While Varan is undoubtfully one of my favorite monsters of the Showa era, his movie is kind of a swing and a miss. There are times that it's really good, then there are those moments that make you cringe.
Varan The Unbelievable begins with two members of a university being mysteriously killed in a landslide by an unknown (Varan) creature. A search team consisting with our two leads Kenji and Yuriko are sent to the remote Japanese region of Tohoku where the men were killed. They come across a village of people who worship a lake God called Baradagi, and it was he who killed the men. Kenji was adamant to believe such a creature exists, but soon enough the creature, Varan, made his presence known.
I adored the premise of this film, but I felt that it fell short in acting. The acting at many times was quite cheesy and laughable. The redeeming factors were Tsuburaya's special effects, and Akira Ifukube's familiar scoring. I thought that this film had one of his best scores in all of the Showa series. It isn't as upbeat and pumping as many of his Godzilla themes, but it's more subtle and haunting at times. The opening piece utilizes Rodan's theme with an ominous chorus, which was pulled off quite well. It's still stuck in my head!
Varan may not be the greatest of Toho's non-Godzilla films, but I liked it despite its low points. It's definitely a film that begs for a remake. It's a shame that besides this film and his brief cameo in Destroy All Monsters, Varan never appears in anything else, spare Atari's Godzilla: Unleashed video game. That's kind of what makes him a favorite of mine. He's just so obscure!
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