Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka the Smog Monster) Movie Review

In 1971 a film of horribly un-epic proportions was made and unfortunately is was part of the Godzilla series. In a series of films that lived up to certain expectations you would expect a level of “cheesiness”  due to men in giant rubber lizard suits destroying small miniature cities and Army men, but Godzilla vs Hedorah really put is out there as bad. I am a huge Godzilla fan, but even for me I couldn’t believe what I was watching and really wish the film hadn’t been made.

This film seemed to be trying to convey the hippie loving, peace flag waving, global warming way of life as an alien race came down to the planet and this monster of doom and gloom fed off of the earth’s pollution. So the movie was trying t portray an anti pollution message, not unlike the anti nuclear message which created Godzilla in the first place. Now I am not a fan of pollution, really I’m not…no seriously I’m not, I think global warming is a joke, but I’m not for pollution in general. Anyways, this was a true movie of the 70’s as it focused on movement of Greenpeace that aliens could come down to our planet and feed of the pollution we put into the air, ok maybe Greenpeace didn’t say anything about aliens, but they might have especially after seeing this film.

Just as a footnote to this, this movie must have been so bad that it was cursed as the actor who played Hedorah got appendicitis and had to be operated on while he was still in the suit…how epic is that, lol.

 Anyways, the movie is strange beyond compare with a mixture of  absolutely horrible music that sounds like bad cartoon music from the era of Hanna Barbera to scenes that look like something out of an acid trip. The dialogue seems like it was created by a class of first graders who just read the Dick & Jane series of books: See monster…see monster attack ship….see Godzilla attack was of monster. As well there are stupidly weird cartoons in it, what is the point behind that one, it just boggles my mind and doesn’t even fit into the movie. The one cartoon shows the monster drinking the oil from a ship…BP eat your heart out. Then the topper of it all is the trippy acid sequence with skulls and stuff flying around while some weird sexual revolution type chick is singing some weird song. Give me the singing Mothra twins any day of the week next to this weird chick. Now I know I said that was trippy, but once I saw the Hedorah monster huffing off of smoke stacks, holy crap Toho must have been doing lines of cocaine cut with ground up Morthra eggs to ever think this movie was a good idea.

As I sit here and continue to subject myself to this film I find weirder and weirder scenes….a dance party with everyone wearing fish head masks, holy crap, please Godzilla kill everyone, kill them all now. I mean its easy for him to do since they are holding a freakin bonfire in the middle of a field where the people can see both monsters fight, these people had to have been stoned. Oh and a word of advise, at the 1 hour 7 minute and 38 second mark Godzilla strikes an Ultra Man pose to protect himself against a laser beam…it doesn’t work all that well for him. That would be like me striking a pose while trying to stop someone from tasering me, I’m not gonna try it. Ok…I think I have seen it all now, Godzilla can fly, yes you read it right, Godzilla can fly, when has he ever flown before this movie or after….no wonder Toho hates to remember this film was ever created.

There are only 2 good things I can say about this movie when you boil it down. One, there is a scuba diving scene in it, and since I scuba dive I enjoy seeing stuff like that. And the second good thing about the film is it’s end…not how the ending was done, but just the fact that it ended. I haven’t wanted to hurt myself after a movie since I saw Santa conquerors the Martians, I pray both those movies go away forever. So in closing, nothing good is in this film and if you are a drug addict strung out on Acid or Extasy then you’ll love the film, as for the rest of the world…don’t watch it, unless you enjoy looking into the sun for fun, cause it sucks just as bad…although the sun might be better.

Be safe and don’t watch this movie, for the love of God don’t watch this movie,
Jon Bolton