There's a new Blu-ray of Godzilla 1984 out here in the US, it came out last Tuesday, and it's the first time that the Japanese version of the movie has been commercially available here. It was released in the US as Godzilla 1985 with some changes. The movie was released in Japan as Godzilla on December 15 1984. It's also been called The Return of Godzilla. I'm sticking with the Godzilla 1984 moniker. Over the years since it's release I've acquired a number of copies of the film from various sources. I made a DVDr copy of both the English dubbed New World VHS tape and Laserdisc so I could get rid of those formats. There's a DVDr copy of someone's Japanese Laserdisc, it looks nice, but it has no English dub or subtitles. I have a Video Dakaiju VHS bootleg tape that I copied to DVDr, again to get rid of the tape which had the Japanese version of the movie with fan subtitles. Someone gave me an English dubbed version of the Japanese movie but it looks pretty poor and there are Dutch subtitles through the whole thing. I've got a DVDr bootleg from the Japanese DVD that has fan subs. It looks the best of the bootlegs. It's amazing what the fans will do to get the films they want, huh.
The movie starts with a ship at sea, it gets attacked, and Godzilla pops out of an island. He's also dropping giant 6 foot long fleas that suck the fluids out of humans. All the ships crew get killed but one guy. The government tries to keep a wrap on the story but nosy reporter guy comes along. The movie ignores the decades of sequels to the original 1954 film as if they had not happened. So it's 30 years after the first Godzilla appearance and he's returned. Something destroys a Russian sub and they think it was the US. Sabers rattle and the Japanese release info about Godzilla to stop a war. Once the Russians and US find out it was Godzilla they demand to drop a bomb on the critter. They toss their demands in the Japanese Prime Minister's face. The PM says No nukes!
The Japanese Defense Force has tanks, missiles and the Super-X. It's a big fat VTOL spaceship looking craft that's got some super deadly cadmium missiles that knock Godzilla out. The Russians have a ship in Tokyo Bay that is damaged when Godzilla strolls by and the automatic launch control goes out of wack and launches a nuke. In the Godzilla 1985 version the nuke gets launched on purpose by the Russians. Luckily the US explodes it in upper atmosphere with a missile.
The radioactive fall out revives Godzilla and he beats the Super-X to the ground and pushes a building over on it. There's always plenty of work for the building trades after Godzilla comes knocking. The scientists figure out a way to lure Godzilla into a volcano and they blow it up with him inside.
Don't worry, he'll enjoy basking in that refreshing molten mass until next time. It's more like the early Godzilla films than the ones from the 1970's, somewhat more dark and much more deadly for the citizens unlucky enough to be out when Godzilla comes calling. It's a fun restart of the series and worth seeing.
I, Madman is a 1989 movie that was directed by Tibor Takacs. We had just watched his more recent movie Spiders. I, Madman is written by David Chaskin and while he didn't pen a masterpiece he did pen something more watchable than most of the low budget horror films that I've been seeing of late. I, Madman is a horror movie about a horror novel. That's the book from the movie on the still below. I'm guessing that they changed the book in the poster so there wouldn't be any near nude breasts on the poster.
Jenny Wright is a worker in a used bookstore. She's found a horror novel that she really got into, so much so that she starts hallucinating the killer from the book. I, Madman is by author Malcolm Brand. Jenny goes looking for any info on him. Brand's old published says he died years ago. Jenny's boyfriend Police Detective on a the trail of a killer who keeps slicing pieces off his victim's faces. Jenny tells the police that the killer is the Doctor from the book. You can imagine that didn't go down well. I always wonder why people don't lie when this sort of thing comes up. The police will always think you're crazy if you tell them it was a monster. There's plenty of murderin' and yellin' and runnin' about. I enjoyed it well enough and was glad to have seen it.
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