Gamera vs. Gyas/Gamera vs. Viras

This review is for the Shout Factory Double Feature of Gamera vs. Gyaos and Gamera vs. Viras
Shout Factory has decided to pair up the Gamera series for the rest of the Showa series. There could be a few reasons. The later Gamera movies to me & many others aren't as good as Gamera,Barugon & Gyaos & feel they might not sell as well if sold separately. Gamera vs. Viras is considered inferior to Gamera vs. Gyaos as the series dwindled with that very film. Would Viras have the same sales as the others ? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Shout Factory said maybe not. This thinking might be understandable however I think most die hard Gamera fans would buy them up anyway with causal fans passing on the ones they did not like. I will say that a lot of us bought the Celebrity Video VHS of them as well as the Neptune Media versions. Another reason could be to save time and money. The idea being lets not let the fans wait that long for all of the Gamera movies as single discs which saves time as well as saving a few dollars.2 movies on a disc with one packaging. I expect the quality to be the same as the rest of the Shout Factory Gamera series.
Whatever the reasoning is the idea of 2 Gamera movies ala MGM Midnight Movie double features isn't that bad to me. I dont care as long as the quality is up to the standards.
For those who haven't seen these movies - Gamera vs. Gyaos & Gamera vs. Viras - I will first mention Gyaos is a far better movie than Viras
GAMERA VS. GYAOS (AKA GAOS )Has Gamera fighting a giant bat like monster that spits out laser beams that slice things (& people) This is a very wild Gamera movie with lots of fighting & some pretty bloody (for a Gamera movie) with pink blood spurting around. Gyaos is /was Daiei's answer to Toho's Rodan I would guess. This to many is the best Gamera film, or least in the top 3. Non stop monster thrills.
GAMERA VS. VIRAS - Gamera fights a Giant Squid monster this time around. This is the one where 2 kids get kidnapped by a spaceship that looks like 4 bumblebees connected to each other. This film contained quite a bit of stock footage from the previous Gamera entrees and just was a little lackluster - this is the movie that the series started to decline. A lot had to do with the lack of budget for the movies. Out of the last of the Gamera movies, Guiron, Zigra and Super Monster pretty much stunk with the kiddie songs,some really atrocious dubbing from the Sandy Frank version (unless you owned the Neptune Video versions of Guiron/Guillon & Zigra)& goofy effects. And Gamera really acting quite campy in some scenes as well..
Also available are Guiron/Jiger and later on in 2011 Zigra/Super Monster will be paired
If the transfers are clean, this reviewer will be happy. We will be getting the Japanese & English language versions as well. Gyaos will have BOTH the AIP version and the Sandy Frank English language versiona (this was the one used for the MST3K version) as well as the original Japanese version.
Viras will have the AIP English language and Japanese language version.
With Shout Factory releasing Gamera, Roger Corman & MST3K on DVD I can say Shout has pleased a lot of us & hope they continue to do so.

Gamera vs Gyaos i would say is my 3rd favorite movie thus far. It really focused on the monsters and Gamera and Gyaos really fought it out. Gamera vs Viras though i thought wasn't that great. Now don't get me wrong Gamera is awesome but Viras was kinda of a trash monster. I didn't like it to much. But its still a good buy two Gamera movies for the price of one! You got my vote

For this and the rest of their Gamera DVDs, Shout! Factory decided to go the way of the double-feature, and it worked well. This DVD contains the next two movies in the Showa Gamera series. Video and Japanese audio quality are great, while the dubs aren't perfect, but are sufficient. The fact they included them at all is great. On that topic, Shout! interestingly chose to include BOTH existing dubs for Gyaos. In the case of Gamera vs. Viras, for the dub they restored missing bits from the dub with audio from the Japanese version. Extras are light, including a publicity gallery for each film, but no theatrical trailers, resulting in a 4/5 star rating. It's notable that this DVD is the first-ever official US home video release of Gamera vs. Viras (aka Destroy All Planets). Earlier this year the organization Retromedia released a bootleg version of the film, with questionable timing. This DVD boasts far greater audio and video quality. I'd highly recommend this DVD for any kaiju fan.