Kaiju History – A Fan Film Once Gave Godzilla His Hairiest Challenge Since Kong In The Wolfman
Godzilla is no stranger to fan films, especially in recent memory, and those are a funny thing. They can be bad or cheap-looking at times and impressive at others when they manage to show off feats of imagination despite the constraints of time and resources.
Dedicated kaiju fans everywhere are reinterpreting the King of Monsters in bold formats from animation to analog horror and found footage. Sometimes these content creators show astonishing prescience, giving us stories and battles we never thought possible.
Moreover, indie DIY filmmakers have been trying to blow everyone away with their ingenuity for years, often without attracting the attention they seek at the time. One of the earliest examples of this we can trace came in the mid-80s, and it is quite appropriate for the season.
In 1983, a bunch of former Toho employees got together to make one of the most inventive and bonkers Godzilla fan films of all. Pitting Big-G against an atypical foe in an atypical version of a Universal Monster, the group of Tokusatsu artisans went to work on Wolfman vs. Godzilla.
This film was the brainchild of Toho production assistant Shizuo Nakajima, who cut his teeth on Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla. However, his self-produced matchup is what he’s known for most to this day, and oddly enough, werewolves are a recurring theme in his career.
Nakajima’s concept evolved from an earlier short where a gigantic werewolf faced Baragon, which may have been a nod to an earlier Toho film. A liberally adapted version of Frankenstein’s monster fought the burrowing kaiju in Frankenstein vs. Baragon – i.e., the film that set the table for War of the Gargantuas (but I digress).
The biggest difference there, other than the opponent, is that the Wolfman design was the usual hairy fanged dude in tattered clothing. For his follow up, Nakajima went bigger, bolder, and more daring. While the generic Wolfman appears in the beginning, he would evolve into a more striking form.
An average man ‘wolfs out’ in front of his wife first at their humble abode. Then confrontations with the police and the military ensue before a chance overdose on radiation. That causes him to grow into a kaiju werewolf with pointy ears, broad shoulders, and a thick coat of white fur.
This creature meets a Godzilla closely resembling the Gojis in King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla, and they engage in what the tagline wants you to think is a battle for the ages. “A fierce battle that shakes the Earth’s axis!!! Will you win, Godzilla? Will you win, Wolfman?”
It’s hard to tell who won although Godzilla looks like he got the upper hand in surviving footage. It’s possible that was how the film was supposed to end, but it is more likely a proper ending was never shot. Wolfman vs. Godzilla was a labor of love for Shizuo Nakajima that wasn’t completed.
Clips and assembly cuts have surfaced on YouTube and Nakajima’s Facebook page over the years. Footage has also been released at conventions such as G-Fest, and Nakajima claims he has ten hours of raw footage from shoots and reshoots conducted. That is theoretically enough to cut together something for a proposed home media release, but there’s been next to no progress.
Since Toho never signed off on it, there probably won’t be. Nakajima’s film has been in a suspended state of post-production for the past 40 years and shows every sign of staying there, which is apropos for Halloween. When greeted by trick-or-treating G-FANS expecting a Wolfman, Toho Legal chooses “Trick!” (Happy Halloween indeed.)
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