Stoned Demon God

The Japanese term Daimajin translates to good ’ol English as Great Demon God. (I wonder what my term translates to in Japanese? Probably Great Beer God. I like that. Thank you, Japan.)

Daimajin is also the title of the 1966 horror fantasy movie about a gigantic stone statue that comes to life and squashes people. There is nothing about that sentence I don’t like.

It’s bad enough the downtrodden villagers in ancient Japan are enduring a series of tremors (or “mini quakes”); on the flip side you have their leader Lord Hanabasa in constant arguments with the super mean and cruel Samanosuke. The quakes are attributed to the spirit of the Daimajin trapped in a nearby mountain and is trying to bust a move. The meanness of Samanosuke is attributed to him just being a dick.

Samanosuke uses the villagers superstitions against them and to overthrow (i.e., kill) Lord Hanabasa, thus ruling with an iron fist (i.e., sword). His reign is highlighted with torture, stabbings, eye gougings, and assorted punchings, leading to a slave labor workforce.

Shinobu, the village’s local priestess, has had enough of this crap and, after a long story involving other story-padding characters, warns about the Daimajin coming to smash evil.

Samanosuke chortles at the stone Samurai and sends his posse to go beat the revered stone statue into bite-sized chunks. When the army starts pounding a huge railroad spike into Daimajin’s forehead, the statue comes alive and breaks free of his dirt cage. It’s clobberin’ time.

Stomping its way towards the village, Daimajin’s face changes into that of a pissed of Shogun with a facial expression that looks like the railroad spike was pounded into Daimajin’s glory hole. It’s as if the demon god was sold at a Pottery Barn™ managed by Slayer.

Doing what only a 25 meter tall ticked off stone creature can do, Daimajin, who only makes its appearance an hour (!) into the movie, stomps, crushes, squishes and squashes Samanosuke’s bully squad into egg rolls.

But wait, Daimajin is unable to distinguish evil from reverse evil, and begins swinging his wrecking balls all over the village, wiping out years of shabby architecture. It’s only when a chick cries at Daimajin’s dirty feet that it’s spirit is released and goes zooming off as a UFO-esque orb, leaving it’s husk to crumble all over the place. Guess who has to clean up that mess?

There were two more sequels: Return of Daimajin (1966) and Daimajin Strikes Again (1966). Yes, all three were released in the same year. I think they just reused the original Daimajin monster. Way to milk that sacrificial cow.

Swamp Things

A history professor  needs to verify his theories that a race of totally mean army guys called Berserkers (looking like they just stepped out of Supercuts™) existed to do nothing but chase shirtless chicks around and use their blood for some sort of ritual. So he sends five lippy college kids out into the swamp to dig up remains.

During the dig a frightened chick is discovered, her camp in disarray and her tight shirt barely clinging for life. The forest poop and rummage sale clothed Bog Creatures, unhappy that their rituals were interrupted for a few hundred years, begin again, rise and go berserk on the twerps.

In an “almost didn’t see it coming” twist (insert roll-y eyed sarcasm here), the frightened chick turns out to be a descendant of the priestess doing all the rituals back in the day, and is responsible for gassing up the Boggy Men. “Look at me—I raised the dead…and I didn’t even finish grad school!” she gleefully proclaims. Good for her.

Bog Creatures (2003) are as threatening as mud puddles and the students deserve a failing grade for thinking they could act their way out of the swamp.