User Reviews

"And this is a track of our new album" as if anyone cares. Just play the hits...

A truly awful pastiche of the previous 7 movies with an incoherent central narrative that relies on magic and fantasy to link the best bits from the previous 7.

From the cheap looking Star Wars ripoff opening, the use of still paintings to tell the story, to a cheap looking ultra stiff flying Gamera that never touched down because they didn't have a suit, to the magic cheerleading squad that can fly and sell Mazdas.

Of course an evil witch alien does literally nothing with a magic wrist watch and gets in a girl fight keeps things moving along as her incompetence at being evil precipitates a change of costume before her boss stops threatening to kill her.

It's not grounded enough to be interesting and not impressive enough to be exciting. It's both boring and stupid. Magic solves every everything and luck happens.

Everyone is trying really hard, maybe too hard to polish this rubbish into anything other than a clip show which is what it is, the footage from the previous adventures putting the boot into the new footage by being the most entertaining parts of the movie. If you stick with it there's a horrible ending and more rubbish SFX and music over the credits.

Gamera, what a movie........ My mom and my brother took me to watch this film when I was very young and it has never left my psyche since! For me, it was one of the best films I've ever seen. Not just with the mindset of a child from the 80's, but also because I believe that you gauge a good movie by assessing how much it affected you....... In my case, It started a whole new genre for me in being a great fan of Japanese movie making and writing. No matter how cheesy the script was back then, Gamera and the 3 hero chicks in that movie instilled in me a fascination that only a true blue child fan would absorb, a lifetime of fantasy! Thus, all I have to say is, lucky are you few to know of such a movie.......... You are not alone.

In a last attempt to cash in on the titanic turtle's waning popularity, Daiei Motion Picture Company produced this incoherent clip-show in which Keiichi, a young Gamera fan (played by Koichi Maeda), and three benevolent spacewomen thwart an attack on Earth that involves the appearance of Gamera's kaiju foes from the previous five films. Similar to "All Monsters Attack" (1969; aka "Godzilla's Revenge"), the kaiju action may all be in the kid's imagination, as no one other than he, the space women, and the invaders seem be aware of the events. Unlike the polarising Godzilla film, which some people have interpreted as an insightful commentary on 'latch-key kids' and Japanese society in the late 1960s, the Gamera film is just a compilation of fight scenes connected by a silly story. There are only a couple of minutes of new kaiju material, the rest is lifted from the earlier films. In addition, there are some incongruous insertions of anime from "Space Battleship Yamato" and "Galaxy Express 999", some animated spaceships in the prologue, and a 'Zanon' starship that is a shameless copy of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The spacewomen are led by the hulking (relatively speaking) Kilara (played by wrestler Mach Fumiake) and can shrink, so they live in a box the size of a cat carrier in the back of a van that can turn into a spaceship (or at least a flying fuzzy blob of orange light). They have to wave their arms and pirouette to change into their space-hero suits, but then can fly. They also seem to have the ability to spontaneously teleport themselves (and their cars) when necessary and Kilara has an organ in the back of her pet store that when played seems to open a window/door to other parts of the Universe. There is also an evil spacewoman with a 'radar watch' who can teleport herself at will, and who is constantly being rebuked by the disembodied voice of Zanon. All of this is sufficiently incoherent and juvenile to support the hypothesis that it is all in Keiichi's imagination. The Gamera films were always budget outings (which is apparent from the clips), but the scenes with the spacewomen are even cheaper looking. As a final insult, the jauntily infectious "Gamera March" has been replaced by a new theme song (gratingly played by Keiichi on the organ). I watched a reasonably well English-dubbed version in which everyone had an incongruous trace of English accent but I doubt that the original would be much better. This film marked the end of the downward slide of the Showa-era Gamera series. The towering tusked turtle would not return until 1995's superior "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe", a much darker and less puerile interpretation of the character. Of note: in one of the rare fragments of new material, Gamera kicks over a poster of rival kaiju-star Godzilla, who is in turn revenged in "Godzilla Final Wars" (2004) when a kid throws a toy turtle into a fire.

Gamera: Super Monster, the last of the Showa-era Gamera movies, largely comprises of clips from the previous films (although there is also footage from a couple of unrelated animated films as well), with new scenes to tie all the battles together: three super space women, defenders of Earth, befriend a small boy and do battle with an evil woman from the Pirate Spaceship Zanon, who sends several monsters (Gyaos, Ziger, Vira, Jiger, Guiron and Barugon) to wreak havoc on Earth. Of course, giant spinning turtle Gamera is always on hand to give them a jolly good thrashing.

