God Monsters vs. Mad Science

One thing that makes mad scientists mad (or “displeased”) is when no one believes you when you go around screaming at the top of your squeezebox that dinosaurs exist. Can’t blame ’em — that’d chap my stick, as well. (P.S. Penguins are real, too, man — I’ve seen ’em!)

In South Korea’s War of the God Monsters (1985), that’s the case with Dr. Kim, whose jacked up no one will listen to his Jurassic bark. So he finds a young (i.e. gullible) reporter Kang Ok-hee to prove his case. Soon, his drunk-talk of all things giant reptilian was vindicated when a bird-like Pterodactylus shows up and starts crapping on cars from on high. (Now would be the time to yell, “In your face!” Or something more florid.) 

So what does one do when feisty fossils start busting up the joint as if it were Taco Tuesday at the Tug Tavern? Kill ’em and make tacos, of course. Maybe the job won’t be as tough as first thought as the monsters don’t resemble biblical depictions of dinosaurs at all — they look like they were were made from edible Play-Doh™. While we’re on the subject, climate change is blamed for the Kaiju Jamboree; Arctic ice melts from carbon emissions (car farts), thereby waking the not-quite-extinct beasts from their ice tray nap time.

Originally titled The Flying Monster (yawn), the movie is Frankenstein’d together with stock footage from Ultraman (1966), Return of Ultraman (1971) and Ultraman Ace (1972). There’s even pilfered scenes from the 1971 Taiwanese flick, The Founding of Ming Dynasty. (Yeah, I didn’t know that and had to look it up.) The “acting” is written around generic scenes of monsters making buildings go kablooey, side-dished with requisite doses of cry-yelling, explosion smoke and some sort of flaming fire. The confusing storyline makes about as much sense as toy clay-sculpted monsters, but you don’t rent flicks like this for the gripping narrative. War of the God Monster’s best part? The title.