VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE is a typical kaiju flick from Japan, made on a low budget and with an eye on familiarity rather than innovation. I watched the dubbed US version of the film, which adds in an American protagonist to boot and renders some of the Japanese scenes choppy and second-rate. Still, it's business as usual, with Americans messing around with nature and resulting in the birth of a giant monster which proceeds to lay waste to the locality. The human drama is quite stodgy but the monster rampage scenes are always fun, albeit very low budget this time around.

Unfortunately, my introduction to this Toho kaiju offering was a poor quality on-line copy of the 'Americanised' version entitled "Varan the Unbelievable" (odd: despite the title, the monster seems to be called 'Obaki', not 'Varan'). An intrepid American scientist and his wife are running a desalinization experiment on a remote island when they awaken the 'devil monster' which sleeps beneath the lake. After numerous futile attempts by the military to vanquish the creature, the American figures out how to destroy it. English scenes (including excessive voiceovers) are interspersed haphazardly with the original Japanese footage and include lot of shots of the scientist driving around in his jeep. The overall outcome of this hybridisation is a simplistic, somewhat incoherent, poorly-paced, and not particularly interesting monster movie. Only worth watching if you need to get Varen on your kaiju life-list and can't find the Japanese version.

If you share an odd and rare hobby like me- collecting B-movies, this is a movie to own. As one of my 100 B-movies, this is quite entertaining. Of course, I find this movie entertaining because it is bad and low-budget, Toho has done a great job once again! It is available on VHS and a great B-movie to add to your collection of giant monster films of Japan and America, PURCHASE! "So bad its good." AKA, "Best of the Worst."

Varan The Unbelievable is a very enjoyable Japanese giant monster movie. This movie was practically re-shot for it's American audience so if you enjoy the American version then you diffenently need to check out the original Japanese version. It will be like watching two different films, Varan has the ability to fly in the original version. The U.S. version is good but the original is much better.