A salvage vessle is nearly sunk off the Irish coast by an undersea earthquake. A few nights later, a walking sea monster tangles with the fishing boats and enters the town. The salvage vessel captures Gorgo and takes it to London for display. Gorgo's mother, who is upset and significantly larger follows his trail to London leaving a wake of destruction in her path. Greedy sailors capture a giant lizard off the coast of Ireland and sell it to a London circus. Then its mother shows up. The British must have been really jealous of the legendary Japanese monster Godzilla destroying the city of Tokyo, as they insisted on having their very one mega-giant critter destroying the city of London. The result is Gorgo, a charming and easily aggravated sea lizard of Irish descent with adorable bright red eyes. The film opens with a diving expedition witnessing an underwater volcano eruption in the middle of the ocean. The impressive ecological phenomenon brings a lot of fake and inexistent species of rubber fish to the surface, but also awakens the bad-tempered sea monster Gorgo. See, Gorgo is a really cool monstrosity that doesn't waste any time and that's something horror fans will definitely always appreciate. Unlike most monsters in the film industry, Gorgo doesn't start by picking off sole victims somewhere in the middle of the sea; it promptly attacks entire seaside villages at one. That way, there are witnesses aplenty and the few hysterical survivors don't have to waste half of the script trying to convince the authorities about what they saw. Greedy fishermen catch the prehistoric critter and sell him/her/it to a sleazy circus owner in London. But then, and inevitably, it turns out that they only just captured Gorgo Junior, and mommy obviously doesn't like that her baby is downgraded to being a circus freak. "Gorgo" isn't a great or even highly memorable monster classic, but at least it's never boring. The titular monster is pretty cool, the special effects are reasonably astonishing considering the time of release and there are a few admirable attempts to generate sequences of mass hysteria and mayhem. The majority of miniature sets are delightful and let's not forget the various and hilarious use of stock footage! Military battleships and U-boats are firing off artillery into the open water and Gorgo isn't anywhere near the point of impact. The rampage through London itself is not as overwhelming as the aforementioned Godzilla crushing down Tokyo, but it's nice and exhilarating to look at nonetheless. Recommended if you have a soft spot for late 50's/early 60's ecological monster movies. I do so remember seeing Gorgo in the theater when I was only 13. That's the place it should be seen on a full theater screen. Then you get the full impact of the terror he's spreading around London.<br/><br/>A tramp freighter captained by Bill Travers puts in to a small port on the island of Nara off the Irish coast. As that name sounds Japanese it should have given someone a hint. Volcanic activity at the bottom of the Atlantic has torn the ocean bottom open and this prehistoric monster emerges. The Irish government claims it for research, but after Travers captures it he sells it to Martin Benson's circus in London at Battersea Park.<br/><br/>British scientists say that this guy is just a baby and that must mean some adults are around. Sure enough a 200 foot high version of Godzilla's Atlantic cousin starts looking for her youngster and there ain't nothing stopping her from getting her child. <br/><br/>This was as good as I remember it and Gorgo has a nice moral to it about letting sleeping dogs and monsters lie and that man isn't all powerful. I was impressed by the performance of Vincent Winter who plays a young Irish orphan kid who attachs himself to Travers. Winters comes across as a real kid and his performance was quite touching.<br/><br/>I'll bet even with the advances in mankind's weaponry we'd still have big problems with Mama Gorgo today if she was on that same mission, looking for her child.
Eileazyko replied
363 weeks ago