Godzilla vs. Hedorah

After the dreadful "All Monsters Attack," things could only go uphill again for Godzilla, and "Godzilla vs Hedorah" is indeed a clear improvement. There's certainly something like a halfway coherent plot again, for a change. The story's environmental theme also serves as the foundation for an appropriate ecological message. And the kiddie focus of its predecessors has also been scaled back somewhat; the movie is correspondingly much more serious in terms of its subject. However, "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" is still not a complete success. The monster action bored me too much for that. Hedorah is also not necessarily my favorite antagonist in the series. Still, it was enough for a somewhat entertaining movie.

As I continue to slowly wade through all of the Godzilla movies, it's getting harder to distinguish memories of one from the other. This is not the case with "Godzilla Vs. Hedorah", however. This movie features Hedorah, a monster who actually sucks smog from smokestacks, seeps and pukes pollution on anything and everything, and manages to morph from slow-moving slug to odd flying creature. Oh, and this is the movie that features Godzilla flying by using his atomic breath as a thruster. The people that made this movie were likely drug-addled at the time. There are many inexplicable moments like animated scenes that pop into the movie out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. There is a scene where everyone at a party suddenly appears to have fish heads. Hedorah flies over people which melts their heads into a blue goo. There's a psychic little boy a score featuring hippies playing awful '60s music and an anvil-heavy environmental message. I tried my best to relay just how strange this is but you really have to see it to appreciate its B-movie badness.