Directed by Kenneth Hartford (with uncredited co-direction from producer and writer Herbert L. Strock, who also directed The Crawling Hand, Gog, and so many more), this was filmed as Monster before also being known as Monstroid: It Came from the Lake and The Toxic Horror. 

Years ago, a woman in Colombia watched as a monster ate her husband. Now, Durado Cement has sent troubleshooter Bill Travis (James Mitchum, who we can debate is better or worse than his brother Chris) to their plant because anti-corporate people like Victor Sanchez (Aldo Sambrell) have been using fear of the monster to get workers to quit. After all, the lake and the fish have been poisoned. 

How do you solve a problem like Maria? I ask that because the villagers think she’s a witch. And oh yeah, there’s also a pesky reporter, Patty (Connie Moore), snooping around. Somewhere in all this drama, plant boss Pete Anderson (Anthony Eisley, I should have known) ignores his kids and their warning that there’s a monster in the water, which leads to his secretary Laura (Coral Kassel) getting eaten, just in time for him to make time with another woman, Juanita (Maria Rubio). I mean, Laura was even skinny dipping, at which point he just ghosted her before she got snuck on.

Glen and Andrea, Pete’s children, get photos of the monster, just as the villagers decide to burn Maria. Yes, she somehow survives being burned at the stake, just in time for Travis to fill a goat’s dead body with explosives and blow up this plesiosaur real good. And then the Andersons are having a picnic when their dog finds an egg that hatches, unleashing a new monster. 

Production began in 1971, but personnel, logistical, and financial problems — Keenan Wynn’s name was even on some press pieces, even though he had long ago dropped out — led to its shutdown. It was finally completed and released in 1979. And man, I nearly forgot that John Carradine shows up as a priest! There are so many people, so many unnecessary plot points and yet, I have a soft spot for this.

This is also based on a true story. Sure.

Check out what Bill Van Ryn had to say about this movie.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

The first film produced by Roger Corman, directed by Wyott Ordung and written by Bill Danch, making it a notable entry in cult cinema history. It was like remade as Sharktopus. Corman is all about being green.

Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell), an American artist on vacation in Mexico, meets marine biologist Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade), who dismisses the sea monster until she provides a tissue sample from an oceanic amoeba, prompting him to attack it in his submarine. 

In fact, that sub was a real one and used for free. That’s why the credit Submarine built by Aerojet General shows up.

There’s a moment in this where the scientists talk about pterodactylus, and Steve says he found an actual egg at one point. This is glossed over, and you may react as I did: Why are we here looking for an amoeba when there are actual dinosaurs alive and in the world?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Immortal Species is an OK title.

Jurassic Croc sells.

Nava is a botany student looking for a plant called a chalawan. He and his friends travel through the jungle to find it and you guessed it, most of them get masitcated by a man-eating crocodile.

Look at this IMDB trivia and marvel that someone wastes as much time as I do on movies like this: “The plant they are looking for in the film is called “Chalawan”. Well, Chalawan is an extinct genus of folidosaurid mesoeucrocodilid folidosaurid known from the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous Phu Kradung Formation of Nong Bua Lamphu province, northeastern Thailand. It contains a single species, Chalawan thailandicus, with Chalawan shartegensis as a possible second species.”

This movie could use less high school romance and more people eating. I think that’s true for almost every film I have ever watched.

You can watch this on Tubi.

In 2009, the G8 Summit came to Pittsburgh, and the ad agency I worked at sent all of us white-water rafting. This is something I never wanted to do, and I don’t want to do it again. Numerous times, I was launched from the boat and at one point, I got stuck in rocks and couldn’t get above the water’s surface, so I just folded my arms on my chest vampire style and made my peace with death. The fact that I am writing this — unless this is an Ambrose Bierce moment — should tell you I survived. 

Anyway, this is a movie about the G8 Summit and a kaiju.

Made from footage from The X from Outer Space, this kicks off with a meteorite smashing its way into Sapporo and the kaiju Guilala being reborn. After decimating the city, Guilala transforms into a giant ball of fire and flies to the G8 Summit, just as the Prime Minister of Japan proposes cancelling the summit for the safety of all involved. Of course, the President of the United States convinces the other world leaders to stay and fight. Turns out it wasn’t a meteor but a Chinese satellite that fell out of orbit, carrying a cosmic spore that was exposed to Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to grow into the monster. I mean, what’s next, a zombie outbreak?

Turns out it wasn’t a meteor but a Chinese satellite that fell out of orbit, carrying a cosmic spore that was exposed to Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to grow into the monster. I mean, what’s next, a zombie outbreak?

The only way to stop this monster? Awakening Take-Majin, its ancient enemy, a kaiju that can catch nukes inside its butthole. I did not make that up. And it has the voice of Beat Takeshi!

Five young university students — Takashi Iijima, his girlfriend, Machiko Takeno, her older brother, Kiyoshi Takeno, and their friends, Nakada and Kaji — went to the Japanese Alps for a skiing vacation. Kiyoshi and Kaji go to meet their friend Gen, but in the middle of a blizzard, they’re lost, and a phone call only reports screams and a gunshot. And just who is the mysterious mountain girl Chika?

