Please note that this review is for the full length, original Japanese version of the movie. Sure the Sandy Frank versions are hilarious, especially on MST3K, but they do not properly express the original film or it's more intelligent dialogue. Unfortunately when most people review the Gamera movies, it's probably based on these inferior, sillier American versions. By no means am I calling this a great film, but it is pretty much a nonstop focus on the adventure even if Gamera doesn't get as much face time. As usual though, our title character shows up with half an hour left and does endless battle with the evil, unstoppable Guiron who loves sawing his/her/it's victims into bits and pieces with his dull looking yet razor sharp fin. He also has some awesome ninja like shuriken to launch at his foes. Guiron is a pleasure to watch on the screen as are our two main characters Akio and Tom. Very reminiscent of Invaders From Mars, these two lead kids see aliens land, no one believes them and eventually they are inside the flying saucer. This all happens quite fast and the rest of the film focuses on the child actors trying to escape from the planet of Terra where they have encountered very shifty aliens who seem kind and gentle at one moment and cannibalistic the next. As far as visuals go, the matte work is pretty awful, but I really enjoy the look of the spaceship(s) and the alien planet. There's no question you have to be a fan of Godzilla or Ultraman to appreciate this film series, but if you take the time to delve into the Gamera universe, make sure you do so with the Japanese versions. They will still make you smirk, but I assure you in this original version you will find a film like Gamera Vs Guiron smarter and a bit more serious than you expected...

This is the fifth Gamera movie. The first four Gamera movies are good. This is better. The sixth Gamera movie Gamera vs monster X is better. The seventh Gamera movie Gamera vs Zigra is better. The eight Gamera movie Gamera Super monster is better. The reboot Gamera guardian of the universe is also better. The few the to reboot Gamra 2 attack of Legion is also better. The third Gamera movie in the new series Gamer 3 the revenge of Iris is also better. This is a great movie. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is very scary. I do not no why it got a 3.8 it is a very awesome movie. I give an 8. It is no 3.8. That is just underrating it.

What? Is that logical? Absurdity takes new meaning with is film. The year is 1969, so at this point both Godzilla and Gamera were in the pits. Hell, 1969 was the fateful year Toho released "Godzilla's Revenge" and I'm quite sure Godzilla would never sink so low again. However, the worse had yet to come for the original Gamera series. That's not to say "Gamera vs. Guiron", also known as "Attack of the Monsters", isn't a bad movie because yes, yes it is, but compared to crapfest like "Gamera vs. Zigra" this film excels. At one point a child hypothesizes Gamera can reach speeds up to Mach 60…I'll be damned.You would've thought the company Daiei and its writers would've learned from "Gamera vs. Viras" that children and spaceships don't go together. However, at the very least we are shown a new planet, Tera, in an attempt to divulge a better plot. For all its campy ridiculousness, it's an admittedly interesting story for a monster movie sucker like me. Making children the protagonists is probably its greatest blunder. Guiron himself is a weird monster, but I suppose more attractive than Jiger. Still, Guiron looks like something you'd see in, I don't know, Pokémon? The Space Gyaos are an interesting facet of the story and some frightfully odd yet amusing action sequences take place. Zany and peculiar, definitely cheesy as hell, but a gas to watch and scrutinize.

Like many others, I was introduced to this movie on MST3K, and while it's hard to forget a lot of the humor they added to it, it's still genuinely weird and charming on its own merits. Although yes, that little girl does look like a little old lady, and the white mom does indeed look like David Bowie.This is very much a children's kaiju movie, in fact while watching it I thought it was a lot like something out of a kid's imagination- the monster with a knife for a head, the strangely sexy space women, the awesome pet/big brother/guardian that is Gamera. I like the kid-like logic the boys display when they try to disable a teleporter's control mechanism by pulling the knobs off, then smashing them with rocks. Or the deadpan seriousness on Akio's face, when he informs Tom that Gamera can easily attain speeds in excess of Mach 60, except if he did he'd blast clear out of the solar system. It's the same tone in which a young modern geek would tell you that Pikachu requires a Thunder Stone in order to evolve to Raichu.The SFX are good, the little space city looks really great. The costumes aren't on the level of a Godzilla movie, but in this day and age of digital effects, it's pretty hard to suspend one's disbelief when watching a rubber kaiju battle anyway, and I choose to enjoy them for what they are rather than what they could be. Overall this movie was a lot of fun, a great movie for the kids.