Godzilla Kaiju Popularity Overview And The New Monster General Election

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Recently on our YouTube page, I ranked the kaiju in Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot (Ranking The Kaiju, Robots And Seijin In Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot)as I had done for the Gamera series a while ago. For a little while now, I have been planning on ranking the Godzilla series kaiju, but since Godzilla as an IP has an extraordinary amount of kaiju compared to Gamera, Kong, Giant Robo, or one season of Ultraman even put together, I knew I would have to approach it in a different way. I realized I would be better off grouping the kaiju in subdivisions for the rankings based on more objective metrics.

 

But I had other projects I wanted to work on first. Toho, in some ways, has forced my hand with the New Monster General Election that already has the fanbase in a state of frenzy. If you are unaware, for the past few years, every Godzilla Day (November 3rd) Toho has released a tokusatsu short featuring refurbished suits and puppets usually including a kaiju battle. I have loved watching these, and others in the fandom share this sentiment. The original wave of these reached their climax with the Godzilla from Final Wars teaming up with a Jet Jaguar with Gigan claws to defeat the King Ghidorah from GMK, and that series is no longer available on YouTube, but the relaunch started with a refurbished Godzilla 2000 suit rampaging and attaining a Burning form. That video is still up, and the ending teased that another monster would arrive through the smoke and fog to fight Godzilla next (now this) year. 

 

Monster X, a Ghidorah variant from Godzilla Final Wars (2004), has been confirmed to be the first opponent for Burning G2K, but Toho has more ambitious plans for next year’s short. The New Monster General Election features eight sketches of monsters that the general public can vote on, and the winner will fight Godzilla. It is still technically unclear if next year’s short will be live action tokusatsu in this new series or something akin to Gemstone’s animated specials Godzilla vs Gigan Rex and Godzilla vs Megalon, but I really want these new designs immortalized in suitmation.

 

 

With this new marketing campaign from Toho, the Godzilla fanbase is excited but puzzled. I have heard wild speculation that Toho’s larger plans for these new eight kaiju to appear in a new Ultraman style show no matter who wins the election, and furthermore the topic on everybody’s mind is that somehow the winner will get an immediate boost to the top of franchise importance, rising to place alongside the Big Five (Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Rodan) in Toho’s in-house productions. I find that part, at least, unlikely, but it serves as a fair segue into my approach for ranking the Godzilla series. This article will explore the concept of Toho’s Big Five and beyond as well as the limitations of such a schema to more effectively introduce these new eight upstarts.

 

Last year, I tried to use Toho’s Big Five to frame discussion of Gamera’s costars (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/09/who-are-big-five-kaiju-in-gamera.html). I was able to mostly map a one-to-one comparison, but the entire premise needed some disclaimers that I should reproduce here. Ostensibly, the objective measure for the Big Five is box office appeals in Toho’s filmography. This was purposeful and helped return on investment in the Heisei and Millennium films after the films with new kaiju underperformed. Consequently, it resulted in a larger market share in popular culture, which translated into numerous mainline appearances, merchandise, other ancillary media and outside references in pop culture. As I explained, that means that it is really a Big 7 that adds in Kong and a child for Godzilla (which meant that I could include Daimajin and nonspecific baby kaiju for Gamera’s Big 5 but actually 7), but the current anthology approach to kaiju storytelling in the East means that the Reiwa Era is not likely to have a Big 5 that actually interacts with each other. Furthermore, the box office disappointment of Godzilla King of The Monsters and extenuating Covid circumstances of Godzilla vs Kong means that, by box office, the Monsterverse box office positions Godzilla, Kong, Mothra and nebulous swappable villainous doppelganger (Mechagodzilla, Skar King, Shimo, Spacegodzilla) as its Big Four.

 

The Big Five as a concept only really made sense in the decade between Godzilla: Final Wars and Godzilla 2014. That is the only time in history that those 5 uniquely were set aside for their “prophesied importance.” When the original films were coming out in the 60s and 70s, there certainly was a drive to revisit Rodan, Mothra, Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla in Godzilla sequels, but Gigan also got an immediate follow-up, as was also initially planned for King Kong and Hedorah. The Heisei series only relied on Ghidorah, Mothra and eventually Mechagodzilla and Rodan when Toho lost money introducing new kaiju, and Anguirus almost made it into what eventually became Godzilla vs Destoroyah while a different son of Godzilla than Minya also existed. The Millennium series, as the third time for Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla and Rodan, finally set the pattern that The Big Five were the only Godzilla kaiju to reappear in every era (even if Mechagodzilla and King Ghidorah were excised to elseworlds continuities from each other). With Godzilla Final Wars as the end of the franchise and Godzilla 2014 a surprising new beginning, that 10 years codified the Big Five as a group that we expected to see in any sequels to G14. The issue is that announcing Godzilla vs Kong kind of screwed with things on that front as Kong has always had more marquee value than the other four of the Big Five, and his remakes, though divorced from Godzilla, also mapped closely enough on to the Showa, Heisei and Millennium Series. 

 

 

Secondly, you may also notice that the order of that Big Five kept changing, pushing Rodan further and further down essentially. Though of the KOTM crew, Rodan was the only survivor, he only reappeared after Ghidorah’s corpse created Mechagodzilla, Mothra was reborn to help Godzilla and Kong and the new Titan X grounded a whole season of television. Rodan may very well be the central kaiju in season 3 of Monarch Legacy of the Monsters or the Cold War themed spinoff, as he was arguably the main kaiju in Godzilla Singular Point, but he is also the only one in the Big Five that has not appeared outside of an offscreen fridging with Anguirus in a recap section (Planet of the Monsters) in a Japanese feature film since 2004. Ranking the kaiju by importance honestly is difficult because Rodan has this spot no matter what, unless Toho does restructure to include the election winner.

 

Mothra has not appeared in the flesh since then outside of the Monsterverse, but the same trilogy that reduced Rodan to a generic Pteranodon corpse kept her spirit as a central Deus ex machina. Still, there is a valid argument that Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla may be surpassing Mothra overall, and even so, the recent confirmation of Ghidorah’s role in Godzilla Minus Zero, produces an interesting dialectic in regards to his overuse. 

