Death Kappa

I had at least expected the movie to at least have some sense of entertainment value, after all it does focus on one of the more famous of Japanese creatures in mythology.

Or at least, one would think that. But this movie quickly lost track of what it started out as and went into a full-blown "Godzilla" rip-off.

Nothing in the movie made sense, and I hope that the movie was meant to be a spoof, because everything in the movie was just fundamentally bad. From the creature costume, which clearly was just a badly made suit, to the fake model tanks, buildings and airplanes. And the airplanes and helicopters were held up with clearly visibly strings. And the big monster was also just a man in a horribly fake costume.

The special effects were as bad as the actual storyline, and it just quickly became painful to witness on the screen.

I gave up 20 minutes before the movie ended. I just couldn't suffer through a single minute more of the ordeal that is "Death Kappa".

So I'm going to be writing a list article about weird monster movies in a couple of days. I've already seen a bunch, but for "research," I feel compelled to watch more (these are the kind of movies I'd probably watch either way, to be honest).

Death Kappa was at the top of my shortlist. This is mainly due to it being called "Death Kappa." I can't really resist a movie when it's called "Death Kappa."

It basically feels like a homage/parody of old-school giant monster movies, though the titular monster is the only monster in it for a while, and so there aren't even any giant monsters for like the first 2/3s of the movie. But that's okay. It means he can get in hand-to-hand fights with the human bad guys in the first half, some of whom wield samurai swords. It's that kind of movie.

The plot? Uh... there's a young woman who has some sort of connection to a kappa monster, who lives in a lake, and is super ugly, but he also has a good heart and wants to protect her. He saves her from some bad guys. Then another more evil monster (who's big) starts attacking a city. From there, it feels like a more comedic take on a giant monster movie.

I don't know if this is even good, but I had fun throughout. I was trying to do some push-ups while watching it (exercise and movie-watching: killing two birds with one stone), and for the most part, I couldn't, because I was laughing too hard at many of the scenes. There's a song that gets played a couple of times, and the ridiculous lyrics (at least from the translated English subtitles) are amazing.

Death Kappa is absolutely an acquired taste, but I think I'm the target audience, so I liked it. I don't know who else I could recommend it to, though.

If viewed as a loving tribute to Showa Era Godzilla movies, it's not that bad. But it's horrible dubbing and cheap special effects (some of which are even subpar by Showa standards) hamper it alot. If you grew up like I did and loved the Showa Era movies then you probably would enjoy the movie.

After seeing the trailer I was stoked at a chance to see Death Kappa. I was looking forward to a fun B-movie. Unfortunately, Death Kappa gives B- movies a bad name. The problem isn't in the content. The problem is in the directing, acting, editing and cinematography, to name a few. Death Kappa's over stylized shots don't flow well and really drive the film into the ground. The Movie also contains possibly the most annoying song ever used in a film which painfully repeats throughout. I would compare Death Kappa to a bad episode of Power Rangers as far as over all feel, but thats being generous. Iv'e seen much better movies at community college film screenings.

I am a fan of even the lowliest of Kaiju movies...if you build a monster, I will come.

But this is just the worst. It is a non-stop goof-fest of silly songs, cutely dancing goblins that look like they were invented for a McDonald's commercial and a nemesis monster that can't even seem to move properly. Not even the 90s Mothra movies were this childish, and I swear that some of the horrible American voice-overs are the same actors from those films, hamming it up one more time at our expense.

At times the movie tries to seem like a spoof of Kaiju movies, but it can't even do that properly. The guys at MSTK3000 need to come back for this one, if only because I need to get a laugh or something out of having watched it. Thanks for reading. I will now go cut out my eyes, douse them in gasoline and set them on fire.