THE GUYVER (1991): A Movie at War with Itself
In 1990, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie became the most successful independent movie of all time. It would hold onto this honour until 1999’s The Blair Witch Project stole the crown. The turtles...
Mighty Gamin’ Power Rangers
The super Nintendo is truly the perfect retro console. The sprites and the capabilities of the system allow GOOD games to attain a timeless quality. Sprite art ages better than many of the early...
Kaiju Con-Line
The virus is for now here to stay and with that all of the common summer hobbies we’ve all grown to love have been completely altered. One of the biggest life changes for us...
The Absurd Punk Energy of PSYCHO GOREMAN (2020)
Tokusatsu has a wide influence and it is never more clear how wide-reaching it is than when you see a film like Psycho Goreman (2020). It is a love letter to the inventiveness found...
NOTZILLA (2019): King of the Kaiju Spoofs
Kaiju parody has been done a lot. Whether it is minor snippets of other spoof movies such as the truly dreadful ‘Spermzilla’ from Chillerama or the lovingly-crafted works of Minoru Kawasaki, their effectiveness varies...
Toku Tuesday: Ultramega Issue #1
Par for the course, whenever I make a list of upcoming material I always miss something. In this case I literally missed a GODZILLA comic, which is nigh heresy on my part, however the...
The Weird World of Kongsploitation: From 1933 to 2020
This week for Toku Tuesday we are delving into a truly bizarre subgenre in the world of giant monsters, Kongsploitation. This is a subgenre of a subgenre since Man-in-a-Gorilla-Suit is a subgenre all of...
Monster Madness
Thrifting is one of my favourite pastimes. Specifically when it comes to looking for books. Spending hours in some dusty basement of a store filled to the brim with books from yesteryear. This is...
Ultraman By Way of Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike is one of Japan's most prolific directors. At the age of 60, he has donned the director cap 104 times. In North America, the work he is mainly known for is his...
Canada’s Kaiju: An Exploration of the Great White North’s History of Giant Monsters
Canada is the second largest country in the world, as such if giant creatures were to exist you'd expect for at least a few of them to show up in Canada. As Canada Day...
Reevaluating Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters
In the realm of Kaiju fandom, there is a lot of stigma and critical assumptions you have to combat. People write off the films because they have appeared on various Riff shows like Mystery...
The Terror-ibleness of Tentacles (1977)
Tentacles (1977) is truly terrible. The kind of terrible that only comes from attempting to shamelessly ripoff another more popular movie. The movie in question here is clearly trying to ripoff Jaws (1975). Now the...
Exploring Eugene Lourie’s The Giant Behemoth (1959)
The Giant Behemoth (1959) is the third giant monster flick by filmmaker Eugene Lourie. Lourie is much more well known for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) which inspired the original Godzilla (1954) and...
Toku Tuesday: Project Nemesis, the Series
In the past we discussed the comic adaptation of Jeremy Robinson's novel Project Nemesis, this week we're discussing the series as a whole. Lasting five books with one prequel novel Project Nemesis is a...
Toku Forgiveness
One of the greatest recurring themes in Tokusatsu is the act of forgiving oneself after contemplating your own actions or upon discovering a sin you never knew you were being complicit in. Various Ultra...
Introducing ‘Toku Tuesdays’ with Kamen Rider J (1994)
Tokusatsu, in its simplest explanation, is a Japanese special effects film. In the west, the most well known Tokusatsu franchise is easily Godzilla. The giant nuclear monster gets the majority of screentime and conversation....