The X from Outer Space (1967)

Puk! Puk! Puk! Puk! Super Chicken!

Before men landed on the moon in real life, people were headed to Mars in The X from Outer Space. The previous missions to Mars had ended in disaster when UFOs from Mars or Venus diverted or destroyed the Earth ships. AAB Gamma aka Astro Boat had strapping Capt. Sano at the helm which meant the aliens didn't know what they were in for or maybe being constantly distracted by two women, he didn't.

Capt. Sano, Lisa, Miyamoto, and Dr. Shioda begin their mission successfully until the apple pie shaped UFO appears and AAB Gamma barely makes it to the moon base intact. Michiko works at the moon base and is in love with Sano as is the buxom blonde bio scientist, Lisa. Shioda is suffering from space sickness and is replaced by a continually complaining Dr. Stein. Back into space the intrepid team goes but are stalled when strange luminescent pods become attached to the ship. Lisa and Sano collect a sample and dislodge the rest. Back at home the sample appears to have been stolen from the lab. The crew finds chicken-like prints leading to a hole in the floor. Before the team can have a nightcap, a giant monster appears crushing buildings and blowing things up. The chicken-like monster is named Guilala. They need a secret weapon to destroy it---Guilalanium! Guilalanium will prevent the monster from absorbing energy. But first the team has to return to the moon base, make more guilalanium, avoid the UFO and arrive back at the Astro Development Center before Guilala destroys Japan. No problem for this super crew if they can get everyone to stop lusting after Sano.

The miniatures and space craft were comparable to movies of this genre during the 1960's. The buildings were better than some of Godzilla's cardboard downtowns. Where the movie failed was the monster, it didn't hold up against Toho's guys in rubber suits productions. The acting was average but not the worst for a monster movie. Lisa and Michiko spent a lot of time mooning over Sano. The space jaunts eventually amounted to nothing, they never reached Mars nor made actual contact with the aliens. All they managed to do was bring back the lethal Guilala spore and set it loose. It took an hour before the monster showed up to relieve us of the lackluster love triangle and useless space trips.

This was not a classic Kaiju film though it does have a cult following. You could put it in the so bad it's fun category if you don't look too closely at it, especially the hilariously bad alien chicken. Although I'd take the super chicken over the tepid love triangle any day.

10/3/23

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As generic as generic kaiju movies can get

The X from outer space is your cliche kaiju flick trying to piggyback off of the success of Godzilla. Much like Invasion Of The Astro Monster, which was released around this time the story is about a group of Japanese astronauts going to explore an unvisited planet, in this film it's Mars, the group never actually makes it to the planet instead they get intercepted by a UFO and some asteroids that turn out to be the cause of the kaiju later on in the movie. They bring the debris back to Earth and contain it in a laboratory for examination. They leave it there overnight and when they return the rock is gone and there is a whole through the ground. skipping through a lot of filler that's how the kaiju is formed. The Kaiju itself looks like a bird with a saucer shaped head and bug eyes. It's name is Guilala, they don't even give an explanation on why they named it that, they just said they named it that. The destruction sequences itself aren't even that good for a kaiju film they're mostly there to draw out the length of the film. The army then has to use a foam like substance from space called Guilalalian to take out the monster but they have to go through yet another drawn out sequence of going back in space to get the stuff again. Once they bring it back they use fighter jets to spray it all over Guilala causing him to shrink back to a rock so they can bring it back to space where it will never harm anyone again. This movie is a snoozefest of a kaiju film and definetly not worth watching even for irony sake. The only reason you should watch this is if you are a kaiju megafan and want to watch every kaiju film there is out there or you want context for it's better and more funny parody/sequel. I do not recommend this movie.

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