 

Ghidorah is the most overused antagonist, appearing directly in Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs Monster Zero, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, Rebirth of Mothra, Rebirth of Mothra 3, GMK, Godzilla Final Wars, Godzilla: The Planet Eater, Godzilla King Of The Monsters, and Godzilla Minus Zero with ample stock footage cameos and multimedia presence (Godzilla vs Evangelion, Godzilla The Ride, etc.). These appearances all fall into a variety of contextual subsets based on if Ghidorah is in control of his own mental faculties, if he is from outer space or not, if he is King Ghidorah or a different type, etc. to the point it is simultaneously true that both the Monsterverse and Reiwa had a Ghidorah within a year of each other and that the last time Godzilla fought a villainous King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1991 (last time Godzilla fought a villainous extraterrestrial King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1972). There is equal parts hunger for and fatigue of Ghidorah’s role as Godzilla’s eternal archenemy.

 

 

Mechagodzilla has the most unambiguous universal appeal/significance. “X vs Mecha-X” is a trope bordering on cliche at this point, and Mechagodzilla himself somehow made it into Ready Player One’s film without Godzilla (or Ultraman who Mechagodzilla fought in the book). Mechagodzilla has also made similar strides to what I pointed out for Viras in my Gamera Big Five video. Mechagodzilla was the last straight up villain and second to last antagonist to Godzilla introduced in the Showa series, and still came after Ghidorah in sequence in the Heisei, Millennium and Monsterverse series. Godzilla’s Reiwa series adapted Mechagodzilla before Ghidorah, and after Ghidorah and Rodan had to share Yamazaki’s first Godzilla the Ride, before Mothra has gotten any treatment from Yamazaki, Mechagodzilla gets the second Godzilla the Ride to himself to explore his fight against Godzilla. (This is especially significant because it took until 2002 for Mechagodzilla to be the only other kaiju/mech Godzilla interacted with in a film, and that has still only happened once since then.) Similarly, the first kaiju/mech to interact onscreen with both Godzilla and Kong was Gorosaurus, but the second one and first in an American film was Mechagodzilla, with Mothra next and Ghidorah and Rodan still not having achieved this. Despite making the least sense in the real world, a mechanical version of Godzilla has the smallest buy-in of any concept.

 

My own personal ranking based on enjoyment would be 1. Rodan, 2. Ghidorah, 3. Godzilla, 4. Mechagodzilla, 5. Mothra, but as I hope I have justified sufficiently, this is almost meaningless to say. If I do videos or later blog points following up on my Godzilla kaiju ranking, the most productive next step would be to rank the incarnations of each of the Big Five against each other, ranking the top 20 Ghidorahs for instance. And that should wait until after Minus Zero comes out for the sake of being thorough.

 

 

Expanding the Big Five into a Big 10 or Big 15 is something numerous people have tried to do, and I am still not sure that I have succeeded, but hear me out. Box office appeal is the primary metric for the Big Five, and so, logically movie attendance in Japan should be a consideration for expanding the Big Five, in which case the top 10 films are King Kong vs Godzilla (12.55 million), Godzilla 1954 (9.61 million), Godzilla Raids Again (8.34 million), Mothra vs Godzilla (7.20 million), Shin Godzilla (5.69 million), Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster (5.41 million), Invasion of Astro Monster (5.13 million), Godzilla Minus One (5.04 million), Ebirah: Horror of The Deep (4.21 million) and Godzilla vs Mothra 1992 (4.20 million) (https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/1o75xmh/godzilla_series_japanese_box_office_charts/). 

 

In addition to the Monsterverse’s US and international appeal, KKvsG’s top placement means we can certainly keep Kong in the 6th slot, and while this list keeps Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan pretty central, Anguirus’ debut film is in the top 3. I am hesitant to give Anguirus a slot here because he is not that popular in Japan (especially compared to Baragon, who, in turn, is less popular in the US), but he has been in as many films as Rodan and serves a similar role as “dinosaur inspired friend to Godzilla,” and he is the only one we can promote from this data. (For the American side of things, Anguirus has an almost cameo in the Monsterverse where a skeleton with his head appeared in Godzilla’s temple when it exploded, and Anguirus won the 2024 Toho Kingdom Hall of Fame vote, beating out Hedorah and Gigan.)

 

If we adjust and take out the films that only featured members of the Big Five, the top 10 films are KKvsG, Godzilla Raids Again, Ebirah Horror Of The Deep, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Son of Godzilla, GMK, Godzilla 2014, and Godzilla vs Biollante, but GvB is about the point where we are getting into box office disappointments. This list confirms my other suspicion that the Son of Godzilla character, be it named Minilla or Godzilla Junior, is important glue in the franchise, so the 7th place spot I have earmarked for him stays (Anguirus being number 8). Put a pin in Spacegodzilla, Destoroyah, and Biollante for a moment; it makes more sense to get back to them after another Toho Kingdom indulgence. In a poll from 2020 with over 100 votes as to which kaiju should be considered the next five in a Big 10, Anguirus earned first place with 22 votes, Gigan second place with 20, Minya 12 (but Godzilla Jr 3 so our combined Son of Godzilla archetype gets 15), then Baragon with 11, Destoroyah 8, Biollante 7, and that is enough for the sake of this discussion. 

 

 

Gigan is another strong contender for a Big 10. He first appeared prominently in a film featuring King Ghidorah (though low attendance overall, it is the highest attendance of the Champion Fest era of the Showa series) and then got a direct sequel (kind of) and multiple appearances on Zone Fighter. The addition of Godzilla and Gigan together into Jet Jaguar vs Megalon and Zone Fighter indicates that, at least of the available suits, Toho considered them the quintessential hero and villain…for at least one year in the 70s. Gigan was prominent in Godzilla Final Wars, but there was no Heisei appearance, and the other continuities of Gigan have been in expanded multimedia material similar to Viras in the Gamera series. Still, multiple creatives working on the Monsterverse have voiced desire to bring Gigan into the universe, and the various repaints of Gigan are carrying the Godziburst toyline on their back, so the number 9 spot going to Gigan seems fair to me.

