ALL MONSTERS ATTACK - "Rarrgh!"

SEE - astounding beasts walk the Earth!
THRILL - at sights never before seen by man!
Overwhelming!
Stunning!
Baffling!

CAN YOUR HEART STAND THIS MUCH TERROR?

I loves me them trailers! And how could you not? A trailer (in theory) takes all the good stuff - in this case, all the monster bits - and trim away all the fluff and fat - in this case, the endless People Talking scenes, tepid romance and the completely illogical science. While this may be counter intuitive when you get suckered into watching a dreadful movie on the basis of a cool trailer, if you have a disc full of nothing but this coolness, you cant help but win.

That's what we have here - All Day Entertainment following up their Horror of Hammer (a disc devoted to all those gothic horror classics from Hammer Studios), Tales of Frankenstein (odds and sods from Frankenstein flicks over the years) and The Pulp Cinema Trailer Collection (hard boiled Edward G. Robinson crime and detective trailers) releases with All Monsters Attack. Instead of horror or film noir, we get some of the best classic monster movies from the fifties and sixties.

As with the 42nd Street Forever series, there are way too many trailers to get into one-by-one. So instead, here's the huge list, and I'll get into a couple of highlights later on:

* King Kong
* Son of Kong
* Mighty Joe Young
* Konga
* The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
* The Beast From Hollow Mountain
* The Giant Behemoth
* Dinosaurus!
* The Lost World
* Gorgo
* Reptilicus
* Valley of Gwangi
* Godzilla King of the Monsters
* Varan the Unbelievable
* Rodan
* Mothra the Monster God (2 versions)
* King Kong vs. Godzilla
* Godzilla vs. the Thing
* Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster
* Gammera the Invincible
* Atragon
* King Kong Escapes
* Destroy All Monsters
* Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
* Yog Monster From Space
* The Mysterians
* Robot Monster
* It Conquered the World
* Kronos
* Caltiki the Immortal Monster
* The Blob
* Beware! The Blob
* It Came From Beneath the Sea
* Attack of the Crab Monsters
* Attack of the Giant Leeches
* The Giant Gila Monster
* The Killer Shrews
* Night of the Lepus
* Them!
* Tarantula
* Monster From Green Hell
* Beginning of the End
* The Deadly Mantis
* The Spider
* The Cyclops
* Attack of the Puppet People
* Giant From the Unknown
* The Colossus of New York
* Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
* 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock
* The Amazing Colossal Man
* War of the Colossal Beast
* The Three Worlds of Gulliver
* Village of the Giants
* The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (2 versions)
* Goliath and the Dragon
* Atlantis the Lost Continent
* Jason and the Argonauts

As you can see, there's a collection of really cool trailers, with a little something for everyone. King Kong, Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen all in one place? You'll only get a better selection of giant beasts if you have a year's subscription to Famous Monsters of Filmland.

And you have to admire the way the credits were constructed back then - instead of hiding behind other people like "Roger Ebert says 'This Movie is the best of the year!'", they just come straight out and proclaim "This is the best movie EVER!" with bigger and bolder hyperbole. "Running wild in a terrible orgy of destruction!" or "A cast of thousands, at the mercy of the most terrifying monster that ever lived!" or "Incredibly huge, with incredible urges for love - and vengeance!"

Some of these trailers have already been released on their own separate discs, but getting them together in one place is a real treat. The Ray Harryhausen trailers look as good as their respective movies, quick paced and of course showcasing the always amazing Dynarama technique - Jason and the Argonauts being a personal favorite of mine from when I was a wee lad. The movie was great and the trailer is fun.

Toho films are well represented too, with 15 out of the 60 trailers devoted to Kaiju eiga. The Godzilla trailers are a special treat, since these tend not to show up on their respective DVD releases (like Destroy All Monsters, which was hamstrung thanks to contractual obligations with Toho). While this trend is being corrected with some of the newer Godzilla releases, I'm still happy to get them here.

THE DVD -
Being from a wide range of print sources from over several decades, the video quality is understandably all over the map. Some of the older trailers - Son of Kong for instance - suffer from splices and damage. A couple of the trailers - Gorgo and The Lost World - are faded and dull and some are just downright poor over all, like Earth versus the Spider. On the other hand, some look downright fantastic (Rodan or Destroy All Monsters) and the rest are generally in fairly good shape.

THE EXTRAS -
Well, for starters, it's a small thing, but it's a nice touch - All Day Entertainment designed the DVD case to look like the package of one of the old school Aurora Movie Monster kits from the sixties.

On noveltly side of things, we get a short documentary about the dangers of radiation (very useful), the This is Dynamation short on the making of the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (recycled from the Seventh Voyage DVD a couple of years back), a short about the making of The Land That Time Forgot, which - as near as I can tell - doesn't appear anywhere else. Finally, there's a six minute black & white short called Mega-Morphisis.

So not quite as cool as the running commentary on 42nd Street Forever 3, but it's still pretty keen.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Shrinking people, growing people, giant apes, giant dinosaurs, aliens from space, monsters from mythology, and horrible undead beasts - it doesn't matter what form your favorite monster takes - if you like creature features, you'll love this DVD.