Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster AKA Ebirah, Horror of the Deep Review

Godzilla fans it's been along time since i've taken a look at Godzilla movie and trust me there is a reason for that. So thought that i'd rectify that by taking a look at what I believe many consider to be one of the lesser films in the franchise and after seeing it for myself it's not hard to see why since it's a pretty bad film and for the first time ever i'll have to judge one of these films based on the dubbed version so here is my review of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep AKA Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster.

The plot of the movie is a group of characters get stuck on an island under siege from a group called The Red Bamboo but they can't escape due to a giant shrimp and so in order to take on this piece of giant shrimp Godzilla must be summoned. Yeah the plot of this movie isn't really that deep infact it's pretty bad since nothing is set up and anything that does get set up isn't payed off at all in short it's a pretty badly written film.

Starring in the film is Akira Takarada as Yoshimura , Kumi Mizuno as Daiyo , Chotaro Togin as Ichino , Hideo Sunazuka as Nita , Toru Watanabe as Ryota Kane , Toru Ibuki as Yata Kane , Pair Bambi as The Shobijin , Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla and Hiroshi Sekita as Ebirah. Try as I might I couldn't find who did the dub for this film which is a shame because not only would I because not only I be interested in seeing who's starring in the dub but I also have alot of thoughts about the dubbed version of the film.

This is going to be weird for me to make any kind of judgement on simply because when I watch a Japanese Godzilla movie I try and watch it in the original language since that was how it was meant to be viewed however I couldn't find this film in japanese so I have to judge it based on the dub. From what I can gather the acting in the film is solid like I said i'm judging this based on the dub and that does mean judging the voices which is always hard to do and even harder to base any judgement based on the facial expressions but yeah from what I can tell the acting was ok.

As for what I thought about my god is it bad like not taking into account that this film came out in the mid sixties and so alot of dubs that came out in that time period were pretty bad. Not only is some of the lip sinking of but some of the voices are really annoying with the worst offender being the dub actor for Nita I don't know what the actor was told but couldn't have chosen a less annoying voice for the character.

Now this is something that alot of you die hard Godzilla fans will know and that's the fact that King Kong was originally meant to appear in this film but at the last second was switched out for Godzilla I will say that knowing this makes a certain scene make alot more sense that being the scene were Godzilla falls in love with human girl and I have to wonder why they kept this scene in why didn't they just write it out since while it does make sense for Kong to fall in love with a human girl it doesn't make sense for Godzilla to fall in love with a human girl.

Now since this is technically a versus movie that does mean that we have to talk about the King Of Monsters opponent. The fact that in my summery for the film I refer to Ebirah as a giant shrimp should tell you what I think of him since while I do think he would have made a great opponent for Kong for Godzilla tho the guy who frequently fights three headed dragons and giants moths a giant shrimp isn't really in his league.

On top of that there's nothing really memorable about the character with Mothra and Ghidorah they are memorable not only because of their designs but also because of their powers. Ebirah tho has nothing memorable about him what so ever he looks just like your typical kaiju and that's it and on top of that the character has no powers what so ever at least Godzilla weakest opponents have powers that could take out the King Of Monsters.

Now it wouldn't be a classic Godzilla movie if we didn't talk about the suits used for the film and In my opinion the suits were the best thing about the film at least in my opinion. The king of monsters looks great in this movie from what i can gather this suit was the same one used in Invasion Of The Astro Monster  and even Ebirah as boring as he is the suit used for the character does look good and the character does have a good look to him.

If your a fan of Mothra then get ready to be disappointed because not only did they recast The Shobijin they also don't use the Mothra song at all and the character only shows up near the end of the movie. I get that Mothra is a character who wants piece and so you can't have her appear in the whole film but just having her show up in the final minuets of the film is a bit of an insult to not only the character but also her fans.

Now then since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in the film. Like everything else in the movie the action is a huge let down mostly because the action takes place in water which is where you can't create an exciting action sequence because everything is slower in the water which is a shame because you come into a Godzilla movie expecting there to be some solid action and destruction and this movie doesn't have either.

Overall I can see why alot of Godzilla fans don't like this film and even I myself was only watching this because I wanted to see a film with Mothra that haven't already seen. This doesn't deliver on the things that you want to see in a Godzilla movie but I do give it credit for at least changing the location so it doesn't take place in Japan but by doing that they also remove Godzilla destroying things which is what we love and so this film gets a 4.5 out of 10 from me.