 

On April 10th, 2021, there was a Japanese popularity ranking, surveying modern favorites in the franchise. With 5730 votes and a two-week survey period, this is the most objective of the sources I have brought into this investigation today. The top ten films according to a modern audience (which should thus influence a modern Big 10) were Shin Godzilla (914 votes), Godzilla 1954 (662 votes), Godzilla vs Destoroyah (655), Godzilla vs Biollante (645), GMK (288), Godzilla Final Wars (274), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (212), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (208), Mothra vs Godzilla (202) and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (183). 

 

The Heisei series has been integral to Toho’s internal marketing of the character ever since they came out, and its new creatures Biollante, Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah deserve consideration for the last spot because even with no reappearances (yet), they have greater staying power than the Millennium kaiju (Orga and Megaguirus). GMK’s position vindicates Mothra and Ghidorah’s popularity, but also implicates Baragon as a profitable asset, and it is probably fairest to have Anguirus and Baragon share the number 8 spot, because where one is popular, the other is an afterthought basically. It is very difficult to narrow down who of the three Heisei kaiju should get that lost slot. The Monsterverse would otherwise be a kingmaker, but I do not really know if the confirmed impending revival of Spacegodzilla in Godzilla x Kong Supernova matters as much to the overall state of the franchise. Toho is introducing the eight new monsters this month before the new Spacegodzilla has the chance for so much as a trailer, and IF Toho truly does intend for the winner of the contest to be a new franchise mainstay, they would supplant Spacegodzilla here. 

 

Biollante and Destoroyah each have interesting rhetorical situations, Biollante being the result of a similar contest that actually also inspired the Ultra series kaiju Leogon, while Destoroyah was the (retconned) logical extension of the Oxygen Destroyer and also went through several drafts that would have seen him interact with Anguirus. Godzilla vs Biollante is consistently a critical darling in Japan and America, and I would give Biollante the edge just for having half the theatrical attendance of Godzilla vs Destoroyah but as much, if not more, staying power.

 

So, with these next five, I would rank them a little differently. Kong should really have his own ranking inclusive of his opponents, but Son of Godzilla includes Minya, the three different suits for Godzilla Junior, Zilla Jr, Godzilla Filius, etc, so that would be its own post or video, as would the different incarnations of Anguirus. I will just rank the rest now. I like Biollante more than Destoroyah, but then Gigan, Spacegodzilla, and Baragon.

 

There are, of course, a few more secondary kaiju in the franchise: Ebirah, Kumonga, Kamacuras, Hedorah, Jet Jaguar and Megalon had multiple appearances across films, series or official shorts. And Titanosaurus, Orga, Megaguirus, the MUTOs, Skar King and Shimo are still prominent in their own films. The tertiary kaiju and Toho expanded catalog would add Varan, Moguera, Oodako, the giant lizard, the Giant Condor, Shukra, Momagon, The Griffon, Sanda, Gaira, Frankenstein, and so, so many more. That would be its own video to parse. Let us know which of those you would like to see first (a video ranking the incarnations of Ghidorah, the same video but with a kaiju the caliber of Anguirus or a wild obscure ranking like what half of my Gamera kaiju picks were).

 

 

In the meantime, we have a new bottom eight with the potential of rising stars, so let us go through the new contenders, knowing that they will either rise to the top of our lips or die in obscurity like Firelion and Lightning Bug.

 

Though this post is technically more about grouping the different Godzilla kaiju than ranking them, I still did include my best guess of the order of importance of the Big Five as well as my own ranking of the major stars. As we know little about these new kaiju, the order of importance seems to be their billing on the website and the order their silhouettes were first revealed. This is like how, in my Gamera ranking, I had to rank Vaora, Sohra and Bodera fairly low, as I only had access to their designs in a still image. So, the objective ranking is Gigasecto, Candyroy, Gilx, Sagius, Xenolhu, Madomuh, Minacias and Rigedoh, but, for fun, I will introduce them to you in the opposite order.

 

 

Rigedoh is ostensibly a triceratops but resembles a roided up fusion of Godzilla Evolved, Shimo and the Ultra series kaiju Gomora. Rigedoh thawed out of ice, due to global warming, and went through an evolution into its final form, per the information provided on the election website. A whole movie’s worth of context already exists just leading up to Rigedoh using his Dino Trident energy move against Godzilla, so I voted for Rigedoh rather early on in this election process (the first block of voting allows one vote per day between September 16th and October 4th, at which point the top 4 advance to midterms). I like Rigedoh, and I could see him as a suit very easily, but I kind of hope he does not win. 

 

Still, we must recall that the most likely Godzilla for these kaiju to face is Burning Godzilla 2000, and I must admit that a jagged, spiky Burning Godzilla in black and orange would contrast nicely with a muscular, spiky white and pink triceratops. I also appreciate the recent trend of bringing herbivore kaiju into the fray with Therizirus in Ultraman Omega being a Therizinosaurus. I have not voted for Rigedoh a second time, but my second vote was for him.

 

 

My fourth vote overall was for the 48 meter ancient mecha Minacias, which resembles a thorny unicorn. Evidently, it was the peacekeeping guardian of an ancient prehistoric society that they used as a weapon, which wiped them out (bringing to mind Heisei Gamera and Gyaos). Upon its awakening, it passed judgement on modern day weapons testing, misconstrued Godzilla for a weapon of destruction and sought him out to make an example of him. In this case, it feels like the “movie pitch” here necessitates Godzilla, especially as its ‘Electric Damned’ unicorn electricity could beam clash with Godzilla and would effectively target the infrastructure Godzilla would not attack (siphoning energy from communication networks and causing total electrical gridlock). The spindly appendages make this difficult for me to visualize as a suit, but the silhouette is strong; of all the creatures here, I recommend flipping through the front, back and side profiles provided most of all.

 

 

I have joined consensus in declaring that Madomuh is the least unique, clearly just a copyright-able version of Cthulhu (Xenohlu, who we will get to, takes the concept of an eldritch horror interacting with Godzilla to a more fresh place), but Cthulhu vs Godzilla has always been a popular match-up that I would not mind seeing, and Toho inevitably was always going to make their own Cthulhu for this match-up to make money. Madomuh has arisen from the sea, following a period of dormancy, to re-establish itself as a ruler of earth. It can brainwash other lifeforms, is 50 meters tall (these new opponents range from 40 to 60 meters for the most part), and has a self-destructing mutagenic Grand Spore that can enter a creature to bring it under Madomuh’s control.

