Yongary, Monster from the Deep

1967 monster movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Yongary, a monster from the deep, is awakened and goes on a rampage, inspiring a video game with the same name. Rampage. The South Korean people do their best impression of scared Japanese people and flee before trying to fight the thing with toy tanks. [SPOILER ALERT!] And itching powder.

I thought I'd go ahead and make it a trifecta of Korean monster movies since nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit more than Korean monster movies. This baby's from South Korean, and nobody, as far as I know, was kidnapped and ordered to make this movie. Nope, somebody made Yongary on his own which, in a way, is even sadder. This is a really cheap production, presumably because South Korea is poor. I can understand a production company not being able to afford a real rocket, or even a realistic rocket, but to not be able to afford a real sky? The miniatures in this are charming. My favorite thing about those is how there are some things that don't even need to be fake that for some reason still are. I guess they wanted everything to look fake. I'm not sure which is worse actually--the miniatures or the big lizard. Actually, maybe things are really made like that in South Korea, so I'm not even sure I can knock the miniatures, but that Yongary needs to eat more. He's very rubbery and way too skinny and for most for the majority of the movie, he shows no personality at all. Until a scene where he starts dancing that is. I'm not sure what's going on there. I'm also not real sure what was going on with the editing in some of these scenes. There's one where you see a blue jeep driving along and then it cuts to one of the passengers making a face. Then, you hear a screeching tire sound before the vehicle makes a fiery tumble down a cliff. And then you hear the screeching tire sound again. Another weird scene--at about the 51 minute mark a character says his line twice, almost like they cut and reshot that part and forgot to remove one of them. I can forgive all that though, especially since I knew exactly what I was getting into with an especially cheap rubber monster movie. What I can't forgive is the child actor in this one, a kid who had me screaming at my screen, "C'mon, Yongary! Get him! Get that little bastard!" I don't have any tolerance when it comes to bad child acting anyway, but this kid was especially unpleasant. Also bothersome [SPOILER ALERT!]: a ridiculous and silly ending in which itching powder of all things does the monster from the deep in. Itching powder? Come on! Not only itching powder though. No, this is itching powder that apparently leads to rectal bleeding. Oh, well. At least it made the kid sad for a while. Not long though because he was back to grinning like a moron a few seconds later. I would have liked to have seen more of the filthy "Repent, you sinners!" guy, by the way. If there's a sequel to this silliness, he should be given a more prominent role.