Giant Space Monster Guilala (1967)/The X From Outer Space (1968)

​The X from Outer Space (宇宙大怪獣ギララ?, Uchū Daikaijū Girara, Lit. Giant Space Monster Guilala) is a 1967 tokusatsu kaiju film produced by Shochiku Company Ltd. It was released to Japanese theaters on March 25, 1967, and to American television syndication via American International Television in 1968.

Plot
The spaceship AAB Gamma is dispatched from Japan to land on Mars and investigate reports of UFOs in the area. When the Gamma nears the red planet, it finds a mysterious UFO that begins to coat the Gamma with unusual spores. One of these spores is taken back to Earth, but begins to develop.

The spore grows into a giant lizard/chicken-like alien monster called Guilala that begins a rampage across Tokyo. It spits fireballs, feeds on nuclear fuel, turns into a giant energy ball when it wants to fly, and destroys airplanes and tanks along its rampage.

​The monster is finally defeated by jets dropping bombs, coating Guilala in a fictional substance known as "Guilalalium" that causes it to shrink back down to spore size. They promptly launch the spore back into space, where it will supposedly circle the sun in an endless orbit.

Production

• Directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu
• Written by Moriyoshi Ishida, Eibi Motomochi, and Kazui Nihonmatsu
• Produced by Wataru Nakajima
• Assistant Producing by Akihiko Shimada
• Music by Taku Izumi
• Cinematography by Shizuo Hirase and Chitora Ôkoshi
• Edited by Yoshi Sugihara
• Special Effects by Hiroshi Ikeda

Cast

• Eiji Okada as Dr. Kato
• Shun'ya Wazaki as Captain Sano
• Toshinari Kazusaki as Captain Sano
• Itoko Harada as Michiko
• Peggy Neal as Lisa
• Franz Gruber as Dr. Berman
• Mike Daneen as Dr. Stein
• Shin'ichi Yanagisawa as Miyamoto
• Keisuke Sonoi as Dr. Shioda
• Torahiko Hamada as Mr. Kimura

Release
The X From Outer Space was released in Japan on 25 March 1967. The X From Outer Space was never released theatrically in the United States, and was released directly to television by American International Television in 1968.

The Criterion Collection released The X from Outer Space on DVD in a compilation titled When Horror Came to Shochiku through their Eclipse label. The DVD offers both a dubbed and subtitled version of the film. The box set was released on November 20, 2012.

Reception
Film historian Chuck Stephens described the film as having "a well-deserved reputation as one of the silliest—and, as a consequence, most beloved—rubber-suit monster movies ever made." Sight & Sound described the film as a "harebrained kaiju epic" that was "Cheesy, rich in comic non sequiturs and scored with an unpredictable mishmash of 1960s pop and bossa nova, X fits comfortably into one's stoned best-bad-movie rental evening."