Godzilla Month: Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) movie review

Here's what you need to know; a new menace has emerged in the seas around Japan, a monster from space that grows in size with each passing day and kills everything it touches, Hedorah. After attacking and scarring Dr Yano and his son and sinking several ships, it comes ashore and continues to feast on the smog and pollution created by mankind, continuing to grow and become more powerful, becoming a threat to all life on Earth, a threat that now only Godzilla can stop.
We've jumped forward in time here, seven years after Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and three years after Toho thought Godzilla's days were done, to what is a very divisive a very, very weird Godzilla film. So why am I reviewing this particular film, it's not like it's relevant to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, it's a film from the dying years of the Showa period about Godzilla fighting a metaphor for pollution, so why? Well, when I was very young, I had a video of this film which someone recorded it for me off the TV, though no one I ask can tell me who or when or even why, but I watched that video again and again and again, it was my favourite film ever, and since I don't really remember being a toddler, I attribute my life-long love and obsession for Godzilla to this film, or maybe this wasn't the genesis, again, no one can give me an answer. Over the years as I switched from video to DVD and eventually Blu-ray, This video of Godzilla vs. Hedorah got lost, I have no idea where it is and that makes me sad, obviously, but luckily, the internet exists so it wasn't hard to track down this film, and would you believe I found it on a Porn site, of all places. So let's revisit a film that could very well be the genesis, the film that made me a Godzilla fan, buckle up, this might get intense.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah's opening minutes are, in a word, weird, with a very 70's song, trippy visuals and hard cuts to gross shit floating in the ocean, before again hard cutting to a shot of a colourful, vibrant bed of flowers with the pleasant sound of chirping birds. The confusion continues as we are introduced to one of our heroes as he plays outside with a couple of toy Godzillas, he then exclaims that Godzilla isn't his only favourite, Superman is too, deliberately conveying that this film's Godzilla is a superhero, at least in the eyes of this kid. Clearly Godzilla had changed significantly in the two decades since the first film, with the walking embodiment of death and nuclear power now being mentioned in the same breath as Superman. We then get a dash of mystery as a fisherman brings Dr. Yano a very weird fish before telling him that he's struggling to catch fish. But before there's even an opportunity to build some suspense, we get news footage of Hedorah sinking a pair of tankers, right before Yano does a very silly thing; he decides to go diving to investigate the strange fish immediately after seeing one of them break a ship in half. Godzilla has had gaps in logic in the past, but this is almost impressive, and is one of Godzilla vs. Hedorah's most baffling attributes. A problem that this film has is its method of delivering its message. Godzilla had a message too, but it knew how to tell a story around that message and to convey that message without the need to be heavy handed or obvious. But while Godzilla started out as a metaphor for the Atomic bomb, Hedorah is very much a metaphor for pollution, and this film has a very, very in your face way of delivering its anti-pollution message.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah has these really bizarre clips sprinkled throughout through which it does most of its messaging, some of which being animated and others being narrated, the first of which shows Hedorah drinking from a wrecked tanker while a factory pumps out black smoke in the background. There are many sequences like this one in the film, take for example another one of a factory eating plants and slowly growing in size before itself being eaten by Hedorah. These sequences are very weird and lack any sense of subtlety when it comes to what they're trying to say. How I can best describe it is heavy-handed; it's almost like the film the trying to teach kids about pollution, well, it's less teach and more preach, Godzilla vs Hedorah isn't simply trying to be thematic and educational, it's trying to be outright scary. This isn't the most annoying thing about Godzilla vs. Hedorah but it is one of them; the film doesn't seem to know how to be subtle, its preaching is aggressive, manipulative, even. Now contrast that to the film's imagery, which really goes the extra mile, and by that I mean it's fucking disturbing. We're talking about people drowning in corrosive sludge and being melted by sulfuric acid and reduced to slimy skeletons, how about another scene where TV screens show people screaming in frustration along with shots of dead bodies and crying baby trapped in the corrosive sludge. These scenes aren't exactly frequent, but do you see my point about the film being kind of manipulative and aggressive in its messaging.

But you may be wondering; there was a scene in Godzilla with a crying baby, and not only did I like it but it turned me into a blubbering mess of tears, but the difference is that while both films are trying to be scary, Godzilla was a clever film that never needed to shove its messaging right in your face, Godzilla vs. Hedorah does though, and it feels as forced as it is, while making its scenes of horror feel tasteless and extreme as the film doesn't earn them. The film fails as a metaphor for pollution like this year's Captain Marvel fails as a metaphor for female empowerment, not because it fails to deliver the message, but because its delivery is so forced and ham-fisted to the point of it being unintentionally funny, and like that film, Godzilla vs. Hedorah's more aggressive method of messaging suggests an almost zealous commitment to the idea behind the scenes, as if to them, pollution really was a monster, just as the Patriarchy is a literal monster to the minds behind Captain Marvel. On the plus side, the vessel of this message isn't a boring, annoying engine of ego, but a monster that is genuinely cool and completely disgusting. Despite the film's many failing, Hedorah remains one of my favourite Godzilla monsters and that isn't entirely because of nostalgia. He's a really cool looking monster, he's exactly how you'd imagine a Smog Monster; a hideous, slimy blob of snot with glowing red eyes and an unnatural, unnervingly inorganic croak instead of a roar, the vertical eyes further enforce the unnatural look of the thing, and his powers are some wacky shit.

