Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, released in Japan as Godzilla Ebirah Mothra: Nankai no Daikettō (ゴジラ・エビラ・モスラ 南海の大決闘, lit. "Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Sea"), is a 1966 Toho tokusatsu film and the seventh Godzilla film, directed by Jun Fukuda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and Sadamasa Arikawa. The movie is also known by its International English title, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. It was the first Godzilla film since Godzilla Raids Again not directed by Ishiro Honda and shows a turn toward a more action-adventure approach to the Godzilla films instead of Honda's customary science-fiction approach. Set mostly on a tropical island, the film also required fewer miniatures and therefore had a lower budget than the previous Godzilla films.
Plot
After his brother Yata is lost at sea, young Ryota steals a yacht with his two friends and a bank robber. This motley crew runs afoul of sea monster Ebirah, and washes up on the shore of Devil's Island, where a terrorist organization manufactures heavy water for their nefarious purposes, as well as a chemical that keeps Ebirah at bay. The organization, Red Bamboo, has enslaved natives from Infant Island to help them, but the natives hope to awaken a dormant Mothra to rescue them. In their efforts to avoid capture, Ryota and his friends, aided by the beautiful native girl Daiyo, stumble across a sleeping Godzilla within a cliffside cavern. The group formulates a plan to defeat the Red Bamboo and escape from the island. In the process, they wake Godzilla using a lightning rod, retrieve the missing Yata, and free the enslaved natives. Godzilla defeats Ebirah, and everyone is freed.
Trivia
- The film originally didn't involve Godzilla, but was meant for King Kong. That explains why Godzilla was revived by lightning and why the opposing kaiju in the film have no special abilities.