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Godzilla Minus One came out recently and seems to be doing spectacularly at the Japanese box office. I’m hoping that it will perform similarly well when it comes to its international release but it also got me thinking about the franchise in general and how surprisingly restrictive it can be when it comes to availability. Over two years after having picked up the Showa era films from Criterion, I’ve yet to see a major push when it comes to making the other films generally available. Therefore, I thought I’d take the opportunity that the release of a new Japanese Godzilla film has presented to make my case for why, as a fan, I want to see the Heisei and Millennium films rereleased.

I’ll first provide a quick summary about the way that Godzilla films are divided up. The first fifteen films are regarded as the Showa era films and cover the films that were released between 1954 and 1975 and it was these films that Criterion released in their lovely collection. The next seven films were released between 1984 and 1995 and are referred to as the Heisei films, despite the fact that the Heisei era didn’t begin until 1989. These films served as a continuation of the original 1954 film and wiped away the timeline of everything in between. From 1999 to 2004, six Godzilla films were released in what became known as the Millennium era. These films were essentially anthologies, only serving as a continuation of the original 1954 film with the one exception being Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. which served as a direct continuation of the film from the year before, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. Finally, the current Godzilla era is referred to as Reiwa which consists of the 2016 Shin Godzilla, a trilogy of anime films from 2017-18 and, most recently, Godzilla Minus One, similarly strange to the Heisei films in that the Reiwa era began in 2019.

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We are now past the month of October, the time of year when horror media becomes most acceptable to mainstream audiences, but horror is always relevant no matter what time of year it is and I wanted to talk about something quite interesting today. The films of the New French Extremity is a topic that I’ve touched on before but that I wanted to return to at some point and, having recently rewatched several of them, I thought it was a good time to do so. Also, for those curious, the New French Extremity films that I’ve seen up to this point have been Dans ma Peau, Irreversible, High Tension, The Ordeal, Satan, Martyrs, Frontier(s), Raw, Revenge and Climax. While I’ve not seen as many as I would like to, still waiting to see Inside, I do believe that I’ve seen enough New French Extremity films at this point that I can pick out a favourite or few.

Martyrs

Let’s start with arguably the most famous, or infamous, of all New French Extremity films and, also, the first one that I ever watched. For those who’ve heard of Martyrs, you’ll have heard tales of people fainting and vomiting during its first screenings and the film has developed a reputation for being unrelentingly brutal. I went in expecting an absolute gorefest and found the film to be tamer than I was imagining. Nonetheless, I found the film to be immediately intriguing and I found myself thinking about the movie for days afterwards, particularly for its ending which is one of the most profound and brilliant horror movie endings I’ve ever seen. While I don’t regard it as the absolute best that the New French Extremity has to offer, I have great respect for what Martyrs achieved as one of the most thought-provoking and original horror films I’ve ever seen.

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