Undead Backbrain

Every country should have its own national cinematic giant monster, right?

Japan has… well, lots of them, but the High Monarch of the bunch is of course Gojira [aka Godzilla]. The US has also been regularly tormented by mega-fauna on film, but the King is still Kong, even if he’s given rise to considerably fewer films than Godzilla. The UK is a bit short on when it comes to giant beasties (hey, it’s a small place), but they do have Gorgo — a Godzilla-inspired critter, no doubt, but still undeniably British. India offers quite a few cinematic giants, often divinities (and demons) in human form, but I’ll plug for the multiheaded mega-cobra incarnation of the goddess Devi as nicely appropriate. Hong Kong? How about Hsing Hsing wang — the Mighty Peking Man.

Elsewhere it’s pretty patchy. Denmark has Reptilicus, even if they might prefer not to trumpet the fact. Italy has tried its hand at giant crocodiles, snakes, sharks, spiders, aliens from the deep, but none of them feel very iconic. But how about Caltiki, the Undying Monster? Not a city-stomper maybe, but a large blob of a beastie, in a film that is certainly Italianate in its aesthetics. North Korea’s national giant has to be Kim Jong-Il’s Pulgasari. South Korea has the little-seen Space Monster Wangmagwi, and good ol’ Yongarry — either of which could qualify, though the Host has rather eclipsed them both in recent times. Thailand’s giant monster probably should be a crocodile or a snake, given how often giants of these species turn up — but an iconic monster should have a name and some sort of nationalistic symbolic resonance and Garuda more than fills the bill there.

I can’t think of a cinematic giant monster icon for Australia, despite various giant croc films — and the brief cameo by a giant kangaroo in Welcome to Woop Woop doesn’t seem all that significant. If someone ever films Richard Ryan’s novel Funnelweb, that would be a big step in monsterfying our rather iconic arachnids. Until then maybe we should adopt Razorback — a really big boar.

Anyway, I digress. Until now it can’t be said that Norway has had a national giant monster [on film]. But that may be about to change. Two Norwegian musicians, Geir Are Mo and Jan R. Bakken, have taken a step toward institutionalising a national giant, by creating a trailer for “Norway’s first giant monster film”.

The film is called Giant Egg Attack!

Unfortunately, however, the film doesn’t actually exist at the moment. Says Geir Are Mo:

Yes, the trailer was just a faux. But I will make more videos of it [The Egg] in the future.

I’m actually a musician and me and a friend [Jan R. Bakken] have a band to make silly and weird music just for the fun of it. At one point it all evolved into a [pseudo] religion, made up out of dumb lyrics and themes, where we were supposed to pray to forks (yeah, the thing you eat with. In Norway, it’s called Gaffel). Later I recorded a song called “The Mortal Egg That Eats Me”. (If you’re interested, you can find almost all the songs here www.tonne.co.nr).

Anyway, as a joke we decided to make the Eggs a mythical gigantic creature in the “gaffismic religion” we created — so that’s where it all started. We later thought about how cool it would’ve been if it was in a giant monster movie. So last summer [Jan] came over to my house. We filmed a few shots around the farm where I live and later that night I finished the trailer.

Listen to: The Mortal Egg That Eats Me

Creating the Egg:

The trailer gained such a positive response that Geir has started to think that he’d like to make more:

You see, I got so many nice comments back from that trailer that I decided to continue making short videos with the Egg. Actually I’m thinking of doing one after this weekend if I find a good location and other stuff. We’ll see.

So can we expect some actual Giant Egg shorts, perhaps even the Egg character in a feature-length film?

… Well yeah, I will make lots of shorts with help from [Jan]. If we ever make a movie I won’t use that many of the shorts though. I will most likely make lots of new ones. Of course it’s not 100% sure there ever will be a feature-length film but if people seem to like the shorts, I will definitely think about it more seriously!

I’ve named the shorts that are coming soon “The GEA Series” (The Giant Egg Attack Series). If we ever make a feature-length film, The Giant Egg Attacks will most likely be the title.

So Geir suggests that everyone subscribe to the Gibbering Films YouTube site, where he will post whatever shorts he and Jan make. Subscribe, comment below or on his YouTube site and let him know if you’re keen to see more of his Giant Egg!

Meanwhile, we’ll let him explain in what way his Egg might be an icon of the Norwegian psyche.

• Source: Geir Are Mo via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery