Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Short description
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep follows Ryota, a young man who refuses to accept that his brother has gone missing at sea. He and two other teenagers take a boat to search for him, but a storm leaves them shipwrecked on Letchi Island, which turns out to be the base of a terrorist organization known as the Red Bamboo. The group has enslaved the people of nearby Infant Island and keeps a giant lobster, Ebirah, in the surrounding waters to deal with anyone who tries to flee. Discovering a sleeping Godzilla inside a cave on the island, the teenagers decide to wake him so he can take on the terrorists and free the captives.
The film was released in Japan in December 1966 and runs 87 minutes. It was directed by Jun Fukuda, the second of the eight features listed for him, arriving between College Champ and Son of Godzilla. Shinichi Sekizawa wrote the screenplay. The cast is led by Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno, Akihiko Hirata, Jun Tazaki, Hideo Sunazuka and Chōtarō Tōgin, with 28 credited performers and 43 credited crew members.
Worldwide box office came to about 3 million dollars. On IMDb the film holds 5.6 out of 10 from roughly 7,300 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.3 out of 10 from 234 votes, a smaller and somewhat more favourable sample. It belongs to Toho's Godzilla series and was produced by Toho with Tokyo Laboratory.
What's left behind the scenes
- This is the seventh Godzilla film, the fourth featuring Mothra, and the first to include Ebirah and a giant condor.
- In 1967, the film was remade by Americans and became approximately five minutes shorter. Some scenes were removed, dialogues were cut, and the subtitles were translated into English.
- The battle scenes in the ocean were filmed in a specially built water-filled pool.
- The film's slogan is, "There's one lobster you wouldn't want to order."
- In Japan, the film was seen in theaters by 3,450,000 viewers.
- In Germany, the film was released under the title "Frankenstein and the Monster from the Sea" (Frankenstein's monster was added to the plot).
- The giant condor Oocondor is a parody of the American film "The Giant Claw" (1957), which featured a titanic flying bird.
- The original title of the film was “Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Great Battle in the South Seas.”
- Initially, King Kong was supposed to be the main monster of the film, but Toho ultimately replaced him with Godzilla – a more famous cinematic monster of that time. However, the Kong costume had already been made, so it was later used in the film “Escape of King Kong” (1967). Nevertheless, the plot as a whole remained largely unchanged, so Godzilla behaves unusually here and is a positive character.
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