If you've already seen all of the previous Gamera movies, then Super Monster will be a crushing bore, Gamera defeating one monster after another ad nauseum before sacrificing his life by smashing into the Zanon spaceship (which looks suspiciously like a Star Destroyer from Star Wars). The nonsense in between the battles sees the three good space women, Kilara, Mitan and Marsha, beaming from one place to another and transforming from human to superhero by performing a stupid series of arm gestures; meanwhile, kid Keiichi releases his pet turtle into a river, plays his Yamaha organ (whilst singing the Gamera March), and is pursued by the evil woman, who hopes that the lad will lead her to his three female friends.

Produced by a struggling Daiei Studios as a last ditch effort to make enough cash to stay afloat, the film is so sloppy in all departments that it proved to be the final nail in the coffin instead.

This is basically Godzilla: Final Wars combine with Godzilla's Revenge and I hated it. I mean if you think that you can just cash grab your audiences with lame stock footage, hell no! I thought of giving this movie a two-star rating because of the superheroes they had. But considering they were just useless and not doing much in the film expect for the playground fight. Yah, one-star rating sound right to me. Plus, they even made their own Star Wars ripoff vehicle. The story is stupid but the tradition of stupidity in Gamera movies is normal. If you haven't watch any previous Gamera movies, then this might be okay for you. But if you have, then this is total waste of money.

If you missed out on the other seven Gamera movies leading up to this 80s release, this is the perfect chance to see all of them at once. If you've seen "Godzilla's Revenge", then you have seen nothing yet. This movie is about 92% stock-footage, with absolutely no new monsters and sparse new effect shots. By the time of this movie's release the studio Daiei was at death's door and so I'm confused as to why they even bothered to puke this one out. It had nearly been a decade since "Gamera vs. Zigra" in 1971, and by then I think any rational businessman could assume the series was done for. The only reason I rate it at the very least two stars is because the writers actually had the mordacity to actually kill Gamera off by kamakazing himself into a Star Destroyer. That's right, a Star Destroyer from the Star Wars series. That's how you know the writers had clearly told themselves, "F8ck it."

Eighth and final Gamera film from Daiei studios in a last, desperate(and failed) attempt to stave off bankruptcy itself presents an artistically bankrupt story about (you guessed it) a mysterious alien battleship(just like from "Star Wars") that threatens the Earth, and proceeds to somehow resurrect all of Gamera's dead foes(via all flashback footage!) to throw at him, before it fulfills its suicide mission against it... Subplot with three alien women with super powers is utterly tacky and idiotic; conclusion a sad way to end this series, a truly jaw-dropping fiasco. Similar in premise to the nadir of the first Godzilla series "Godzilla's Revenge/All Monsters Attack".

Everyone has their own view of this movie, but unless you take into consideration the reason it was made and the target audience, you may find yourself giving it a lower review then it deserves.

Super Monster Gamera is MEANT to be a cheap, fun, lazy film. It's nothing more then a blending of the entire series sprinkled with a new plot to tie the battles together.

It's not meant to be taken seriously, it's not meant to deliver an important issue, and it's not meant to WOW the audience with late 80's special effects.

It's just a kid's film; no more, no less.

With that in mind, Super Monster Gamera is by far my fave of the original Gamera series. Six monster battles, a catchy opening theme song, great music and very.. very... VERY bad acting! What a perfect Saturday afternoon popcorn treat.

For those who HATE it. Ask yourself why you hate it? If it's because it's not new, not acted well and not up to your standards of special effects, then you're not seeing it for what it was meant to be.

Now, if only I could find the soundtrack of the BGM!! C

Okay, before I saw this film my mind was filled with awful comments about how bad this film is. When I finally obtained my copy (a true kaiju collector would buy all monster films, whether they are good or bad), I expected a cheap, 90-minute stock-footage crap-fest. Instead, I found a rather enjoyable film, it was just great to see all of Gamera's foes in one movie. Sure the "superhero effects" are all crappy, but the stock footage was blended in with the movie quite well. Yes, there were some embarassing parts though, for example, when the stock footage is night and the new footage takes place day time, the film simply mixes both parts of the day and night into one scene!!!!!!! I kinda liked the superhero story, and honestly, with a very low budget, this film was fairly well made!! come on people! What more could we want besides giant monsters kicking eachother's tails and some hot superhero chicks mixed in with terrible kid acting? I have no idea!

This film was made as a finale attempt to save the company from bankruptcy. Obviously, it didn't work and rightfully so. All of the Gamera footage is recycled from previous films. This is not the first time they've done this in the franchise but in those prior films, it was only a few moments. In this film, every single scene is recycled from previous films, so it begs the question - Why waste your time on it? If they couldn't put forth the effort to make an original film then why bother wasting the time watching it? It's truly nothing but garbage and the lowest point of this franchise without question.

