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Varan (1958)

★½ — Varan (1958)

Varan arrived two years after Rodan (1956) and sits squarely in the middle of Ishirō Honda's run of kaiju pictures for Toho, sandwiched between those early genre landmarks and the more polished efforts of the 1960s. Honda, already the reliable architect of Toho's monster formula, was working in a Japan still processing the anxieties of the post-war decade, and the studio was by this point treating the giant-monster genre as a dependable commercial pipeline rather than a prestige enterprise. The film had an unusual secondary life: an American version, retitled Varan the Unbelievable, was released in 1962 with new footage shot separately and spliced in, effectively turning it into a different film with a different lead cast and a storyline substantially rewritten around US military involvement.

Varan the Unbelievable (1958) is one of those Toho kaiju films that feels less like a proper movie and more like a prototype they forgot to finish. You’ve got your standard post-nuclear monster, this time a giant, lizard-like beast with wings that sort of let it glide (but not really fly), waking up from centuries underground to stomp on villages and confuse the JSDF. It’s all very familiar: panicked scientists, military brass yelling into radios, civilians running in slow motion. The formula was already getting stale by this point, and Varan doesn’t do anything new to save it. The creature design is a bit goofy (a cross between a crocodile and a flying squirrel) and the suit looks even clunkier than usual. The infamous gliding scenes are just the actor on wires, jerking awkwardly across miniature sets, which kills any sense of menace. There’s zero personality to Varan himself, he’s not angry, not tragic, not even particularly scary. Just… there. It’s not evil, but it’s dull. Even for fans of vintage suitmation nonsense, this one’s a slog. No real action, no memorable characters, and nothing close to the weight of the original Godzilla or even the fun of Rodan. A dated, forgettable clone in a growing pile of them. Watch it if you’re doing a full Toho marathon and need something to nap through. Otherwise, skip it. Varan can stay unbelievable.

Rating: ★½ | Year: 1958 | Watched: 2025-10-30

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Where to watch (US)

Stream: Criterion Channel
Physical: Amazon UK

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