G wasn’t a particularly hard letter. Just been a ridiculous couple of days for me. Luckily there are a few less letters in the alphabet than there are days in October. So I have a little wiggle room. Although I hadn’t planned on wiggling. To paraphrase a known quote: Man plans, the gods laugh. And speaking of gods, it has nothing to do with the first movie I am mentioning here (but I can see the picture for the second one, and spoiler alert, it may be relevant there.)

When it comes to opening scenes in a movie, few can compare to Deadpool & Wolverine. I truly think it is the best opening credit sequence ever. And I know, you are saying “There isn’t a G anywhere in that title, plus we see the picture you posted!” (In my defense, I had temporarily forgotten about the picture, it scrolled up when I started typing.) Speaking of that picture though. I love the skull overlay. A little less enthused by the “Sea Evil” tag line. But then I also thought how funny would it have been to have the Love Boat song playing at the start. Just instrumental, not full blown theme song.

Back to the opening scene though. Certainly a surprise. If you haven’t seen it, don’t blame me for spoiling it. It’s been out for over 20 years now! How long is the moratorium?

Starting out we have a party on the deck of a ship. Dancing and drinking and just in general people having a good time. Until a cable mishap occurs and the entire party is killed. Sliced in half. In a second without any notice. One sole survivor, a little girl who was short enough to be under the wire. But she is left standing in the middle of 30 + dead people. Maybe more, maybe less. I didn’t count.

But the cast of this. Man oh man. Desmond Harrington ,”Quinn” from Dexter! Gabriel Byrne is the captain of a salvage tug boat. Juliana Margulies. Isaiah Washington. And a young Karl Urban a decade before he donned the Judge Dredd helmet and almost 20 years before he decided to take on the biggest super hero team after the Justice League and the Avengers. Long hair and facial scruff makes him hard to recognize.

Part of what makes this such a good movie in my eyes is that the first half of it isn’t a horror movie. The characters are going out to salvage a ship. Plain and simple. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see how you could possibly board a derelict ship and not be creeped out. But it is their job, so I guess they are just used to it. And once things take a turn. Oh man.

There’s even a two second cut scene where we see a little girl dancing that is very reminiscent of Abigail dancing in the eponymous film. And there are a couple moments that pay homage to what came before. Munder and Dodge eating what turns out to be maggots is a throwback to Lost Boys. And when Greer is on the dance floor that comes back to life, it feels a lot like the bar scene in the Shining. Even with Greer being tempted much like Jack was by the ghost in the bathtub.

It feels like it has been awhile since a ghost movie was done this well.

Moving to the subtitled entry, I had actually thought about cheating on this one. The Grudge is a really good movie, but technically the title of the Japanese original is Ju-On: The Grudge. And honestly had I not gotten behind, I may have been more willing to engage in the whimsy of that path. Instead we have a more traditional entry.

Not “thought he was dead” only to have him come back in the sequel. Actual dead. They used a weapon on him that completely destroyed all flesh on him, leaving behind nothing more than a pile of bones. The second movie was his brother. Given the same name though.

In rewatching it though, I was surprised at how well done the practical effects were for the fifties. Don’t get me wrong, you can tell they are little boats in a tank of water, and you can easily tell the cars that crash during the fight are toys. But when the man in the suit is rampaging through the model city, it is pretty well done. While this era is known for the frequent use of the trope of radiation creating giant monsters, there really hadn’t been too terribly many of them prior to Godzilla. And almost half of those that had existed were King Kong!

There have been different eras of Godzilla. Each one a pseudo reboot. Not a full reboot, they all keep the original as the origin story.

I am behind on the new Monsterverse series where Kong and Godzilla are stars in a buddy cop world reboot. Its on my list of things to watch.

I’m sure there are very few people in the world not familiar with the character of Godzilla. But if you haven’t watched the original, it’s worth taking 90 minutes out of your life to reacquaint yourself with it.