The Cinematheque

“[A] return to [Honda’s] more serious horror roots, crafting one of the franchise’s darkest entries to date … Honda instills a real sense of dread and danger into every frame of Terror of Mechagodzilla.”

Graham Skipper, Godzilla: The Official Guide

“In Godzilla’s last gasp of the Showa era, aliens retrieve Mechagodzilla’s remains and rebuild it with the aid of an unhinged biologist (a scenery-chewing Hirata Akihiko), in hopes of defeating Godzilla for possession of planet Earth. This film marked the return of director Honda Ishiro, who had retired years earlier, disheartened by the increasingly kid-friendly approach of the series. For this final entry, Honda steers the King of the Monsters back into grim territory, interweaving an alien-invasion plot with a tale of tragic romance” (Janus Films). Despite strong notices and an enthusiastic response to Honda’s homecoming, Terror of Mechagodzilla was a flop, substantiating Toho’s fears that the kaiju eiga had fallen out of vogue. The series was put on hiatus and laid dormant for nearly a decade. Honda, meanwhile, reunited with friend and former collaborator Kurosawa Akira to work on the auteur’s final suite of films.

In Japanese with English subtitles