Skreeonk! A Godzilla Movie Marathon

Tonight, Godzilla dies! Steve Mowry of Comic Book Bears ⁠ and Bear Cave of Terror ⁠ joins us for the grand finale of the Heisei continuity, where Burning Godzilla's nuclear heart disease threatens the planet as much as a devil crab born from the Oxygen Destroyer. We get into this film's big publicity stunt, its ties and callbacks to the original film, and an emotional farewell to the big G...

What would you do if a rogue star was about to collide with Earth? Oh, and also there's a giant walrus for some reason! We're tackling Ishirō Honda's lesser-seen high concept sci-fi film about the far future of 1980 and a kind world overcoming borders and politics to literally move the planet. But can a disaster movie work without any interpersonal or human conflict? We talk about the...

The OG Robot Dinosaur makes its entrance! Author Daniel Dockery joins us for the first appearance of Mechagodzilla in an unexpected ode to Okinawa with ape aliens, a fake Godzilla, and two doggy best friends. We get into the political context around Okinawa Island that made its setting, culture, and legends so central to this film, why we love King Caesar despite him being ineffectual, and Anguiru...

We're filling in the movie we missed with a diamond-stealing space jellyfish! We venture back to the 60s for one of Honda's sci-fi flicks, couched between better-remembered movies with Mothra and Ghidorah, and plagued with limitations on its otherwise inventive special effects. We talk about how this movie went from from global alien invasion epic to gangster/diamond heist romp, Robert Dun...

It's the groundbreaking Godzilla film that won the Oscar and made us all cry! We're joined by film critics Alonso Duralde and Dave White of Linoleum Knife for Takashi Yamazaki's dour but hopeful post-WWII period piece, which retells the original Godzilla story through the lens of PTSD, survival, found family, and community. From an all-star cast, to the cat-like Godzilla, to critics&#3...

Punch! Punch! Punch! Writer Craig J. Clark joins us for a tag-team battle: Superhero Godzilla and his new robot friend Jet Jaguar vs. goofy buds Gigan and Megalon (who is not a guy). We talk about Jet Jaguar's origins in a children's art contest, the shadow of popular toku heroes like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, and how MST3K, John Belushi, and the Democratic National Convention helped make...

It's a tag-team battle with Godzilla and his dog vs. Ghidorah and his knife alien chicken sidekick! Cartoonist Walter Trush joins us for this comic book-themed espionage romp, where a manga artist and his karate champion girlfriend join a team of goofballs who get wrapped up in an alien conspiracy to build an EVIL amusement park (with a Godzilla Tower)! We talk about the Sentai team of human c...

As disastrous as the 1998 American Godzilla film may have been, one unequivocally good thing came out of it: Godzilla: The Series, a dark Fox Kids sci-fi show that reinvented and rearranged elements of its predecessor into something much smarter and cooler. With a premise that essentially remakes the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla cartoon, this show features high-concept stories, psychic ancient undersea...

Are you team atomic lizard or team big monkey? Chels from The Q Division ⁠⁠⁠ meets us in Hollow Earth for the big dumb drag wrestling match (complimentary) and all its synthwave bisexual lighting glory! We talk about Kong as a protagonist in the Monsterverse, COVID lockdown's effect on this movie, the weird amount of writers for such a simple plot and concept, how this led Rebecca Hall to make...

Kong ain't no fortunate son, no! The big ape's introduction to the Monsterverse is a period piece pastiche of 70s Vietnam War-era concepts -- from Apocalypse Now to the predictable needle drops -- resulting in an action-packed adventure movie full of A-listers you've seen in Marvel movies. We talk about the perils of having so, so many characters, stranded bearded John C. Reilly being...

We've reached the end of the divisive anime trilogy with the even more divisive and maddening final entry -- a pure cosmic horror film where an extradimensional noncorporeal Ghidorah slaughters nearly everyone and gives Godzilla an hour-long hug. We talk about the Lovecraftian inspiration, this trilogy's horrendous treatment of women, the equally horrendous treatment of its human hero and...

Mechagodzilla is a city?! The second installment of the divisive anime trilogy is another dour one, but it's bolstered by unique takes on classic Godzilla lore -- from telepathic indigenous worshipers of Mothra (who is not in this movie) to the nanotech Mechagodzilla that threatens to take over the planet. But among this hard sci-fi nature vs. technology conversation is still the same pacing probl...

