How weird was it when The Guyver just randomly showed up in my local video store, unannounced, bringing Japan weirdness into my 19-year-old movie rental obsession life?

When Dr. Tetsu Segawa steals the Guyver unit from the villainous company he’s been working for, his daughter’s boyfriend Sean accidentally finds it, puts it in his backpack and has it fuse with his body after he’s attacked by a street gang. That makes him a marked man by Fulton Balcus (David Gale) and his gang of Zoanoid mutants, which includes Lisker (Michael Berryman), M.C. Striker (Jimmie Walker) and Weber (Spice Williams-Crosby).

Directed by Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, this movie has some of the wildest effects I’ve ever seen, full body suits that still look great thirty years after I first watched this. I’m also still surprised that Mark Hamill is in this, while not as surprised that Jeffrey Combs and Linnea Quigley are in this.

Based loosely on the Yoshiki Takaya manga, this takes a lot of liberties with its inspiration, but for someone in the very landlocked small Western Pennsylvania town that I grew up in, finding this on the shelves of Prime Time Video was like some kind of magic, bringing something I thought I would never see to a place that I thought I would never get out of.

The Unearthed Films release of The Guyver is amazing, putting a movie into my collection that I thought I would never have. It has a 4K restoration of the original R-rated 35mm camera negative, along with the soundtrack on CD and a book. Extras include commentary with co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, moderated by Dom O’Brien, the author of Budget Biomorphs: The Making of The Guyver Films, interviews with Brian Yuzna and Screaming Mad George, suit tests, outtakes, a gag reel, a production and art gallery, an alternative title sequence and trailers. You can get it from MVD.