 

 

So far, Xenohlu is especially popular in the West, and even though I voted for it only third, this is probably my favorite to win and favorite overall. It has telekinesis, causes hallucinations and arrives, seeking out Godzilla out of a “sinister curiosity” about Godzilla’s atomic breath. This is easily the most bizarre and alien concept, as its Abyss Gaze uses a giant eye to override a person’s willpower and disintegrate them. Also, Xenolhu can fly by warping reality with his tentacles. This is almost too inventive to waste on a short film, but the odds of a feature film from a visionary director featuring this kaiju is next to nothing if he loses the poll I would think, so I still hope he wins. Starfish squid is how I would describe this design, and I think they could realize it in suitmation pretty similarly to Pestar from the Ultra series. The 58-meter height also makes Xenolhu more imposing than Madomuh, and the marquee value of “Godzilla vs Cthulhu" is present no matter which of the eldritch abominations wins this election.

 

Sagius is the other mecha, with the general shape being a cross between the Gamera monsters Iris and Legion, as is the centaur to Minacias’ horse. It was seemingly made to fight Godzilla and has drones that can come off its back as well as a variable maser attack from its chest or from its drones in an array. I would wish to actively campaign against Sagius making top 4, because it is a less cool version of the scrapped Asuka Fortress Mecha Mobile Facility with tentacles and smaller ancillary robots. I still voted for Sagius out of the interest of fairness, but I would not do so again.

 

 

Gilx feels like a Spacegodzilla offshoot concept, an extraterrestrial world destroyer that goes to earth to seek Godzilla’s energy (that already has Godzilla’s general build just with Ghidorah inspired features, in this case twin tails, and if he gets his hands on Godzilla’s energy, I suspect he would assimilate him further). Gilx’s goal with Godzilla’s energy is to destroy Earth with a beefed-up version of its Planet-Destroying ray. This is a cool enough monster and seems perfect for a short film (as opposed to a feature), but I find it weird to make Godzilla’s big 70-meter opponent that weighs over 40,000 tons only capable of destroying Earth by using Godzilla’s power. Godzilla’s victory would be ensured in the premise if his power exceeds Gilx’s already.

 

 

Though I cannot verify this, I have heard that Candyroy is especially popular in Japan, and I can see why. A Hedorah type creature composed of candy wrappers in this huggable exterior is the most “late Showa Ultraman” coded thing imaginable, and it satisfies the itch for Hedorah to return in a suitmation format while not making a CGI reimagination irrelevant. Candyroy is exceptionally weird. He looks like Alien Zamu but with a Hedorah skin texture and ranges from 0 to 55 meters. Like Hedorah, he came from space but assimilated an earthly pollution problem upon arriving. Still, like Hedorah, he seems to be a powerhouse, able to turn him body partially into particles to make a Particle Cannon shockwave or turn his arms into swords. Candyroy is neat, and I would like to see him in something. Now may be his best chance, but I figure if he makes it top four, he still has a chance to appear later on down the road.

 

 

Gigasecto was my first vote in this race, because I think he was one of the better concepts, and leading with him in the marketing tied my hands. If, after reading this whole article, Gigasecto still grabs you, then he has a unique appeal that could lead to him landing top 4. I certainly hope so, though he may be too close to Megalon (Megalon appeared in Gemstone’s Godzilla Day short in 2023, so we could do without Megalon lite this soon after). This is a detailed beetle design with six limbs and a tail, and he spent 65 million years feasting on nutrients in the Amazon rainforest before sensing Godzilla and becoming territorial. Like Megalon, his backstory could make him the lesser or greater of two evils, and if we are drawing from Megalon to make Gigasecto, I think it would be neat if Gigasecto and Gilx develop an inexplicable friendship. The Sonic Blade attack seems a little bit out there if it truly is a “vacuum blade that slices through spacetime,” but Megalon’s firepower was on par with that of King Ghidorah, so I should not complain too much. The four arms would make for interesting grappling choreography as well.

 

Well, that is the overview of the Godzilla kaiju as best as I can group them. Let us know if you agree with my drafts for the Big 10 and which of those Big 10 you would like to see ranked individually first. Also, let us know which, if any, of the new eight kaiju appealed to you in the comments below. Stay tuned for more kaiju coverage from a variety of angles in a variety of styles.

The Spider Woman Strikes Back not a bad late Universal horror

 

I've been watching the free Internet Universal Monsters Channel of late (Xfinity 4135) and in between some dull and boring 21st century horror flicks, the UMC shows a healthy selection of the vintage Universal horror movies. Universal's run peaked in the mid '40s and the films essentially were better produced and written "poverty-row" horror types. They were on their last legs.

A lot of these mid '40s films are on the UMC. I had never seen 1946's The Spider Woman Strikes Back. But I'm a fan of Gale Sondergaard, who was pretty good in a couple of Universal Sherlock Holmes films. This film is 59 minutes and I wasn't expecting much. It's a slight film with a kind of "let's-wrap-things-up-quickly finale." However, it was a pleasant surprise: a not bad film with a good plot, fine acting and a generally creepy, suspenseful pace. And it also has the disfigured Rondo Hatton, Universal's dying horror star of the mid '40s. (Hatton suffered from acromegaly). 

The plot: Sondergaard is Zenobia Dollard, a reclusive blind woman living in a mansion. Hatton is her scary looking mute servant, Mario. Starlet Brenda Joyce (also Jane in the Tarzan movies) is hired as Zenobia's assistant. Zenobia's had other assistants who have mysteriously left service. Although Mario takes some getting used to, things start well between the trio. But Joyce, (whose character is named Jean Kingsley) begins to have excessive fatigue, and sleeps too much.

What's happening is Zenobia (who is not blind) is siphoning blood out of Jean nightly, with Mario as her assistant. She feeds the blood to toxic plants, which eventually pollutes the milk. Cows are dying. Area residents get ill. The community is in an uproar wondering why this is happening. I don't want to give away the final reel. Other characters include Jean's boyfriend, Kirby Grant (Hal Wentley), who does some sleuthing for his beloved. Along with other townspeople, they begin to tighten the noose on Zenobia and Mario.

