Yog: Monster From Space
AKA: Kessen! Nankai no daikaijū; Gezora-Ganime-Kameba: Kessen! Nankai no daikaijū; The Space Amoeba; Supesu Amiiba; Yog: The Space Amoeba
Released: 1970
Version: Video
Length: Approx. 84 minutes
Rated: <unknown>
Main Cast: Akira Kubo, Atsuko Takahashi, Yukiko Kobayashi, Kenji Sahara, Yu Fujiki, Tetsu Nakamura, Shigeo Kato.
So, you're looking for a rare Kaiju movie? Well, this one will definitely fit the bill. It comes under many guises and amazingly it isn't that bad of a movie for being so hard to find.
SPOILER WARNING: Do not read the following review unless you hate surprises!
We begin in typical Toho fashion, with a shot of the monster and the title of the movie. Then we meet the principal characters. They seem to be a photographer called Taro Kudo, a kawaii Japanese girl named Ayako Hoshino (Atsuko Takahashi) , a Dr. Kyoichi Mida (Yoshio Tsuchiya [I]) and some guy with a dark goatee and sunglasses named Makoto Obata.
Ayako hires Kudo to go to an island and take pictures of it for promotional purposes. Her company is going to make it into a resort as it's an island paradise. Unfortunately, a space probe from our planet has crash landed near the island and it picked up a glittery cloud on the way here. Kudo saw it crash while in a plane...
Anyway, they get to the island with the doctor (a part of the chick's company, I guess) and Obata (not sure why he came on the island). They find one of their advance men dead and the other one "frightened." The natives are none too happy about foreigners either.
Soon thereafter we have a giant squid wandering around on land killing people. It grabs their guide, Yokoyama and frightens an islander named Rico. Oddly enough, when the rest of the group finds them, they discover that light scare Rico and it is postulated that the reason is that the monster gave out light in the water right before it attacks. Sounds logical, no? Well, it's not, seeing as Rico never saw the light the octopus gave off. Anyway, they manage to kill the 20 story squid/octopus (whatever!) and the doctor starts thinking it must be aliens that are causing this. Not long after the octopus's death, a giant crab/lobster runs amok too.
They manage to kill this too. However, it just mutates a turtle to continue the havoc. Actually, there ends up being three creatures: The turtle, another crab/lobster and one of Kudo (no, he's not HUGE!). The alien dust cloud seems to be spreading!
The doctor figures everything out though. And we all know what happens in the end...although is wasn't quite what I thought would happen.
The Good Stuff:
 | Funny looking monsters. |
| Fairly well paced |
| It kept me awake and entertained...which is a feat with Toho sometimes. |
| The theme song from "King Kong vs. Godzilla." You know, the one that puts Kong to sleep... |
The Bad Stuff:
| Bad acting |
Dumb Stuff:
| This is the Movie Favorites version of the tape and it had a major soundtrack problem. For about 10-20 minutes of the show, the soundtrack suddenly stopped matching what the actors were saying. Everything was thrown off. Guns and bombs would go off and seconds later you'd hear them when the scene had changed. People would talk and nothing would come out...until later...making it very bizarre...and quite amusing too. |
| The doctor and his musings. Come on! How do they figure this out!? |
| FYI: The monster is never called Yog at any point in the movie. I don't know where this name originated. |
| Watch for the bats. They look stupid and the spiral around next to a mirror so that it looks like there's twice as many of them... |
| Also note that the bats always zoom over to the monster and buzz over the monster's heads...even in broad daylight... |
| The doctor points out that the turtle and crab are becoming themselves once more and are now "acting naturally." I was unaware that turtles and crabs hate one another and would fight to the death if they saw each other. You can learn some new and interesting animal behavior facts from this film! |
This is a silly movie, but it is likable. The monsters and storyline aren't scary, but it's still fun to watch. See it if you're a Toho fan!
STORY: 
VIOLENCE:
(Stupid rubber suit writhing)
SEXUAL CONTENT:
(Typical Japanese girl outfits)
SFX:
LANGUAGE:
OVERALL SCORE: