Mini Review
Day 1: Teenagers!
Teenagers Battle the Thing (1958)
Welcome to my third year of doing Junesploitation, with a massive thanks to FThisMovie for running the event and providing the prompts. This year I am kicking off proceedings with Teenagers Battle The Thing (1958) for the prompt ‘teenagers’. I found this prompt to be challenging to find a film for, however Tubi provides and had this one tucked away. The title alone was the element that drew me into the film, then upon some research I found out that this film was shown once and then forgotten about and the footage was found and reused with extra scenes shot for Curse Of Bigfoot (1975). The story behind the film is more intriguing than the film itself.
Teenagers Battle The Thing is a very low budget piece, with slow pacing that drags the film along and the third act is more entertaining but it ultimately falls flat. The film feels like a mockumentary with a group of high students setting out with Archaeologists to a site where they find a mummified creature. The creature isn’t shown much and when it is it does look decent enough but is more comedic. I give credit to the mockumentary approach, that aspect worked in its favour however there was not much substance beyond that.
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Mini Review
Day 2: Monsters!
Gamera vs. Barugon (1966)
Day 2’s prompt is ‘Monsters’ and after watching Gamera, The Giant Monster (1965) for The Tubi Tuesdays Podcast I knew I wanted to get back to that world and I chose Gamera vs. Barugon (1966) for the day. I haven’t seen much of the earlier Gamera films, I’ve noticed their tone is very different in the first few films and less goofy with a more serious tone. This film felt more serious than the previous one, with a strong focus on the destruction caused by Barugon, however cheesy moments are still there.
The plot is perhaps a little convoluted for a giant monster film, getting from point A to point B could have been far simpler instead there is too much human drama and in fact the humans fight more than the monsters seem to. Gamera is mostly absent from the first half of the film, as it starts off with a recap from the first film and shows Gamera returning to Earth. It is not until at least half way through the film where Gamera shows up again to fight Barugon, an ancient monster reawakened. The monsters battle and Gamera is taken out of action until the last 10 minutes. Their final battle is very well done, the general designs of the monsters, the special effects and costumes are great and visually looks wonderful.
There is a lack of monsters in a monster vs monster film, whilst this does feel a little odd there is enough going on to make the wait worth it. The human drama isn’t as interesting and the focus given to Barugon ensures they feel like a threat. A solid follow up to the original film, Gamera vs. Barugona is a more gritter one that generally delivers.
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Reviews written by Marcella Papandrea
Please check out FThisMovie.net, with many thanks to the crew for the concept of Junesploitation and some excellent prompts for 2023!
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