Sondergaard is excellent in the film, with a chilly politeness and solicitude that is increasingly sinister. Hatton was a poor actor, but in this film, he seems to show -- in his own way -- sympathy for Jean. He doesn't want her to die like the other assistants.

Sondergaard had previously played The Spider Woman in a Sherlock Holmes Universal mystery, matching wits with Basil Rathbone. Obviously, producers played on that in The Spider Woman Strikes Back. But they are not the same character, and there are few spiders in the film. The sharp dialogue and pacing provide tension, particularly when Jean is in the large mansion, at the mercy of Xenobia and Mario.

The film plays like a longer version of a superb TV show along the lines of Thriller, Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, or The Twilight Zone. It's largely ignored now although there was a recent Blu Ray release. It must have pleased viewers as a B feature in the late 40s.

Universal was soon to end their horror production. It became Universal International and made a string of flops until Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein became a bit hit. As mentioned, the Universal B horrors are tighter and more disciplined than Poverty-Row films. But it's the chaotic, slapdash scripts of films such as The Corpse Vanishes or The Ape Man that make these cheapie films more popular today; not to mention the iconic Bela Lugosi starring in many.

But give The Spider Woman Strikes Back a viewing. I'll wager you'll enjoy it. You can watch the Universal Monster Channel here.

-- Doug Gibson

Amidst the Changing Tides an homage to Puget Sound's natural beauty

 

Puget Sound is a beautiful 100 miles or so of interconnected marine waterways along the state of Washington. Its deepest level is 930 feet. Its average water depth is 450 feet. This reviewer has never enjoyed the opportunity to visit. However, I just finished an anthology, Amidst the Changing Tides: Stories from Puget Sound, that makes me want to explore its natural beauty.

The anthology is edited by Drienie Hattingh, who lives in Gig Harbor, Wash. (located on the shore of Puget Sound) Hattingh is a novelist and short story writer, and she has contributed to this book. Hattingh once lived in Northern Utah. This reviewer, although not associated with Amidst the Changing Tides, has contributed to several books edited by Hattingh.

There are 29 stories in the anthology, which includes beautiful drawings. All the stories are well edited and don't tax the reader with excessive verbiage. They provide up-and-close, often personal descriptions of life in and around the waters of Puget Sound.

My favorite offering was the story, "Senescence," by Shannon Lewis. It's a fascinating tale of the last day in the life of a giant Pacific octopus. The passages tell the tale -- incredibly -- from the perspective of the sea creature. It's a poignant story, respectful, as the octopus deals with impending death, the loss of appetites and comforts it has enjoyed for years. The climax occurs in a shallow stream as the octopus feels the warmth of the sun.

Although not a scary story, the style contained a sense of the ominous, a foreboding that I'm accustomed to reading in dark literature. I was not surprised to learn that Lewis is a published horror writer.

Another story I enjoyed, and learned a lot from, is Hattingh's "Stella and Mac," a brief but heartwarming true tale of two Canadian geese, mated for life, that return to the same tavern in the town every year since 2015, making their nest to hatch their eggs. As Hattingh notes, people come to the tavern just to be witnesses to this annual event. (I had no idea Canadian geese mate for life.)

"Sound Therapy," by Tammy Joy Lane, is an emotional story of an Iraq War veteran, a woman, struggling with depression and raising a family in the Puget Sound area, which has lots of rain and dark days. To deal with this, she embraces the area she's chosen as home, noting its beauty and charm through long walks and other activities. The climax of this story, of encountering a seal during a walk, is powerful.

"Fishing the Alaskan Waters," by Ken Malich, is a spare, matter-of-fact tale about the challenges, travel and stress involved in trying to make a living from the sea. There's no high drama in the passages, but I found myself immersed with the interesting details of fishing life. It's something I'll never experience, but I certainly respect.

As mentioned, there are 29 stories, lots of illustrations, and brief biographies. I recommend reading two or three a day. As you get to know these writers, you'll both learn a lot about and gain appreciation for life on Puget Sound, and the sea.

-- Doug Gibson

Backrooms vs Obsession vs Joe

 

By Joe Gibson

 

I schedule my videos on our YouTube channel a long time in advance. This can cause problems when, for whatever reason, I am improperly prepared come recording day (though recent developments have mitigated that) or I notice a glaring irreconcilable issue with the premise of the video or the completed file does not sit right with me. Since I script out many of my videos, I have the option to do this and just redeem a half-baked video into a blog post in such cases, but it is still quite annoying to shuffle things around to fill that slot. This essay went through multiple iterations before its midsummer recording and subsequent forestalling to August and untimely scrapping.

 

When Backrooms came out, I watched it in theaters. A couple weeks later, I was able to watch Obsession because, frankly, for a good while, it seemed like that film would never leave theaters, as I then watched Obsession another time the week after that. I think of myself as a perceptive moviegoer, but as I learned when I tried to write a “First Impressions” blog post about either film, I didn't actually have that much to say about them, even up until I tried to put these thoughts in video format. 

 

Up until my most recent rewatch of both films that sparked this iteration of the essay, (second for Backrooms and third for Obsession overall), I had resigned myself to the idea that I just have less to say. And that's a weird spot for me. I turned my disdain for the new Animal Farm film adaptation into a meaty blog post about Chairman Mao, but I had nothing to say about two new genre defining horror classics? Admittedly it took me a couple weeks to formulate my thoughts on Mao, in which time I probably should have done a rewatch of that film. As I mentioned, I now have rewatched both films with the capacity for pausing and most importantly, discussion with people more passionate about both these films than I am.

 

When you pair Backrooms with Obsession in a sort of cult film double feature, some cosmetic details about these films soar to the forefront of discussion. That works as a transition statement to the point I’m trying to raise, but it also is very possible that some of you have watched neither film or just one, so I am going to have to give some exposition about both films. So, I had a transition statement to skip over the exposition and then another sentence reintroducing the need for further context, is that a detransition statement? Good thing I didn’t finish this in June. 

