Criterion’s Eclipse Series 37 DVD boxed set When Horror Came to Shochiku includes four movies made by Shochiku studio in 1967-68 as part of the studio’s short-lived attempt to jump on the science fiction/horror/monster movie bandwagon. The X from Outer Space (1967), directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu, is very definitely a science fiction monster movie.
It begins with plans to send a nuclear-powered manned spacecraft (nicknamed the Astro-Boat) to Mars. Previous missions have ended in disaster. The crew of four naturally includes a beautiful blonde girl scientist, Lisa.
The voyage runs into the usual hazards, such as meteor storms. They make a stopover on the Moon, which leads to romantic complications. Lisa is in love with the spaceship’s commander, Captain Sano, but she has a rival on the Moon. A cute astronaut girl named Michiko.
After leaving the Moon the spaceship runs into real trouble – a UFO. The astronauts find weird stuff on the exterior of their ship. They bring the stuff inside and discover a kind of egg-shaped object. They decide to bring it back to Earth.
The egg contains a monster and pretty soon he’s a really big monster. He’s 200 feet tall. He’s not very friendly. He wants to stomp things. He wants to stomp cities. Being a monster he has his heart set on stomping Tokyo. After that he’ll see what else there is in Japan to stomp. The monster is given the name Guilali.
He is of course unstoppable. And of course he feeds on nuclear energy.
Tanks and fighter jets don’t bother him in the least.
The only hope is to come up with a scientific answer. Lisa may have the solution – a hitherto undiscovered substance which may destroy Guilali’s power. But it will have to be brought back from the Moon.
It’s now a race against time. Can the astronauts bring the anti-Guilali substance back to Earth before Tokyo gets stomped?
There’s nothing very original here. It’s your basic Japanese monster movie. The studio was clearly aiming at a young audience and the movie contains just about everything that kids were going to love.
The special effects and the miniatures work might be cheap and cheesy but they’re fun and cool. The monster is goofy but he’s fun and cool as well. OK, he does look a bit like a dinosaur with a chicken’s head but he does look like a monster. Disappointingly he doesn’t breathe fire but you can’t have everything.
The best thing about this movie is that there’s no message. The monster isn’t anyone’s fault. This is just a lighthearted monster movie romp.
Once the monster begins his rampage the movie’s pacing accelerates. Which is a good thing. We’re not given time to notice any technical flaws or to notice the cheapness of the effects. It’s just action scene after action scene.
The acting is fine by monster movie standards. There are likeable heroes. Lisa and Michiko are smart, brave and adorable. The elderly generals and politicians are suitably grave and portentous.
There is the romantic sub-plot alluded to earlier and and given that this is really a kids’ movie it’s kept at an innocent and rather sweet level.
As since it is obviously aimed at kids there’s no point in being hyper-critical about plot holes or any failures in logic, or any lack of scientific plausibility.
The X from Outer Space is silly and goofy but I think it’s fair to say that it was intended to be nothing more than lighthearted fun, and I think it succeeds on the intended level.
The transfer is lovely. Both the Japanese (with English subtitles) and English-dubbed audio options are provided. The only extra is brief liner notes (which take the movie much too seriously).