Toho Studios: Where destroying toy cars and buildings is our specialty.

What could I possibly say about The Last Days of Planet Earth that would make you rush right our and seek a copy? Well, the fact that it's mostly out of print won't help much, but you can probably find one in any rental store that doesn't have a national name attached to it.

Released in 1974, Last Days is a phantasmagorical orgy of utter nonsense. I honestly couldn't sum it up for you, because the plot is so far out there, it's not funny. It all has something to do with a professor trying to convince politicians that the end of the world is coming, and Nostradamus(who is Japanese in the brief shot they show of him) has forecast it all unless they change their ways.

This movie features:

- Giant radioactive slugs
- Mutant insect-eating flowers
- Radiation-scarred cannibal aborigines in New Guinea
- Flying stuffed giant bats
- The wholesale destruction by flood of a model of Tokyo
- A chain reaction car accident in which about a hundred Matchbox cars explode
- Model SST planes exploding while flying, ripping holes in the ozone layer and frying people instantly on the ground
- Tetsuro (Tiger Tanaka from You Only Live Twice)Tamba trying to convince everyone that he knows everything(basically the same part he'd play for the next 25 years)
- A spectacularly cheesy Criswell-style narrator who intones grave thoughts over about 1/3 of the movie(including undubbed Japanese dialogue.)

I couldn't even begin to hit all the highlights of this one, but just as an example, the scene with the chain reaction car explosion is the most ridiculous thing ever. I mean, the guy drives off in his real car, crashes his real car, it explodes. You see one or two real cars explode, but you're supposed to believe that this one crash sets off a chain reaction of cars exploding that's more akin to something like the alien attack in Independance Day(but handled far more ineptly) than what probably would actually happen(I'm not sure what that is, but it couldn't possibly be a mile's worth of chain reaction explosions.)

This is a movie that until recently, was virtually invisible except for the Paramount VHS that I saw. It appears to be the TV print, as there are several commercial-style blackouts scattered throughout. Video quality is fair, as Paramount opted to put it on an EP tape. It is drastically cut, running just 88 minutes, which is about half an hour shorter then the Japanese running time. In Tokyoscope, Patrick Macias refers to the Japanese version as "playing it fairly cool for the first half hour like a good little lysergic before the bad trip comes in" whereas the American version "goes for the throat from frame one". In addition, the Japanese version has apparently been in Toho's vault since 1980 due to political correctness concerns over it.(Though they did show it, uncut, on Japanese TV on Christmas Day 1980 before locking it up.)

Seriously, if you can lay hands on a copy of this one, rent it, and team it with Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster for even more entertainment value. Short of Showgirls, this is probably one of the best giggles you'll have for quite a while.

And I just found this. Apparently this guy is releasing a DVD box of all of the different available versions of the movie. If I had $60, I'd be ordering it right now.