Board your space station full of despair and venture to the only animated Godzilla films with the Netflix anime trilogy! This first installment features a tree-inspired Godzilla hunted by revenge-seeking humans and aliens on a desolate Earth 20,000 years into the future... and it's about as cheery as it sounds. We talk about this trilogy's reputation and the deliberate attempts to swerve away from...

A smog monster that goes from tadpole to spaceship! Flying breath-powered Godzilla! People melting into skeletons! Artist Andy Vanderbilt joins us for one of our most hotly anticipated episodes -- a movie that tackled the existential threat of pollution and became one of the weirdest and most gruesome Godzilla films. We talk about why this beloved and divisive movie was the only feature film Yoshi...

Mother Mothra swoops into this sequel to 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla that is also, shockingly, a sequel to our queen's 1961 debut! We talk about the swerve into fantasy and reverence for the original Mothra film -- including bringing back Hottest Man Alive Hiroshi Koizumi to reprise his role -- while tackling the "built a robot out of Godzilla bones" moral questions the...

Oh no, your plans for a remote beach resort have been derailed by a microbiotic space alien that possesses people and makes sea creatures grow real big! Chris Cummins (Archie Comics, Sci-Fi Explosion ) joins us for no one's favorite kaiju film -- but a fun one with loveable cuttlefish, crab, and turtle kaiju nevertheless, and a very important one to the history of Godzilla. We talk about the f...

This one's for the softies! Russ from Kaiju ComicCast joins us to learn all about Godzilla's feelings as he faces his own drag persona -- the crystal girlie Godzilla clone from space! We get into the penultimate Heisei film's focus on psychic hero Miki sporting a snazzy new cut and killer fits, the heavy bent toward romance, a new cute-enhanced Little Godzilla, and why this movie is un...

Multicolored spacemen invade Earth, and they want land and ladies! Josh from the Biorante toksatsu subtitle database joins us for Ishirō Honda's first epic space movie, with an all-star cast and loads of effects innovations! We talk about this film's parallels to Japan's entrance into the United Nations, how it tackles fighting aliens without using nuclear weapons, and of course, the g...

It's time for Minilla to teach us about bullying! Vicki from Glitterjaw's Novel Gaming joins us for this children's fantasy about a latchkey kid getting into Home Alone shenanigans and learning to stand up for himself thanks to his imaginary adventures on Monster Island. As Godzilla swerves hard into low-budget children's fare, we talk about this film's unfairly maligned reputa...

Long live the king! The Monsterverse swerves into this fanservice romp about mother nature vs. a climate change space dragon, all spawned from the messiest divorce of all time. We talk about the first ever Hollywood interpretations of Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah (and Kevin), this film's bend toward the biblical and mythological, the ensemble cast of all-stars, and the many references that may...

The monster party's raging! Eleven kaiju unite in this crossover event and intended finale for Godzilla's universe...but more importantly, ANGUIRUS IS BACK, BABY! Streamer and voice actor Lauren Goodnight joins us to talk all those monsters, dubs, and metal slug aliens disguised as eerie women in sequins who make us question our sexualities. We get into the restraints that affected each mo...

Shed that rusted armor of patriotism! We're talking about the masterful sci-fi war film that includes an undersea empire full of bright wigs, a cat-eyed sea dragon named Manda, and a flying submarine. Like the Gotengo's drill, we dig into this highly political movie that tackles both rampant nationalism and the real-life legend of Mu, and includes some of the most captivating and haunting...

We've gone back to the 50s for the unbelievable flying squirrel himself, Varan -- and he deserves better than this movie! Corporate shenanigans and bad luck made a cheap made-for-TV serial movie become retrofitted for a theatrical release, resulting in a boring imitation of better kaiju films. The Good: Varan's costume made from peanut shells and vinyl hoses, and his many cute moments of h...

This one's for the sad girlies! The Millennium era's Frankenstein-like reinvention of Mechagodzilla brings us the long-awaited BONES GODZILLA, as the original creature's corpse is resurrected as a cyborg known as Kiryu who cries blood and shoots an ice bubble. We get into whether this robot dinosaur is a haunted tragic figure or a redemptive heroic one, and the many conflicting themes of loss, sel...

The Frankenstein Brothers are ready to rumble! In this sorta-kinda sequel to Frankenstein vs. Baragon and the final Japanese/American collab with UPA, gargantuan bros Sanda and Gaira -- one friendly and peace-loving, one violent and hungry -- have a battle to the death, but not before extensive sequences of military fights, people-eating, and a big musical number. We get into this film's underlyin...