Terror filled Mondays!

Okay so Thanksgiving is almost upon us and it wouldn’t be a holiday week without the offering up of a Monday turkey.

Mr. Tako, head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is frustrated with the television shows his company is sponsoring and wants something to boost his ratings. When a doctor tells Tako about a giant monster he discovered on the small Faro Island, Tako believes that it would be a brilliant idea “...with a punch” to use the monster to gain publicity. Tako immediately sends two men, Sakurai and Kinsaburo, to find and bring back the monster from Faro.

Thing is, most of these movies are watchable and fun in one manner or another although, they are definitely turkeys. I was hard-pressed to come up with a movie this week, mainly because of a jam packed weekend but, one flick kept nagging at me...

I think the main reason this particular movie was jumping about the synapses is because of a memory of passing time over at my Uncle and Aunt’s one holiday watching about a half hour of the movie. It seemed for a few years there, the movie would be broadcast on the Thanksgiving holiday (although for the life of me I can’t understand the symbolism therein).

Meanwhile, the American submarine Seahawk gets caught in an iceberg. Unfortunately, this is the same iceberg that Godzilla was trapped in by the JSDF seven years earlier in 1955 in the movie Godzilla Raids Again. As an American rescue helicopter circles the iceberg, Godzilla breaks out and heads towards a nearby Japanese Arctic base. The base, of course, is ineffective against Godzilla. Godzilla’s appearance is all over the press and makes Tako angry. As Tako is complaining about Godzilla's media hype to his employees, one of them exclaims “And... there's a movie too!”

Up to now, the movies I’ve focused on have been firmly entrenched in the 50’s but, the fun of Terror Filled Mondays is that I’m free to range anywhere in cinema history up to the early eighties (my own restrictions). So without much more of a buildup, this week’s entry is a marriage between the cinema of two countries. A union of two famous franchises coming together for the kind of battle basement dwelling geeks and kids love dearly. It’s one of those what if kind of movies... one of those whose stronger or who would win in a fight kind of movies. The biggest plus is that it works and winds up being fairly entertaining:

Back at Pacific Pharmaceuticals, Tako is excited because Kong is now all over the press instead of Godzilla. As Tako is out of the room, one of the employees ask which is stronger between King Kong and Godzilla. Another employee responds “Stupid, it’s not a wrestling match!” Tako walks back in the room and exclaims “I’ll buy that idea!”