Demekingu (2009) User Reviews

Entirely cheap Japanese kaiju movie

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 16 April 2017]

DEMEKING THE SEA MONSTER is an extremely low budget addition to the Japanese kaiju cycle of film-making. The story is about a weird loner living on the coast who is convinced of a prophecy foretelling the arrival of a sea monster that will lay waste to the surrounding area. It sounds promising and there are touches of a Lovecraftian influence here and there, but for the most part this film's a real bore.

The lack of budget really hurts the film and makes it a chore to watch. The monster antics (it's a giant snail) are engaging in a low budget way but only occupy the last five minutes of the movie. The entire plot up to that point seems to consist of the main character riding around on his bike and hanging it out with a bunch of kids. There's no more to it than that. I get the feeling that the director was inspired by the success of the South Korean hit THE HOST but by comparison this is very nearly an embarrassment.

A good premise, but we needed more

[FilmExpertWannabe · 3/10 · 3 July 2012]

To start, I have to at least give credit where it is due. Demeking the Sea Monster attempted to do something just a little bit different for a giant monster movie. There was to be a bit of mystery to the story here and the film was not intended to simply be a giant monster actionfest like many if not most giant monster movies. As with say, Monsters (2010), Demeking the Sea Monster was largely a science fiction drama, not a science fiction action movie. They got the tone right for this movie, but ultimately Demeking the Sea Monster falls short of being adequate entertainment for 99 minutes.

The story centers around Hachiya in 1969-1970 Japan, who comes across a letter that forewarns of a space monster that will attack Japan (ultimately all of mankind) in the future. Eventually spreading the information to a few people he trusts, the bulk of the film is really just a buildup to the monster's appearance itself. So again, if you want a giant monster movie for the action such as Godzilla, Gamera, Cloverfield, or others, this is an entirely different type of movie and you may want to skip this movie.

My disappointment lies in slow, lethargic pace of the movie. What happens over the course of the first 66 minutes (at which point the monster appears in Hachiya's dream) could really have been done in less than half that time and still had equal character and plot development. The same goes with the rest of the movie after his dream of its impending attack on Japan. After all of that the movie ends somewhat abruptly. Unfortunately, there aren't other redeeming merits such as a good score or interesting characters. I would've hoped they would've at least tried to create an interesting creature, but it looked like little more than a bipedal snail-like creature. Why not try something with more visual impact, especially when the monster appears (and only in his dream) for a few minutes? I wasn't opposed to this type of movie but its execution leaves something to be desired, drama or not.