Hoshi 35 (2023)

Monstrously bad

It has been a long time since something irritated me as badly as Hoshi 35. Ostensibly billed as a kaiju flick, it underperformed in that manner epically. The kaiju was on screen for less than five minutes--in all forms. The rest of the film was a disturbing tale of human sacrifice, brain washing, and murder. If that sounds more exciting…it wasn’t.

1000 years ago, in a remote village near the Tengen Mountain, a young woman is sacrificed to the Beast of the Star. Whenever the meteor appears in the future, young women are sacrificed to keep the Beast happy. Two geology employees studying the crater stumble upon the deadly and very creepy secret. They manage to escape when the villagers decide the outsiders are too big a risk. Thirty-five years later when a meteor approaches Earth headed for the mountain, the two return to the village hoping to save the villagers and keep another tragedy from happening.

Why are young women always sacrificed and not the village elder, warriors, or virgin boys? And in this case also offered up as some sort of companions? The film started turning into a village horror story but didn’t commit to that angle. Instead, it came across as misogynistic religious rites gone very wrong. After a bloody beginning it strayed into very boring territory.

A rubber costume was created, so why not use it more? Aside from the lack of a kaiju presence, because dear goodness I was truly wanting the villagers to be stomped on, the biggest transgression was in regards to the actors. Many of the older actors had been in numerous kaiju films. Odaka Megumi who played Aki starred in multiple Heisei Era Godzilla films. They even wasted Moll (Kobayashi Megumi) one of the Elias from the Mothra Rebirth trilogy. Almost no kaiju scenes and Godzilla/Mothra alums being relegated to this dreck-monstrous.

24 April 2026

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