D Movies

Dagon

Director Stuart Gordon (The Re-Animator) returns to Lovecraft territory after years away. A computer programmer and some friends get shipwrecked off the coast of Spain. They take refuge in a fishing village, only to find that the villagers years ago made a pact with an undersea god. This pact has given the villagers wealth and prosperity, and resulted in most of them being mutated into horrible monsters who sacrifice normal humans to their deity! A giant monster, presumably Dagon itself, makes an appearance for the climax. Dagon is probably the best Lovecraft-based movie in years.

Dagora, The Space Monster

Ever wanted to see a heist-film-turned-giant-monster-movie? Well, you could watch Godzilla vs the Sea Monster, but there's also Dagora, the Space Monster. When detectives go looking for a missing truck of diamonds, they don't find jewel thieves, they find 100-foot-long jellyfish monsters with tentacles and a hunger for anything made of carbon. (So technically, it's "space monsters," plural, but who keeps track?) Does your diamond insurance cover "ingestion by alien?"

Daimajin

A feudal Japanese warlord subjugates a small town, only to run afoul of the town's protector, a giant statue that comes alive when the local priestess prays to it. The first of three films featuring the vengeful statue, Daimajin has the most elaborate effects and a neat twist: after the warlord has been dispatched the statue turns on the town itself.

Deadly Mantis, The

The Deadly Mantis would be yet another atomically-enlarged insect movie from the '50s, except for the fact that nuclear radiation doesn't come into the picture. Instead, the big bug has been on ice (literally), frozen in the Arctic and naturally able to come right back to life after millions of years, albeit with one hell of a case of frostbite. Perhaps that explains its disposition, and the fact that it sneaks its way South, busting up military installations as it goes. This isn't Nathan Juran's finest work -- it's a little too heavy on the stock footage -- but it is a bit different than the other giant bug movies.

Destroy All Monsters

Destroy All Monsters was probably the last great Godzilla movie. In the year 1999, all of the world's monsters have been imprisoned on one island. Aliens release the monsters and demand all governments surrender to them. Earth's scientists release the monsters from alien control, but the aliens retaliate by unleashing King Ghidorah. The climactic monster battle is the most ambitious kaiju scene ever filmed.

Dinocroc

Everybody likes dinosaurs, right? And people like crocodiles, right? How about both in one monster?

From producer Roger Corman comes this new cheapie. A bipedal "dinocroc" escapes from a genetic laboratory and wreaks havoc on a lakeside community. The cast is a little bit higher quality than the usual in this kind of movie, but the CGI is bad and you don't get much of a look at the monster until the very end. This movie even has "monster-vision" which is a cliche that's long overdue to be retired.

Dragon Storm

Set sometime in during the Dark Ages, Dragon Storm is about dragons that fall to Earth in meteorites and start wiping out nearby towns. A cowardly, evil king (Rhys-Davies) is forced to ask for the help of a much nicer local king, and that nicer king appoints a huntsman (Caufield), his daughter (Boris), an alchemist, a Chinese guy, and a woman who happens to have her own a ballista to kill all the dragons. Typical low budget fare, but the animation of the dragons is above par.