Laikals
The greatest movie ever made..!
Skunkyrate
Gripping story with well-crafted characters
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
AaronCapenBanner
Ishiro Honda directed this incredibly bizarre and perfectly awful film that starts off in WWII, where Dr. Frankenstein(!) has been working with the Japanese, and created a living heart, but it is later taken to Hiroshima where it is irradiated by the H-bomb being dropped. Years later, that heart has somehow grown into a full-sized boy, who then mutates even more into a giant man, who attacks the city, then battles a giant lizard named Baragon, also recently awakened. Preposterous story and poor F/X make this a tacky and laughable effort, that only gets worse as it goes along. No relation to Mary Shelley or Boris Karloff at least!
kevinxirau
Wow, just when I thought I've seen it all. This 1965 Toho classic brings the reanimated corpse to the world of giant monsters and elaborate miniatures, an oddball idea. Believe it or not, Frankenstein was originally suppose to fight the likes of Godzilla at the time, but the concept was sorta dropped and instead Godzilla ends up fighting King Kong, Mothra, and Ghidorah. Without wasting the basic idea, however, Toho created this film and the result was "Frankenstein Conquers the World aka Frankenstein vs Baragon." Plot: During WW2, the Nazis deliver the still-beating heart of the Frankenstein monster to Japanese scientists in Hiroshima who plan to use it for medical purposes. However, the heart was presumed lost in the nuclear explosion that destroyed Hiroshima. Years later, scientists discover a strange wild boy running around and find out soon that the missing heart grew a new body resistant to radiation. With greater access to food in captivity, Frankentein grows rapidly and soon escapes. Then, mysterious, destructive incidents have occurred and everyone's quick to blame Frankenstein. That's not the case as it turns out that Baragon, a subterranean fire-breathing dinosaur, is the real culprit. Soon a battle between Frankenstein and Baragon commences and the fate of Japan hangs by a thread.Overall, this is an interesting film. It's pretty scientifically accurate and the miniature sets are fairly impressive seeing as how the monsters are smaller that their larger kaiju brethren. The story is also good and the music by Akira Ifukube is a real treat to listen. Frankenstein does look a little goofy with his buck teeth and unsettling shriek.The monster that steals the show, however, is Baragon. Arguably one of my favorite monsters, Baragon has a great design, cool roar, and a nice set of abilities. The movie starts out a little slow, but once Baragon shows up things get pretty exciting, especially when Franky and Baragon have their awesome lengthy fight. They pretty much beat the living crap out of each other, making this one of my favorite kaiju battles.This is a fun edition to Toho's roster of creature features. Baragon became so popular thanks to this film that he actually now stars in a few Godzilla films and video games. If you're a fan of giant monsters, then check this action out. I recommend getting the 2-disc special edition for this one. Enjoy!
MartinHafer
Before I even started watching this film, I had a very, very strong impression that the film would suck--and boy, was I right! With such titles as "Frankenstein Versus the World" and "Frankenstein Verses Baragon", it was obvious it wasn't going to be Shakespeare. What surprised me, though, is that not only was this a cheesy Japanese Frankenstein story, but this time the monster was almost Godzilla-sized!! And this was never really fully explained in the longer international version (the DVD also had a shorter American version that I skipped)! The film begins with Nazi scientists sending something to Japan in the final says of World War II--though what exactly it happens to be is unknown. However, it must be important because the Germans risk a sub to get this secret to Japan. Well, it turns out the sub is carrying a box containing Frankenstein's indestructible heart and the idea is to research into how to make more so they Japanese can have an entire army of indestructible soldiers. However, just after they take the heart out of the box in Hiroshima, the city is nuked and 15 years pass. Now, for reasons completely unknown, this heart somehow got transferred into a feeble-minded teenager who looks like a cross between a caveman and a Japanese kid with an over-sized Frankenstein wig. Oddly, the scientist who examines him declares that the freaky boy "is a Caucasian", though he looks about as Causcasian as Gary Coleman! Oddly, this feral child is already pretty big but starts to quickly grow to gargantuan proportions. This leads the audience to wonder: 1. How the nuked heart survived Hiroshima and magically appeared in a caveboy's chest.2. Why the kid has been doing just fine eating pets and roadkill for years and only when he is rescued does he begin to grow.3. Is the scientist who examined him in his right mind? 4. When the Frankencritter escapes, the first person called is the comely Japanese lady scientist. However, while she is learning about it on the phone, Nick Adams (the token Western actor) announces he's going to find the boy and bring him back to the lab. But how did Adams know this BEFORE the lady? Did he have esp or did he just read the script? After all, SHE was on the phone and he was with her.Regardless of all these important unanswered questions, none are adequately answered and the script is a mess. Instead of trying to make a real horror film, it soon becomes a battle of giant monsters as two ugly brutes appear from nowhere to battle Frankie. It's the typical stupid Toho Studios fare--with tiny buildings and tanks being stomped. My favorite was the boar--that was so obviously fake it made me laugh. However, the first challenger to Frankenstein looked a lot like a dog in a rubber lizard costume! You have to see it to believe it.Despite the movie totally stinking, it is worth seeing if you are a "bad movie fan" who LIKES seeing inept and stupid films. Plus, thankfully, despite being really, really dumb, at least the film is better than the god-awful Gamera films--with that annoying brat who loves and believes in the monster. YECCCHH!!FYI--After writing this deservedly scathing review, I checked out the other reviews for this film and found three people who gave it a positive review AND a score of 10. Apparently, they must now be encouraging mental patients to post reviews.
ferbs54
Well, he may not exactly conquer the world in this picture, but at least he gets off his usual home turf! In the very imaginative opening of "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (1965), you see, the living heart of the Frankenstein monster is taken from Germany at the end of World War II and transported by submarine to Japan, where it is promptly exposed to A-bomb radiation at Hiroshima and eventually grows, to become a giant, gap-toothed male waif. This lumbering doofus (who ultimately reveals himself to be the nimblest, most energetic Frankenstein ever shown on film) soon has a dukeout royale with Baragon, a sort of giant, spiny-backed, (heat?) ray-spewing, burrowing armadillo dinosaur, with no holds barred and no quarter given. Anyway, this picture strikes me as being several cuts above the usual kaiju eiga. It has been fairly handsomely produced, features very adequate FX (despite the Maltin book's claim to the contrary; well, that bucking horse excepted), and makes excellent use of its CinemaScope frame. Director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and the great actor Takashi Shimura, who all contributed so much to the original "Gojira" film in 1954, here bring their talents together again, with highly entertaining results, and American actor Nick Adams does his best playing Dr. James Bowen, a scientist working at the Hiroshima International Institute of Radiotherapentics (sic). The picture offers several striking visuals, none perhaps as impressive as the awesome spectacle of Franky and Baragon going at it with a flaming forest as a backdrop. The pristine-looking DVD from Media Blasters that I just watched offers both the "international" and the "theatrical" versions of the film, which differ only in the final five minutes. I much prefer the "international," if only because we get to see Franky (ridiculously) battle yet another monster in it. Either version, however, should provide an evening's worth of good mindless fun.
