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Destroy All Planets

Aliens seize Earth’s friendliest monster — the flying, fire-breathing turtle Gamera — and two boy scouts have to talk him free before a giant squid-thing named Viras finishes the job. Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 Daiei kaiju picture is the fourth Gamera film, made when the series had fully become a kids’ matinee: child heroes, a flying saucer, mind control, and monster wrestling in color. Originally titled Gamera vs. Viras, American International Television retitled it Destroy All Planets for U.S. syndication in 1970, hoping to ride Toho’s Destroy All Monsters. Yuasa, the house director of Gamera’s Showa years, keeps the suitmation earnest and the sky busy. Cheap, cheerful, and proudly ridiculous — the turtle versus the cosmos.

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