was produced by a rival studio trying to jump on the Godzilla bandwagon, which I guess makes it the 60s Japanese equivalent of an Asylum movie. Haha.

dean · July 21, 2014, 09:23:12 AM

Yeah this was always a favourite of mine purely because it was so terrible. The props, so bad...

Flangepart · July 21, 2014, 12:38:39 PM

Quote from: dean on July 21, 2014, 09:23:12 AM
Yeah this was always a favourite of mine purely because it was so terrible. The props, so bad...

And don't forget, it has a Kenny! The kid from Peanut shaped island.

Rev. Powell · July 21, 2014, 05:08:34 PM

I'm with akiraturbo on this one. I find it pretty boring and unimaginative, bad-bad as opposed to good-bad. To each their own, though.

WingedSerpent · July 24, 2014, 09:09:12 PM

I think I actually own three copies of this movie. Not because I like it, but at some point the licensing rights must have been about a quarter. So its included in a few compilation DVD's I own.

The movie itself is nothing really special. Although, I guess at one point a crossover with Guilia from X was planned.

FatFreddysCat · July 25, 2014, 09:08:37 AM

Quote from: WingedSerpent on July 24, 2014, 09:09:12 PM
I think I actually own three copies of this movie. Not because I like it, but at some point the licensing rights must have been about a quarter. So its included in a few compilation DVD's I own.

The American version ("Monster From a Prehistoric Planet") is in the public domain now, hence its appearance on virtually every "Horror Classic" multi-movie DVD pack in existence. :D