“Two Unbalanced Tales”: Two essential episodes of Ultra Q
by Tyler Miller
2020 has been a wild year. It's been the year
of COVID and pure madness. But while the world is filled with despair and the
dread of the unknown, the arts have been a welcomed escape. One of the
brightest lights of hope has been movie communities and the friendships formed
from them. When I heard Richard was planning a third Asian horror-themed month,
I knew I had to get in on the action. So dear reader, follow me on a journey to
an “outside the box” entry in Japanese horror.
Released in 1966, Ultra Q was a massive hit for television and its influence is very
much a part of J Horror’s history. The series was originally dreamed up (or
maybe it was a nightmare) by writer Tetsuo Kinjio, who wanted to show strange tales of
the supernatural. The original title was going to be “Unbalanced” to showcase
the everyday reality being thrown into a loop. Special effects wizard Eiji
Tsuburaya had just started his own production company, Tsuburaya Productions,
and the show was a lovely fit for bringing monsters and sci-fi weirdness to the
small screen.
Tsuburaya and his company would bring their
iconic special effects to TV, giving viewers something like a mini-Godzilla
movie every week. Shot in moody Black and white, Ultra Q has a cinematic look.
The camerawork is inventive, the lighting is atmospheric, and many of Toho’s
key actors and bit players would have regular roles in the series. The real
star of the series would be all the bonkers monster designs. The first episode
released, “Defeat Gomess!”, even features a reused and repainted Godzilla suit.
The show’s success soon led to a spinoff show called Ultraman and monster
history was born.
Some of the series fans would soon start
working in the fields of film, television, and anime. The influence on the
works of Hideaki Anno, Shusuke Kaneko, and Shinya Tsukamoto is crystal clear.
Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) has
some shots that would feel right at home within Tsuburaya and crew, especially
if they wanted to get more bloodthirsty. Tetsuo even has a chilling opening
that feels like one of the pre-credits scenes in “Baron Spider” or "Goro and
Goroh”.
The show revolves around the adventures of ace pilot and amateur sci-fi novelist Jun Manjome (Kenji Sahara), his flight partner Ippei (Yasuhiko Saijou), and Daily News reporter Yuriko (Hiroko Sakurai), who discover a strange news story. Some of the episodes would focus on other characters, but the trio would become the key adventurers. The series is now available on a gorgeous Blu-ray boxset from Mill Creek after a decade’s long legal battle with Thai film company Chaiyo Productions and it’s owner Sompote Sands. Now the series can be rediscovered by monster kids and fans of J-horror. So with Halloween around the corner, here are two must-see episodes of this black and white spooky wonder.
“Mammoth Flower” is the fourth episode in the series. It begins with a sidewalk being destroyed by a strange looking weed. The next day Jun and Ippei discover that the printing shop there visiting has been wrecked by a mysterious earthquake. But Ippei questions how the quake would just affect the building and not all of Tokyo itself. The two men bump into Yuriko, who is working on the earthquake story. The three of them soon discover that something odd is also happening at the nearby water side. Once there they discover that the same giant plant is loose in the water, it isn’t long until the plant starts to grown and uproot a nearby building.
This episode is a bit of an oddity. It doesn’t feature a humanoid monster, but instead a giant vampire plant. Characters even jokingly call it a plant Dracula. The whole episode is packed with style and haunting images of the giant plant with its tentacle like vines. The imagery is also familiar to Godzilla fans. Godzilla vs Biollante (1989) borrows many ideas and shots from this episode. Biollante’s story came from longtime kaiju fan Shinichiro Kobayashi, who also wrote a treatment for a episode of The Return of Ultraman, and screenwriter/ director Kazuki Ohmori. Both men wanted to make a unique and bizarre Godzilla movie. The borrowing of the off balanced plants in “Mammoth Flower” brought some truly gruesome ideas to Toho’s titan franchise.
The ninth episode in the series is one that is sure to please haunted house fans. “Baron Spider” begins with a giant spider attacking workers in a lighthouse. Jun and company are on their way to the scene of the story when they are stopped in the fog. With them is three other people, all of which are poetic and obsessed with the supernatural. Ippei and one of their guests falls into a lake nearby and almost catch their death from the cold. The six make their way to a house near the lighthouse and hope for help. They discover that the house is empty and covered in spiderwebs. It turns out that the house was owned by a crazy baron who was obsessed by spiders. He also lost his wife to the deadly bite from a wild spider. So now the house is cursed and the spider is hungry for blood.
"Baron Spider” is a visual tour de force. It’s my favorite episode of this iconic series and one that is sure to please horror fans. Feeling like a sister to Ishiro Honda’s Matango AKA Attack of the Mushroom People (1964), the whole episode is dripping with dread. Every shot is filled with smoke, spiderwebs, or moody shadows. The teleplay mixes elements from killer animal stories and ghost legends. It even turns into a slasher with the character being lost, coming into the mysterious house, drinking, and then being separated. Like Michael Myers in Halloween (1978), or Billy in Black Christmas (1974), The Baron spider creeps around and waits to strike. He is able to teleport and disappear from the scene. The spider’s design is simple but also chilling.
Ultra Q is one of the greatest horror/sci-fi Television series. While Ultraman is better known to Monster Kids, Ultra Q is a special first. Each episode is filled with wonder and life. Thanks to the wonders of DVD and Blu-ray this iconic series is now easier than ever to finally see. So pop some corn, turn off the lights, and let yourself be transported for 30 minutes into the unbalanced realm of dreams that is Ultra Q.
