I have never really been that fond of Kaiju type monster movies, they never seem to be as exciting as the premise suggests it would be. Still, learning that a newly restored in 4K version of cult 1961 British monster movie; Gorgo (directed by Eugéne Lourié - The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms) was coming to the ARROW streaming subscription service, I jumped at the chance to see it, if only to see a giant monster destroying a city I was more familiar with.
A salvage ship that is resting off the coast of a small Irish island after taking damage from an undersea eruption discovers that the eruption also released an ancient and gigantic prehistoric creature. They offer to capture the beast in exchange for payment and actually manage to do that surprisingly easy. Ignoring the Irish government's request to give the creature to them, they instead decide to sell it to a circus owner who is based in London. With the monster (named Gorgo) contained in an enclosure there, it seems the excitement is mainly over. Despite the creatures large size however, it becomes apparent that it was just a baby, and that its much larger, much stronger, and much more angry parent is on the warpath to London to retrieve its offspring...
Perhaps if the film was a little newer I might have skipped the mid-film reveal of a second larger monster for fear of spoilers. Personally, I am glad there was a second creature. The original 'Gorgo' is still huge, around the size of a house, and the adventure to get it to London made for an entertaining first half, though I was a bit disappointed it wasn't as big as I had expected it to be. That side of things was only part of the overall monster puzzle, with the final half hour of this 90 minute movie dedicated to its much larger parent rampaging through the middle of London. It destroys everything you might expect it to, from Tower Bridge, to Big Ben and Piccadilly Circus, it effortlessly rips all these places apart as if they were made of paper. I was also impressed that it managed to destroy the London Underground. For a film from 1961 the special effects for all this destruction was impressive, in fact, at the time of release it was considered for an Academy Award for special effects. It is a person in a rubber suit rampaging around but the beast looks decent, even if it is obviously a knock-off Godzilla.
With a new restoration, many of the early scenes taking place out of sea don't look the most realistic, with foreground characters obviously not actually at these locations, and this is an entirely bloodless affair with neither the many human victims, or the beast itself showing any sign of damage from the multitude of sorrows thrown at them.
The story was as generic and as basic as you might expect, but it was full of exciting moments. You get battles between Gorgo and the navy, the army, and the air force that were full of explosions and destruction, even if sometimes it seems the exact same shot was being repeated multiple times. The protagonists are the original haulage boat owners and they somehow remain integral to the story throughout, never once showing any type of remorse for their selfish actions, nor ever seeing the monster as anything other than something evil that needs to be killed. The heart of the film comes from the young Sean (Vincent Winter), a stowaway from the Irish island who appears to be the only one to see the creature as an innocent being that should just be left alone.
Due to the age of the movie, this does feel it follows the format of the time. Despite many scenes of action, this still felt like it was longer than it needed to be. By the time the hour mark came around it had already felt like this should have ended. You can't fault many of the special effects, and the sound design for the monsters was just perfect, its shriek being an audio highlight. Gorgo arrived on the ARROW streaming service on September 12th.
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