Destroy All Monsters (1968 Japan)

By this point in Japan's film history, Toho Studios had built themselves up quite a stable of giant monsters, so they decided to put them all in one film. The film takes place in the future of 1999, when trips to the moon are a daily thing. All of Japan's monsters have been placed on one island, dubbed "Monsterland." There are measures in place to keep the monsters there but, suddenly, one day, the various monsters show up to wreck the major cities in the world - Moscow wrecked by Rodan! Beijing by Mothra! Paris by Gorosaurus! (wrongly said as Baragon) London by Manda! and Godzilla roars into New York City! Some of these are not even shown, just mentioned. It seems that the control center on Monsterland and its personnel have been compromised by aliens, represented by one smiling female. The aliens hail from one of those tiny planets between Mars & Jupiter (I thought there was an asteroid belt there but maybe this is an alternate universe).

The plot also involves battles with controlled humans - the aliens have placed small controlling devices behind their ears and these need to be ripped out to free the person from control. This has a different feel from the usual Kaiju films because, in the first act, the monsters attack everywhere but in Japan, but soon enough Tokyo becomes a target, attacked by 4 of the monsters all at once. The reason for this was a feint by the female aliens, so that people wouldn't notice their building a base in Japan, but their strategy fails, so they unleash their secret weapon, the 3-headed Ghidorah; all the other monsters gang up on the evil monster, but the aliens still aren't finished, also unleashing a fire monster - a flying ball of fire. Other monsters include the tenacious Anguirus, the giant spider Spiga, a small role for Varan the unbelievable and Godzilla's son, who stays out of the battle for the most part, only blowing one of his radioactive smoke rings around one of Ghidorah's necks. This was all mostly for the kids. BoG's Score: 5 out of 10

Monsters Trivia: Rodan had already been in 3 previous films, the last being Invasion of Astro-Monster (65); Mothra, either in its larva or moth forms, had been in 4 previous films by this time, last in Godzilla vs The Sea Monster (1966); Gorosaurus previously appeared in King Kong Escapes (67), battling the big ape on his island; Anguirus had previously appeared in one of the earliest Godzilla films, Godzilla Raids Again (1955); Spiga a.k.a. Kumonga was in Son of Godzilla (1967); and Manda had previously appeared in Atragon (63).