Gorgo's final moments, in which the giant beast rampages through London undeterred while looking for its young, is an uncredited cinema classic. The number of landmarks, superb use of miniatures, mattes, and various other special effects techniques are stunning. It's a giant monster feast for fans of the genre. The lead-in to that final assault is equally entertaining.

Pushing aside nearly every generic cliché, director Eugene Lourie throws out what he learned from his previous two monster pictures. While some scenes are recycled, Gorgo's plot is anything but a rehash. Its human characters are interesting in that everyone is flawed. The only decent, caring person is a small child.

Lourie tries to pull some heartstrings this time, showing some cruel treatment to what is eventually discovered to be a baby creature. Trapped inside a small enclosure, the monster bellows for help. Resurrected by increased volcanic activity, the parental unit responds.

Gorgo is a fast film, barely making it past the 70-minute mark. By 1961, audiences knew what to expect, so wasting precious screen time on explanations was completely unnecessary. The set up is familiar with an ever-growing sense of dread, including thousands of dead fish and an evaporating industry. The early moments are the only time Gorgo fails to provide action, content on properly establishing its characters and their purpose.

This only adds to the tension in the epic rampage. Gorgo's fury is captured close to flawlessly on film. Lourie breaks some typical rules for giant monster movies, showing countless deaths, intense chaos, and widespread panic on a most impressive scale. Trampled people are a common site, and destroyed remnants of crushed buildings flatten those unlucky enough to be in the beast's way.

Editing here is fast, and it's certainly debatable that it's far too fast for its own good. This leads to a few sloppy cuts where Gorgo is in one position in one shot, and apparently moving faster than any other creature on Earth to be somewhere else entirely in the next. This is compounded by some excessive stock footage, especially during a jet attack where it's blatantly obvious the jets are flying during the day even though the ground action is clearly set against a night sky. It's been said Lourie created a print for himself, deleting all the stock footage in the process.

Gorgo ends up succeeding on countless levels, certainly more so than numerous other movies of its type. It gives the creature a purpose to stumble around the city, both for revenge and to rescue its young. It's a complete classic that's only mildly hampered by budget concerns.

After VCI released Gorgo the first time, it was fair enough to say that was an unwatchable disc. The print looked like it was dragged through mud, obscuring complete scenes in almost total blackness. This updated "Destruction Edition" makes a lot of progress, but only in comparison. Colors have faded drastically over the years, and the yellow hues over the entire film make some scenes unbearable (oddly colored flesh tones make everyone look ill). Damage to the print itself has been cleaned up, and the thick black layer of nothingness has been lightened up. Compression problems are no longer evident, while grain is still heavy in some scenes. It's the best home video release of the film to date, for whatever that's worth.