This movie is the worst of the worst. Until recently, Gamera was the poor stepchild to Godzilla in most every aspect: Scripts, production values, special effects...you name it. And "Gamera: Super Monster" is the absolute nadir of the series and the genre of kaiju eiga.

Almost every (if not every) scene of Gamera is culled from stock footage from previous Gamera movies. The black and white footage of the first film is blended in with the color footage of the newer movies, and apparently no one is supposed to notice.

The linking story concerns a pirate spaceship named Zanon (which looks rather similar, if immensely cheaper to the Star Destroyer at the start of "Star Wars") and the attempts of three "space humans" to stop its plan for the conquest of the Earth. Whoever made this movie either watched Electra Woman & Dynagirl on "The Krofft Supershow", or saw some really BAD sentai, because the three women are very similar to either. One has a magic flying bus that is animated with effects right out of Saturday morning TV.

I can usually find something good to say about any movie...I mean, I love "Robot Monster" and I even sat through the horror that is "Highlander II" twice...but this movie is just plain awful.

Incredibly lazy, this is the Godzilla's Revenge of Gamera movies. Just a sloppy, edited together mess of stock footage. The only way this might have value is if you are looking for a compilation of Gamera fights I guess, but I can't respect this kind of filmmaking due to the sheer amount of stock footage.

Just because it's cheap, cheap, cheap doesn't mean it's not fun, fun, fun. And to be honest, Supermonster Gamera is a blast from start to finish. It's great to see all of Gamera's foes in one movie, even if it is all stock footage. The best thing about the film without a doubt is the awesome musical score, especially some of the battle themes. I have a weird fondness for this movie I cant explain. I like it better than some of Gamera's more legit films. If you can find a copy of either the Japanese or American versions, I seriously urge you to watch it with an open mind. Gamera rules!!

I watched it without really re-searching about it. I just thought it was the last movie on the Showa Gamera list.I watched it with my son who is 9 and we liked it: it is true this movie is built taking all the battle scenes of the first Gamera movies and mixing it with a story about aliens wanting to invade the earth.

With this premise and the very very very low budget this movie likely had (I have since educated myself on how this movie came to be) this movie could easily have been a lot worse. It's a kid movie with a funny gamera song conposed by a child (in the movie... but... it's belieavable as a song composed by a 10 year old) and the story well, it is not really high cinema we are speaking about. For a Kaiju movie it's fine (not of the best ones, of course) and you can almost forget it's a mix mash of older movies.

However if you don't want to spoil yourself all the gamera battles of the showa movies, I suggest to watch it after all the movies of the sixties and seventies.

Gamera Super Monster is a strangely enjoyabe film, especially since it is just a bunch of old footage re edited into the story of a kid and his pet turtle, and good female aliens vs. bad female aliens. Die hard fans of the genre have something against the campy and cheesy, when the fact is not every giant monster movie is supposed to portray a grim message about nuclear weapons, or interfering with nature.

This movie is joyful through and through, never taking a break from action and (mis)adventure, with characters that are very fun to watch. The little boy, who most would find annoying, has a certain goofiness to his character. Remember people, this is a film for the children. This movie shows how cheap it is, but you aren't able to realize it because it gets you so caught up in the fantasy. This is one of the greatest escapist fantasies out there.

From the first battle with Barugan all the way to the destruction of Zigra, all Gamera's greatest fights are highlighted in this nonstop action packed adventure for the whole family. Also, watch for the anime characters! And if that is not enough, the enemy space ship may seem a little familiar to you....

My score mainly reflects my feelings when I first watched this movie, more than 30 years ago. Super monster was one of my favorite movies when I was a little boy back in the 80s. Yes, it is corny, yes if you watch it now you may think it is garbage, yes the monsters now look like rubber toys, and the airplanes are made of plastic, but 35 years ago I paid to see it in the theater 10 times in a row and it used to feed my boyish imagination for many a night. The song is forever stuck in my head and I often catch myself humming it even now. It is a great flick for the right people and brings memories of different times. Go Gamera! :)

This is a great movie. It is the eight Gamera movie. The first seven Gamera movies are great movies. This is better. This is a great horror movie. It is very scary. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is one of the best monster movie of all time. I do not know why it got a 4.3. That is just underrating it. I give this movie a 9. This movie is scarier then The Shinning and that is not easy to do. This movie scarier then A nightmare on elm street. And that is not easy to do. This movie scarier then Friday the 13th. And that is not easy to do. If this movie does not scary you then know movie will. This is a great movie more people should see it.