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The film goes like this. A scientist discovers a strange butterfly on an island. He sends some men to the island to capture him more specimens. While they are there, they here a roar and are killed by the rockslide. There are some mysterious Satanists or whatever who worship a huge monster known as Baradagi who is said to live in the nearby lake. They run around in these horrifying Kabuki drama devil masks and have strange ceremonies at a big, creepy statue. The scientist, Dr. Matsumoto and reporters Kenji and Yuriko go to the island to study the strange belief. A little boy runs into the forest after his dog and Kenji and Yuriko chase after the brat. They near the lake but then the actual monster appears out of the lake and attacks the village.
Next, the Japanese military is dispatched to the sight. They shoot missiles and cannon shells into the lake and succeed getting the monster out. The thing destroys the army's weaponry and then actually flies away like a flying squirrel via membranes on his arms and legs. Next the thing begins swimming toward Japan. It is spotted by fishermen. The Japanese navy is employed to destroy it but it doesn't do much good either. Finally, the monster swims ashore in Tokyo and causes much destruction. However, the monster is revealed to be attracted to flares. Thus, flares are launched with explosives in them. The monster eats the flares and blows up.
Though this is ignored by pretty much every Japanese film critic, this is one really nice film! It is in B&W, but it wasn't their fault. It originally was an ABC-TV/Japanese co-production (just like The Last Dinosaur and The Bermuda Depths) but ABC-TV backed out after the film was completed. It was originally shot in academy ratio and B&W, so it had to be made into Tohoscope. It is a mighty entertaining film. It has some great destruction scenes and Akira Ifukube does such a good job with the score. The American version (Varan, the Unbelievable) is so horrible I would give it *. The monster is hard to see, the film is HORRIFICLY panned and scanned and at least half of the film is cheep, stupid scenes of Myron Healy and his Japanese wife (Tsuruko Kobayashi). Get the Widescreen Japanese version with subtitles and aviod the American version at all cost.
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