Gappa, the Triphibian Monster (1967)

Very Cool!!!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is the sort of film that evokes violent feelings. Once the parents have found their kidnapped baby, and there's a lot of hugging and kissing and sickening sentimentality, you long to see the family of reptilian birds doused with thousands of gallons of napalm, which is then ignited.As the creatures are consumed, we hear their screams of terror -- and then the silence that signifies death. When the fire ends, nothing is left but a pile of blackened bones -- not even Buffalo wings.An Important Scientist arrives and announces an expedition to the island these creatures came from. "It is obvious they serve no purpose, and all must be destroyed!"A loader truck arrives and shoves the remains into the bay. The humans quickly forget the creatures and any "lessons" about familial love they might have learned.

I do not know why this got a 3.9. It is a 7. It is just very underrated. I think there are to many sciences fiction that underrated and this is one of them. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is very scary. It is scarier then The silence of lambs could ever be. This is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do. This is scarier the Friday the 13th V a new beginning and that is not easy to do. This is scarier the Halloween resurrection could ever be. If you like monster movies then you should see this movie.

I've seen a lot of Japanese giant monster movies and most of them are terrible. Daikyojû Gappa, or Monster from a Prehistoric Planet as it was translated into English, is no exception. The monsters are flying sea creatures (yeah, it makes a lot of sense) that are clearly men dressed in cheap suits and plastic masks, fly faster than airplanes, breath fire and are pretty upset because people stole their baby, with which they can communicate electromagnetically.There is a bit of fun to be had when you see these people moving around the set and destroying plaster cities, but the enjoyment is limited. The English voice over is a bit funnier, but also not much. A total bore overall.

Okay, first of all, the "Prehistoric planet" of the English title is Earth. "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" is, in fact, yet another Tokyo rampage style big monster film with lots of buildings being crushed, planes shooting rockets, and hysterical Japanese people running around aimlessly for hours on end. It's also, in my humble opinion, not only a lot of fun but good in it's own way, despite the fact that it definitely fits the MST3K style interest.Really, the movie is about familial piety in traditional Japanese society. The nervous explorers take the child Gappa away from the pious traditional family, and as a result they send Tokyo into flames. Their boss, who is shown refusing his daughter the opportunity to have a mother, never learns his mistake because he's blinded by greed. The woman explorer sums up the movie by stating, "I should be like other women and stay at home." Yes, it's sexist, ridiculous, and absolutely bizarre. But considering it holds on to those values while glorying in the imagery of men in rubber suits crushing models of cities, it seems more like the camp of this movie is a result of it coming from a perspective that has changed in society, both East and West. At any rate, it's not really that much worse than Godzilla.On the other hand, yes, mostly the reason why I like this movie is because I couldn't stop laughing during its entire play-length. Some of the most absurd situations are shown in this movie, one of the most bizarre being the, "This sound is hurtful to HUMAN ears..." dialog. A little girl running around a corner saying, "Wow, it's really big!" A comedic relief foolish person who constantly trips over everything. A "cannibal" parade on what is so obviously a sound-stage. The fact that the heroes decide that when rockets don't work, they should try again, this time with, you guessed it, rockets. It's all very laughable, but charming in its b-movie way.At any rate, I enjoy it.--PolarisDiB