All they can find are large piles of fur, Gen’s body inside, Kaji’s in the snow and Kiyoshi has disappeared. Six months later, when the snow has melted, Takashi and Machiko join an expedition led by anthropologist Professor Shigeki Koizumi. The goal? Find a giant monkey man. They’re not alone, as a hunter named Oba wants the creature and nearly kills Takashi, who is rescued by Chika.

Poor Chika. She’s abused by her grandfather, who leads the village, a man who beats her for every mistake. By the end of the movie, the monster drags her into a sulphur pit as it dies. Chika didn’t ask for any of this.

This film was decided upon before Godzilla was released, with Ishiro Honda to direct. It was inspired by Eric Shipton’s photographs of large footprints found in the snow at Mount Everest. This film, however, has been seen more in the U.S. than in Japan. 

That’s because the villagers are similar to burakumin, who are outcasts at the bottom of the traditional Japanese social hierarchy. Their ancestors worked in jobs considered impure or tainted by death, such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers or tanners. They’re even called by that name in the film. As a result of new civil rights in Japan protecting these castes, Toho has imposed a self-imposed ban on its own version of the film. The U.S. version of Half Human remains the only version available on home video worldwide.

As for the American version, remixed by Distributors Corporation of America, it features English-language scenes and narration. The scene where the child snowman is experimented on is replaced with footage of American scientists, including John Carradine (who also narrates), Robert Karnes, Russell Thorson, and Morris Ankrum. The new scene features the child snowman’s costume, which was sent by Toho to the U.S. for filming. The added U.S. sequences were directed by Kenneth G. Crane. This played double features with Monster from Green Hell (Zombo’s Closet has the pressbook).

You can download the Japanese version from the Internet Archive. There’s also a colorized version of the U.S. cut available on the site.

At once a sequel to Giantess Attack vs. Mecha Fembot and a remix of the original film, this movie proved to me I’d watch anything. And I liked it, as Mark Polonia keeps showing up as a hapless military man.

Here’s how Full Moon is selling this: “Hungry for more huge honey smackdowns? Of course you are! Get ready for Full Moon’s latest lunatic release, a prequel to the just as jaw-dropping GIANTESS ATTACK VS. MECHA FEMBOT! If big boobs, butts and beastly broads are your thing, don’t miss this massive hit!”

Deidre (Tasha Tacosa) and Frida (Rachel Riley) have just been cancelled — their show was Battle Babe and Combat Queen — but soon become giant women thanks to twin space fairies called the Metalunans (Christine Nguyen). Gen. Smedley Pittsburgh (Jed Rowen) tries to stop them, which ends up with, well, Deidre basically urinating on him, which gets watersports mixed in with maxcromastia, like some masturbatory chocolate and peanut butter.

They also shove the general into their, well, you know, parts.

There’s something for everyone.

Look, it’s 51 minutes long. You can do worse.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Jeff Leroy, this follows the 2017 film Giantess Attack. 

Diedre (Tasha Tacosa) and Frida (Rachel Riley) have split up, as Deidre claims she will never use her giant powers again. Yet when Frida learns that Metaluna (Christine Nguyen) has made Doctor Drew (John Karyus) create Mecha Fembot (Vlada Fox) to destroy our world, she has to do the battle by herself. At least it has a nod to the sunglasses fight in They Live. Otherwise…how can a movie about giant women fighting be boring? This movie figured it out.

This has some of the worst miniature and standard-sized people integrated with giant people moments you will ever see, but you know, if you’re a macrophiliac — someone sexually into giant people — good news! This is for you. And if you like feet, well, even better.

That said, as bad as this is, it’s strangely charming. It knows what it is and mires itself in that know-how.

You can watch this on Tubi.

One of the three major yokai of Japan, the kappa is a water monster that looks like a frog wth a turtle shell. While they were once said to be killing machines that loved to drown people and cattle. Sometimes, they would remove a mythical organ called the shirikodama from their victims’ buttholes. But now, we see them as mischievous monsters that perform acts of kindness when captured, like revealing a secret medicine.

Directed by Tomoo Haraguchi and written by Masakazu Migita, this film follows Kanako returning home after failing as an idol singer. Just as she arrives, her grandmother Fujiko is run down by a VW Beetle that also smashes a kappa shrine. Her grandmother tells her to protect the kappa, just as the people in the car are taken by strange creatures. As for the kappa, he likes to dance to Kanako’s songs.

One night, those same creatures come to take the kappa, which is saved by Kanako, who is, in turn, kidnapped and presented to a mad scientist named Yuriko. Her creatures are called Umihiko, fish samurai who were supposed to save Japan during World War II, and she’s guided by her mummified grandfather, whom she loves. She wants to resurrect bushido and Japanese imperialism, starting with the girls who killed Fujiko, turning them into sharp-toothed fishwomen. As the kappa comes to save the day, Yuriko sets off a nuclear bomb that transforms all the fish people into a kaiju known as Hangyolas. The kappa kills the monster, but goes on a rampage that only Kanako can stop by singing to him and refilling the bowl on his head.

While this is silly in parts, as a kappa lover, I was beyond pleased.

You can watch this on Tubi.