Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Originally reviewed on 8/26/23.

Poster showing Godzilla fighting with Anguirus, an anklyosaur monster, as humans look on in horror.

Tone is already shifted from the seriousness of the original. Surprised at just how fast the monsters showed up, they weren't messing around... Mostly. At a certain point it became all human plot with little goji, but my attention was held at least.

I feel like the values and contrast were a bit muddy at the start but they got better at the end. And I'm watching the criterion collection on a TV that had the original film looking great, so I don't think its a me and my brightness and gama whatever problem.

For the monster action, it was interesting to see how this first death match went. They kinda felt more like territorial animals than in other films. Surprised at how fast the fight was ended too. This wasn't yet a monster fight movie, but a monster movie where there briefly is a fight between the monsters, y'know?

They didn't quite know what to do with it yet, not giving it the spotlight or any spectacular highlighting. They also didn't know that slow makes things feel bigger, even speeding up some of the fight footage for some reason.

And man. They sure did put in some effort to bring that avalanche down. There was just, so much shooting at snow. A real uphill battle.

★★★☆☆