Featuring the first appearance of writer, Trylon volunteer, Horrorthon body counter, and comms specialist Michael Popham!
A direct sequel to the movie where Godzilla rips Mechagodzilla’s head off, TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA is a movie (written by newcomer Yukiko Takayama!) where Godzilla rips Mechagodzilla’s head off… and there’s a dinosaur… being controlled by aliens… who’ve teamed up with a disgraced scientist… whose daughter is a cyborg… that controls another Mechagodzilla. It’s a pretty stacked movie! It’s also the lowest-grossing Godzilla ever and it marked the end of Godzilla’s Shōwa era before a nine-year hiatus.
Somewhere in that milieu, there’s a strangely human, tender core to the story, anchored largely by Katsura Mafune (Tomoko Ai), the mad scientist’s daughter-turned-cyborg whose position in the plot. We talk about her many motivations and how her character – dutiful to her father’s cause, finding love in her enemies, possessed by her extraterrestrial overlords – reflects both the humanity in the movie’s monsters and the monstrosities of its humans.
Links:
Michael’s blog memorializing Horror Incorporated, a 1970s late-night creature-feature series from MSP: https://horrorincorporatedproject.wordpress.com/
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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing song: Main theme by Akira Ifukube from the TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA soundtrack.
Timestamps
Due to producer error, the timestamps for this episode may not be entirely accurate! Sorry about it.
0:00 - Episode 176: TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (1975) with Michael Popham
4:19 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary
7:04 - Movie good? (Movie good.)
15:45 - Balancing the human and the alien
31:56 - Katsura as nexus between them
46:37 - The Junk Drawer (kaiju insurance, a sense of scale & more)
53:13 - Cody’s Noteys: Godzilla or Not-zilla (tagline trivia)
