Godzilla Reviewed (2021)

By Steve Hutchison

Horror critic Steve Hutchison analyzes the first 37 Godzilla movies, spanning 67 years with 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong. Have you seen them all?

Each article includes a synopsis, five different ratings, and a review.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998881871

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

Book preview

BrandsOfTerror2021_GodzillaReviewed_Cover.jpg

Tales of Terror’s

Godzilla Reviewed

2021

Horror critic Steve Hutchison analyzes the first 37 Godzilla movies, spanning 67 years with 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Have you seen them all?

Each article includes a synopsis, five different ratings, and a review.

Godzilla

1954

Japan is attacked by a large irradiated sea creature from the Jurassic era.

It doesn’t take long for Godzilla, in all his SFX glory, to show up. The trick, here, is that the dinosaur is nothing else than a man in a rubber suit destroying miniature sets. The film doesn’t use excessive filler, though it sporadically indulges in its procedural for budget’s sake. It gets over-explanatory at times, but the visuals are worth the wait. Great build-up and suspense get us there.

As much as you’ll probably wish this movie was almost exclusively about a giant monster, we’re also following scientists and the military in their work and personal lives, which doesn’t exactly tie in nicely with the main plot and a threat the size of twenty T-rex. The political side of things may eventually get the best of you. The protagonists are often cold crowds or the army; not individuals.

The photography and the audio merge into a hypnotic symphony. Its progressive structure is a beauty. You might notice symbolism and metaphors relating to history all the way through. Godzilla is the collateral product of the atomic bomb, or perhaps the hydrogen bomb, as stated in the film. He is the product of war and the definite horror icon of the scariest movie ever directed in man’s history.

Godzilla Raids Again

1955

Two irradiated dinosaurs fight each other on the shores of a Japanese city.

On one side, you’ve got a giant monster invading Japan; on the other Japanese government officials talking scientific gibberish and helping in no way the evolution of the plot. Godzilla Raids Again uses a format similar to the original, re-introducing a romantic side story for us to care from a human perspective, considering the rest of the film is cold, distant, and deliciously apocalyptic.

As was the case in the