Godzilla vs. Gigan

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) is a Toho tokusatsu sci-fi picture you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Jun Fukuda. It marks Gigan's debut — a cyborg space monster with a buzzsaw chest and hook hands, sent to Earth alongside King Ghidorah by an alien race of cockroach-like invaders hiding inside a children's theme park.

On the human side, manga artist Gengo Odaka stumbles into the conspiracy when a mysterious tape recording turns out to be a coded distress signal. While he and his friends piece together the plot, Godzilla and Anguirus pick up the signal too — and in one of the stranger moments in the entire Showa series, the two monsters actually converse in comic-strip speech bubbles in the Japanese theatrical cut.

Fukuda leans on stock footage from earlier Toho entries more than purists would like, but the film introduced a villain monster popular enough to come back repeatedly in the franchise. For fans of classic kaiju cinema, it's an essential Showa-era entry. Stream Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) online on iFILM.