 

 

In Kane Parson’s Backrooms film, we follow Chiwetol Ejiofor’s character Clark in his job and to therapy and through his aspirations and frustrations. The Backrooms, as levels of misremembered locales of the real world, provide an opposite perspective to his therapist Mary’s specific brand of CBT. His tenuous connection with his employees, once he has been in the Backrooms long enough, destabilizes into a misanthropic borderline cannibalistic possession of others that he gets to exert over the Still Life copies of ambiguously random people. At the same time, the horror in the movie shifts from simple survival horror to psychological horror with a confrontation between Mary and Clark to a slasher v final girl chase of Mary and the main entity in the film to finally existential horror as Mary is still not safe as ASYNC may not let her leave their facilities in the Backrooms, which themselves have made a Still Life of her. Her backstory, given through flashbacks matches the mundane to the magical with her mother’s delusion in some ways foreshadowing the nature of the Backrooms.

 

On the other hand, Curry Barker’s Obsession is about a young man called Bar who pines for his coworker Nikki. It plays out as a Greek tragedy of old showing the story of Bar’s cowardice, or alternatively it functions as a modern style morality tale where Bar’s obsession leads him to cross a threshold into the Twilight Zone where he should have been more careful as to what he wished for. In any case, after failing to confess his feelings to Nikki on his own terms and even after failing to answer honestly when she asks him point blank if he likes her, his transgression in the story is wishing that she loved him more than anything in the world. That sounds rather benign, but the discourse surrounding the movie has honed in on the fact that if you actually describe what happens without the magic, they go drinking at a bar, Bar separates Nikki from their group and makes a choice that gets her to think she loves him without her being capable of coming to that conclusion herself. The question of if Bar is taking advantage of Nikki comes up multiple times, and from there on, Bar makes the worst decision possible at every single moment, not learning his lesson even through the end. 

 

Upon a first watch, the horror comes from the tension of watching this new Nikki act not quite right, misunderstanding her social cues, manipulating Bar, snapping out of her role abruptly at times, and eventually murdering their other friends. Upon a rewatch or two, it becomes clear that the real Nikki is the more prevalent antagonist than the Wish Nikki that most stories of this premise would have you fear. Nikki’s suffering is still actually central to the film (both Nikkis but especially the real one that is fighting against the wish for the entire journey), and right at the end, Wish Nikki actually prevents Bar from making a climactic decision of one last instance of cowardice. 

 

From the midpoint on, Bar knows that his own death is the only thing that will break the spell, but he chickens out of shooting himself and instead overdoses on pills…but is about to vomit them out when Nikki wishes for him to love her. Not allowing your protagonist to make their climactic choice probably means something specific about the nature of the ways Bar and Nikki overwrite the other’s agency, but for the sake of this conversation, it may mean that they are coleads, especially since the final scare is Nikki coming back to consciousness in a situation with three dead bodies she has no way of talking her way out of. (Behind the scenes, Bar’s actor added in the final cowardice from the character, noting the pattern that Bar would do that because he had not grown at any point in the film.)

 

What I’m trying to say here is that if I show you two films where a relatable yet mentally unstable lead crosses a magical threshold that ends up causing the suffering of a leading lady who also has claim to the protagonist label and ends up outliving him, then those are the details we have to focus on in that conversation. Furthermore, the mental states of the lead characters are inextricably tied to the horror in a way we can't really ignore when comparing them. Clark wishes for a different world order based on warped memories of the past, and this manifests as the uncanny Backrooms and the Still Life copies it makes of him, Mary and random other people. Bar is an awkward, anxious coward who wishes for the girl he likes to love him under terms he decides and tries to modify to his comfort, which manifests as a new personality supplanting Nikki that is even worse at emotionally regulating than Bar is. So internal or external uncanny doppelganger replacement. At the same time, Nikki’s erratic nature while under the spell resembles her prior instances of drug use, which furthers the allusion to date rape. If you watched the movie and doubted that the date rape analogy works as an objective correlative throughout, rewatching the movie helps with that, because Bar never actually wants to release Nikki from his spell; he just wants a more palatable Wish Nikki and will draft any spell he can to get there.

 

Both films ambiguously include some thinking entity behind the magic. If the Backrooms is misremembering the real world, to what end, why and how? Is it something related to the mysterious Ivan Beck or do The Backrooms exist from something deeper and older than humanity and the experiments that unlocked it? This will sound weirder out of context, but Wish Nikki’s prose about Hansel and Gretel sleeping together implicates an older figure teaching them how to sin together, which is significant because the reveal that Nikki saw Bar as a brother comes out around that time in the movie, and if we thread these plot points, the similar sense of humor, cadence and casual sadism in the speech of Wish Nikki, the two (or possibly one trans) retail worker and the Curry Barker cameo helpline could point to some entity behind the wishes controlling these people.

 

Under this framework, I have felt confident in labeling both Clark and Bar as Tragic Heroes, and if you have followed the discourse online surrounding Obsession, you will know that that is an excellent way to get yelled at. So, I should clarify. Though the Oedipus type Tragic Hero is a good person whom fate and duty screw over, that is not indicative of all or even most of the Greek Tragic Heroes to say nothing of the waves and waves of literary Tragic Heroes that have come since. Framing a story around a person’s fatal flaw that destabilizes the world around them and ruins their life is enough to make that person the “Tragic Hero.” Add back in the fact that Greek tragedies often stipulated condemnation from heaven or the extant magic system, and the ways that the Backrooms eat Clark alive and final wish overrides Bar’s autonomy (after the seeming hive-mind of wish users that talk in the same cadence pass judgement on him) click neatly back into the Greek model. 

 

 

A Tragic Hero is not the same as a hero because usually the tragedies about each Greek hero cover the period of time where they stopped being virtuous and fell to their flaw. Creon, in Antigone, is a great King making the decision he thinks is best for his kingdom, but he goes against the gods and enforces his will in such a cruel and obstinate way that not only do you root against him but almost his entire remaining family kills themselves directly because of his actions. Ajax, son of Telamon, is one of the greatest heroes in the Trojan War, who valiantly defends the Greeks and does not live long enough to participate in the major war crimes at the end. Sophocles’ play about him is a character study about that time he went crazy with envy over not getting Achilles’ armor and tried to murder his friends before killing himself. The actions of Odysseus in most of the tragedies written after the Odyssey, whether they result in his own death or not, are highly suspect and very unsympathetic. 