For starters, he can shape shift, fly, and fuse with other Hedorahs to essentially infinitely grow in size and strength. But then there's its ability to shoot lasers from his eyes, as well as his ability to shoot the corrosive sludge using some unbelievably gross looking goop cannons, seriously, like a nipple and an arsehole got exposed to radiation and then fused together. His damage immunity is also a problem, being impervious to tanks and guns, as well as being immune to Godzilla's atomic breath. Add the fact that Hedorah can divide itself into smaller organisms that can then fuse back together and continue to grow and you've got a monster that's pretty much indestructible. Hedorah's a tough bastard, one who isn't simply mindless but enjoys hurting and killing things, cackling sadistically while he tries to drown Godzilla in the sludge. So on one end you have Hedorah; a walking embodiment of pollution and toxicity with a sadistic streak and near invulnerability, it only makes sense then that on the other end is the polar opposite, a mascot of virtue, heroism and environmentalism, and who else would fill that role but the former embodiment of death and suffering; Godzilla. Godzilla in this film is weird, I can definitely see how this version of him would draw me in though because he's a straight up superhero; a paragon of goodness that's loved by children and fights for Earth, an unstoppable force for good that comes to the defence of mankind whenever it is threatened. Yet despite being a superhero, I find this Godzilla less compelling than his portrayal in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, where he was a tactless brute with a heart of gold and a sense of humour, unlike this where he is just gold and there isn't a bad bone in his body.

And when these two throw down, it's not really a throw down by any reasonable description, it's split between the two of them just standing around and gesturing at each other and Hedorah mercilessly kicking the shit out of Godzilla. There are brief spurts of things happening, like Godzilla taking swings at Hedorah, but more often than not, the hits come from Hedorah, who blinds Godzilla, throws him down a mountain and tires to drown him in sludge. On the whole though, the fights in this film are far less energetic and entertaining than they were in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster or even Mothra vs. Godzilla, they're slow and overly dramatic, more like the two monsters are insulting each other rather than actually fighting, which was still more entertaining in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. That all being said, Godzilla's victory over Hedorah is insane and hilarious; he apparently understands the humans' plan to kill Hedorah with electricity and charges the electric plates with his atomic breath, which makes sense. But when a piece of Hedorah survives the zapping and makes a break for it, Godzilla flies after him. Even if you're a complete outsider to Godzilla, you've probably seen this scene or know of it; the time that Godzilla flew, it's completely ridiculous, downright retarded to look at, and I don't know whether I hate it or love it. After this infamous scene, the two monsters fight, and they actually fight this time, making the rest of the film's fights even worse. Godzilla then fries Hedorah again before going in for most entertaining example of overkill I've ever seen; with Godzilla ripping chunks out of Hedorah's corpse and stomping on it while a rendition of the opening song plays, I don't know why, but this scene always makes me smile, and it's easily my favourite scene in the film.

Through all of that, I haven't even mentioned characters or story, but they're not hard to sum up, the film's plot is the most straightforward of any film I've reviewed in this special, it's literally; a Smog Monster shows up and Godzilla 'fights' him, all while human characters do stuff, I guess. The human characters in this film kind of suck; Yano and the kid are alright, being the two characters who effectively spearhead the fight against Herodah, then there's the wife, who's... well, she's the wife, then there's Yano's brother and his hippie girlfriend, two characters whose reason to be in this film eludes me. Yano and the kid serve their roles decently; with Yano being the smart guy who's studying Hedorah and figuring out how to kill him, while the kid is perfect as the young, unrealistically smart Godzilla lover that children can relate to, but the rest of the cast are pure filler, and as such are completely forgettable, save for the weird scenes like that one in the night club, I mean, what the fuck even was that. Other stuff I somehow haven't mentioned include the visual effects which are outstanding almost across the board. The suits are amazing and the pyrotechnics are eye-catching, it's just a shame that they're wasted on such boring fights. The only time I can think of in the film when the effects really stumble is the Godzilla flying scene, but to the film's credit, I don't think it's possible to make that not look stupid. This is, however, the most city-friendly Godzilla film I've reviewed so far, with the climactic battle going down in a massive open space, like this film wasn't already boring in the destruction department.


Dammit, Why Can't Anything Go Right Today?!
Godzilla vs. Hedorah may be been a younger me's favourite film, but watching it as an adult, I honestly struggle make sense of this film. I'm not sure what the film is trying to be, I don't even think the film knows; it's too boring to be a fun, exciting Monster Movie, it's too scary to be a kids film, it's too preachy to be effective as an anti-pollution film and it's too cheesy to be taken seriously as any of the above. The film has cool monsters and a few pretty awesome moments near the end, but even by Godzilla standards, Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a dud, which is something I never wanted to say about it. There are things about it that I love, things I will always love, but Godzilla vs. Hedorah drops the ball as a Godzilla movie, and when held to the standard I would hold any other non-Godzilla film, this film is kind of terrible. Unless you already love Godzilla, this film will ultimately do more harm to your understanding of Godzilla than good, and for that reason, I can't recommend it, there's about two dozen other films out there that stand a better chance of winning you over than this one.