The only HOTD I’m interested in this summer is Ebirah, Horror of the Deep! That wasn’t always the title to the seventh film in the Godzilla franchise, which is known in Japan as “Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas.” But you might know it better as “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster,” the American version of the movie from 1968. It’s that release that eventually became an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the only time Big Green got the MST3K treatment. Which makes sense, Godzilla fighting a giant lobster doesn’t sound as interesting as a three-headed dragon or a very large moth. But does this HOTD warrant a second look? Or is it just see-food?
Well, if I can keep focusing on titles a little longer, one thing you should probably know about Ebirah, Horror of the Deep is that it was originally going to be called Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah. That’s right, this was originally a Kong movie! Toho apparently decided Godzilla was a more bankable star sometime in the process, but there’s lots of vestigial Kong in HOTD. For instance, Godzilla is awoken by a lightning strike, which makes more sense for Toho’s Kong, who is lightning-powered (because King Kong vs. Godzilla was originally supposed to be about a giant Frankenstein). Also this Godzilla appears to be at least somewhat attracted to human ladies, which is like Kong’s main thing and other than this one instance, I feel like Godzilla believes if she breathes, she’s a thot. For the continuity nerds out there, Godzilla even fights Mothra at the end, even though they already squashed beef in a previous movie and are supposed to be bros at this point. So yeah, that’s awkward.
The other thing you need to understand is that when this was made, James Bond movies were really starting to pop off. This came out in Japan between Thunderball and You Only Live Twice and fits extremely well in that aesthetic… but with giant monsters added in and spies removed. The music is very 007-y and most of the action takes place on a secret island base belonging to an organization that might as well be SPECTRE. That said, and this if fairly unique among both Bond and Godzilla movies, HOTD follows a group of regular people without any super scientists or well-meaning government officials or beleaguered reporters. Most notably among them is Yoshimura (Akira Takarada), a professional safecracker and the closest to James Bond on the team because of his ability to use a gadget he made to pick any lock (and there are a lot of locks they run into). Takarada has actually been in the star of all three Godzilla movies I picked for Criterion Month which was not intentional on my part and now I’m sad these are the only Showa era Godzilla movies he did.
Anyway, it actually takes a little bit for us to meet Yoshimura. HOTD starts with a young man, Ryota (Toru Watanabe) and his mother consulting a psychic after Ryota’s brother, Yata, is lost at sea. The psychic tells them Yata survived, so Ryota goes to the police and the press to try to get help searching for his brother. When he’s turned down by both, Ryota decides to take things into his own hands and goes to the most obvious next stop: an endurance dance marathon where the grand prize is a luxury yacht. Convenient! Ryota arrives too late to enter the contest but befriends two of the contestants, Ichino (Chotaro Togin) and Nita (Hideo Sunazuka), who decide to take him to the docks to see the boats there. I’m not sure what their thinking was, maybe something was lost in translation. At the marina, the trio climb aboard one of the yachts and are startled by Yoshimura, who pretends to be the owner and tells them they can stay the night but need to leave first thing in the morning. Yoshimura, Ichino, and and Nita awaken the next morning and discover they’re in the middle of the open ocean, Ryota having commandeered the yacht while they slept. Yoshimura reveals he doesn’t actually know how to sail, so everyone is forced to go along on Ryota’s quest.
Some time later, a terrible typhoon hits the yacht and a huge claw emerges and splits the boat in two. The four men awaken on a beach, relieved to be alive but concerned that they’re on a deserted island. They soon find out it’s very much the opposite: a military-looking ship arrives carrying soldiers and prisoners abducted from Mothra’s Infant Island. While the guards are distracted, one of the prisoners, Daiyo (Kumi Mizuno), escapes and teams up with the castaways. She explains that this island is the headquarters of the terrorist organization The Red Bamboo, who use slave labor to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. Daiyo and the rest of her people are praying for Mothra to awaken and save them, since there’s no escaping the island while Ebirah, the giant monster that destroyed Yoshimura’s yacht, continues to patrol the waters around the island. As the castaways hide from the terrorists, they end up in a cave and find, to their great surprise, a slumbering Godzilla.
You can guess where it goes from there. This is the first Godzilla film directed by Jun Fukuda, taking the reigns from Ishirō Honda, who had made the first six Godzillas in just 11 years which still seems crazy to me. Fukuda brings a fun, light tone to the series which fits the very low-budget feel of this particular entry. The Godzilla suit in HOTD is rough, more of a silly big rubbery goof than the terrifying monster he started out as in the fifties. Seeing Godzilla get in the water and throw down with Ebirah is pretty good though, especially the very Kong-esque way Godzilla disrespects Ebirah after beating him. Mothra’s barely in this, which is fine. But that’s going to be most people’s problem with this movie — there’s just not a lot of kaiju content in it. It’s one of the better human stories we’ve gotten from the series, but was it worth the price? Probably not.