 

I should not take it personally, but I am still quite annoyed at how many people have told me I am wrong for calling Bar in particular a Tragic Hero just because they can’t fathom old, established literary terminology being more complicated than a simple binary. The best rebuttal I got to that point is that it is weird to stick to the Greek standards and not the more recent ones, but we see a similar pattern anyways. Macbeth, Rambo (First Blood part 1 specifically), Eren Jaeger and Anakin Skywalker (prequel era specifically) are all war heroes in the backstory, but the main story shows how their flaws lead to their fall from grace as they eventually lose their status or humanity. There is technically a trend of sanitizing our tragedies in recent Western media, as the infinite ending variations of Chess fall on a scale of depressing to bittersweet to happy based partially on how moral Anatoly feels during the final match, but Greek tragedies also sometimes had happier endings that avoided the logical punishment (at least for Medea) so I think the Greek model is still applicable to almost every wave since because of how scattershot it was in the first place.

 

I have thought long and hard about how I would actually define the villain of a story, when considering that they could be either the main antagonist (Voldemort), protagonist (Light Yagami), the main antagonist’s boss (Palpatine or the old wizard archetype) or an incidental cameo (Satan in the Gospels), and I have settled on the main evil character as my definition. If the character fits those criteria as the principal of the evil characters or the evilest of the main characters, then I call them “The Villain.” This, of course, does not preclude Duumvirates or Triumvirates, and it somehow results in Sean Renard being the Villain of Grimm with The Royals, Black Claw and Zerstörer as mere seasonal antagonists, but it works the best for the most amount of stories I have encountered. Bar fits that criteria by the way. I am not disagreeing that Bar is the villain; that is self evident, and what we should focus on is how the story positions his downward spiral as the impetus for a horror movie. I refuse to bear any more lectures from people who define villain as main antagonist, somehow think that Bar qualifies as the main antagonist (instead of protagonist) and do not realize that Tragic Hero does not mean good guy. The online conversations about this movie are insufferable, but the in-person ones have been edifying. If you will still find issues with my definitions here, let us talk this out rationally.

 

 

One issue I have with Backrooms that is actually quite sizable is that I do not fully buy Clark’s descent into madness because it feels like there are about two scenes missing from his arc between when the Still Life corners him and when he has moved in with them and started eating them. The Backrooms bring out the worst parts of Clark, that is self-evident, but his fall from grace does not necessarily track as smoothly for him to fall as far as he does as quickly as he does. The villain of the movie is still technically the Captain Still Life, because Clark killing people and eating Still Life are behaviors coded to the Captain, not him. Clark comes off as too reasonable with his employees for his murderous and cannibalistic turn to come off as foreshadowed in the first two acts; the solution is to add in more moments where Clark mooched or controlled the other characters. (If this is confusing, just think back to Halloween Ends. Michael's evil is what infects Corey, Corey's villainy is coded through Michael, and Michael outlasts Corey. Ergo, Michael is The villain and Corey merely a tragic hero.) Now, a while ago, A24 announced that they will put the movie back out with 15 additional minutes, and that pissed me off because clearly it was missing those the whole time. Then, it came out that the additional 15 minutes was done in blender, which is how Kane did his web series of the Backrooms for the monsters and Hazmat suit ASYNC employees. And, finally, that version of the movie came out, and (according to Variety) the extra 15 minutes was essentially one of Kane’s YouTube videos just exploring one of the hallways from the film, so there is no complete version of this story. It doesn’t make the movie bad; it just holds it back from near perfection. I should note, upon this most recent redraft of these thoughts, that stories such as Euripedes’ Herakles introduced a fit of madness right at the end for Herakles to kill his family. There is better and more subtle foreshadowing in the third act of Backrooms, and if you choose to read into the possible identities and dynamics the shown Still Life have, you get hints towards some further characterization for Clark. If you choose to believe that the redheaded Still Life woman is the copy of his wife or at least represents his wife to him, it helps but is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

 

 

On the topic of Obsession’s character study, there is something interesting about Bar that creates the same ambiguity surrounding his intentions and mental state that the film blatantly displays for its dichotomous Nikkis. At the start of the film, his cat Sandy overdoses on prescription pills. I initially thought the pills were his own and that Bar was short for Barbara, and his friends only called him Baron out of trying to play into his own masculinity issues. Furthermore, I thought the mention of his grandmother early on was only to set up that Wish Nikki might have interpreted them sleeping together in grandmother’s house into her fairy tale inspired prose. Apparently, the pills belonged to his grandmother Barbara, which I could do without for the sake of this tragedy, but it does not really matter. Bar clearly needs some kind of counseling and medication, and whether he is on prescription pills or just has a family history of problems necessitating them does not change much.

 

In any case, in that first scene, he finds that Sandy has eaten the pills with her food, and this serves to foreshadow some plot beats later on. He wants to stay home and mourn Sandy, but Nikki tells him to come to the bar and he comes. He also explains that it hasn’t really set in yet, the death. That scene justifies a later one when Wish Nikki murders Sarah in front of him, and he is visibly not processing it in the moment and folds when Nikki tells him they have to hide the body. His central flaw of cowardice used the same way to show escalating stakes. 

 

Where this gets interesting is that the bottom of the pill bottle says not to eat the pills, which is an odd label to put, and we never actually see Sandy knock the pill bottle down. Bar is not aware of leaving the pill bottle out, but considering that this whole movie exists to document Bar’s inability to take responsibility for anything while he selfishly focuses on his obsession, his inability to see that his negligence would kill his cat is a good visual metaphor. Tragedies (often) have prologues, an initial monologue or primer, but this could also go further if you will permit the tinfoil hat (this is still much less of a stretch than many of the popular fan theories out there about either film).

 

Now once Nikki is under the spell, she wakes up at the slightest provocation as part of the codependence…except for one scene. When Bar is texting Sarah right before Nikki wakes up and kills her, the real Nikki comes to the surface begging for Bar to kill her because the fake one is sleeping. But Bar has time to carry on a whole conversation with her and put on clothes and leave with the fake Nikki asleep. When Bar talks with Sarah, he says he has sleeping pills in his pocket, which is such a weird detail to include because he never uses those pills again, wasn’t wearing those clothes in bed and has no real reason to bring it up. Taking all that together though, it really seems like the film is saying that he drugged Nikki, but he was still scared she would notice him leaving, which suggests he might not be aware he drugged her. And if that’s the case, then that would further justify the suggestion that he left his pills out for the cat in some kind of fugue state. As far as we can tell, the magic in the film is objectively real in-universe and not the result of his delusions. At the same time, the film juxtaposes his feelings with fake Nikki’s, and the ambiguity of the title could be describing his own obsession and not the one he creates. If we accept that he unintentionally killed the cat and drugged Nikki, then his obsession also led him to act erratically, snapping back between two understandings of awareness, and the film is trying to see if we will ignore that for a cowardly man but not a “hysterical” woman. Nikki has a better excuse for her actions in this film. As my subsequent conversations with other viewers has uncovered the realization that her intentions are far less ambiguous than I realized, the pattern seems to be that after seeing her reflection, the real Nikki can surface to try and hurt Bar or herself, after which point the Wish version goes and overcompensates. I prefer the ambiguity, especially since Wish Nikki’s hands aren’t clean of blood entirely given the Sarah incident, but knowing the actual dynamic clears up Nikki’s behavior throughout the film, which is an important step towards giving her back her voice in this story. (This is why Nikki has, I believe, nearly equal claim to the label of protagonist.)

 

Now, which film is better? Obsession. I think it’s obviously the better film. I’ve already highlighted the ways I find the writing to be tighter and more intricate, but I think it is closer than it might seem. I have Backrooms at like an 8 out of 10 personally, and Obsession, while better, is still below a 9. Both films have excellent directing and superb acting; Chiwetol Ejiofor was amazing in particular. And on the finer levels of cinematography and color grading, both films used darkness more effectively than most modern larger studio films. You can still see what is going on, just not as much as you would like to, some of the details blacked out to make it scarier. Many blockbusters annoyingly use a black and orange color scale very arbitrarily, but Backrooms slipped into that naturally to escalate the fear in a scene by juxtaposing the usual white and orange aesthetic of the Backrooms. Naturally, this is another area I do not feel confident speaking on outside of these vague statements, so I have had difficulty articulating this in the prior drafts, and I do not even think I have done the best job now. 

 

Obsession has better characters in my assessment because Mary, aside from her flashbacks, is static until Clark’s arc has run, Clark is less easily understandable than if the flashbacks had been his instead, and his employees really do not amount to much. Conversely, Bar has a layer of audience insert relatability that masks his darker tendencies initially, and his tragic fatal flaw becomes clearer over repeated views. Even though he is very passive compared to most tragic heroes (though I would apparently be remiss not to reiterate that as the main evil character, he is the villain), both versions of Nikki are actually active enough participants in the plot to push it forward as the real Nikki is behind all of her self-harming in a desperate effort to escape her torment. Sarah and Ian are also more complicated characters than I can break down into a single sentence. They have some great characteristics and other flaws that led them to fail to save Nikki. Really, the area that holds Obsession back from a 9 or 10 is worldbuilding.

 

 

Frankly, it would work better if Bar slipped into the twilight Zone momentarily to make this wish instead of the One Wish Willows existing in the world for anybody to buy. As I have mentioned, the corner store employee(s) and Curry Barker customer service cameo speak in the same cadence and tone as possessed Nikki, which seems to imply some hive mind entity is behind these wishes. That raises many questions. Furthermore, no other character in this movie has ever used a wish until Bar makes them aware of it despite the fact that they probably would since Bar did. Ian instantly wishes for a billion dollars once he gets one, and Sarah’s whole subplot revolves around her wish to get into a good school. 

 

The school she wants finally sends her a letter right before Nikki kills her, but Bar opens it after, and the envelope doesn’t disappear which means that Sarah earned that spot in her school instead of wishing for it. More sad, sure, but it comes at the cost of justifying the plot mechanic of a widespread wish toy. There is actually debate on that point; apparently the ink smudges in the letter. If it takes hours after Sarah’s death for her wish to gradually come undone, but Bar’s death instantly breaks his wish, that is contrived. What is worse is that the fix of having the letter instantly disappear would just remind Bar of the willows, which he follows up on in the next scene, so the only reason for that contrivance to be there is to make it seem like Sarah didn’t use a wish.

 

Nikki of course gets to wish for Bar right before his pills kill him, so she never used one either even though she wanted to leave her job, find love and be able to write peacefully, three things that would each make for good wishes for her to try. In terms of other common wishes, we see that homeless people still exist, the world hasn’t ended, etc so the mass marketability of these one wish willows is superfluous and just weakens audience immersion. I understand that Curry Barker has plans for a limited series or sequel exploring other wishes, but the history of the world playing out the same when one wish willows exist is an insane backstory ask. The Backrooms can slot into the Greek myths of the Labyrinth, but the idea that no fringe politician wished an extreme agenda through or a controversy away is impossible. Kane already accounted for the Backrooms opening late into Earth’s history though, if we factor in his YouTube series which gives a distinct unfair advantage for worldbuilding. 

 

Backrooms is still set within Kane’s web series, I think pretty early in the timeline, so the main questions left after the movie are the ones that already existed. That said, the movie does bring in the concept of multiple levels of the Backrooms including a pool level, which was part of the original Backrooms wiki and not something that I thought Kane could legally use. The entity in the film predates other entities in the series, and, though I was worried about possible overreliance on survival horror getting in the way of the existential horror of the Backrooms, I think it threaded that needle fairly well, though again, we are missing scenes of Clark to optimally ease us from the survival horror into the psychological and existential horror.

 

Sometimes, it is hard for me to write about certain films. Though Backrooms and Obsession are films we, as horror fans, will keep talking about for decades, I have been satiated by a few conversations already. It was conversations with people more enthusiastic about these films that got me to think harder about them and finish this post. As more time has passed, I maintain that Evil Dead Burn deserves a slot alongside these two films as a thought provoking 2026 horror masterpiece, but 2026 itself already seems like a return to form year for the cinemas (by return on investment if not quality). Though I can make no promises at this time, I think it would be productive to rank the 2026 films I've seen by the end of the year. Let us know if you would like to see that, and share your opinions on Backrooms and Obsessions in our comment section.