My people!
I’m not sure when I started liking giant monster movies, but my collection began way back in the home VHS era when there was an Independence Day Godzilla marathon (“He never ran for office, but boy did he get his way!”) and basically taped the whole thing. Lots of Showa-era Godzilla goodness that day.
My collection has of course been upgraded since and I’m in the process of hunting down decent copies of non-Godzilla Toho films.
Just stumbled across these two Godzilla prints today. I’m sure there are a blue million such things, but these are pretty fun. The first one is great for the “ID the kaiju game” aspect, too.
Been a kaiju fan since forever. I’ve met three different Godzilla suit actors, met Bin Furuya, a.k.a Ultraman, and even watched the 2014 Legendary Godzilla movie on opening night with Kenpachiro Satsuma (Godzilla suit actor from '85 to ‘94) in attendance. I watched a frickin’ Godzilla movie WITH Godzilla. Major life highlight!
Q! Oh wow, I thought I was the only person who knew that glorious stinkbomb!
Lake Placid. not a great movie, but excellent performances by Oliver Platt and Brendan Gleeson give it kick.
Incidentally, a mentor of mine was bamboozled by the creative staff into consulting for Lake Placid. They told him they were doing a documentary of crocodiles. The science in LP isn’t necessarily great, but there is a reason that some of it is remotely factual.
Do giant versions of real animals count? I mean I guess since someone’s already brought up Night of the Lepus… (side note: everything I’m about to list I’ve actually seen)
I submit the following:
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Dinocroc Vs. Supergator
Sharktopus
Piranhaconda
Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus
Megapython vs. Gatoroid
The Meg
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
Supershark
Anaconda
Eight Legged Freaks
For a more “fantasy” fare element, I submit:
20 Million Miles to Earth
Clash of the Titans
Rampage
The Suicide Squad
Tremors
A Quiet Place 1 & 2
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Dagon
King Kong (1933 version and Peter Jackson’s; have yet to see the one from the '70s though)
I’ve also seen quite a few of the ones you guys have already mentioned, but as they were already mentioned, I figured I’d leave them off of my list. 
Look, I hate to be that guy, but most of these are giant versions of real animals! I mean, giant octopus, that’s pretty much a gimme. But there are a few that aren’t real, like anacondas, and I’m not sure I’d say “giant” in all cases. The common Jersey Shore sharktopus (Selachioparctopus yo) is barely 1.5 meters long (although its Tinder profile says 6’1"), and always remember the old song, not all dinocrocs are gigantic. #NotAllDinoCrocs
As an inveterate fan of Kari Wuhrer, I appreciate the inclusion of the rarely-cited, rarely-watched Eight Legged Freaks (which are, of course, not at all larger than IRL). Nice catch!
Seriously though, I love me a giant real animal movie! And I am totally off to watch Lake Placid now!
That’s a good one. Although the effects are a bit cheap, the creature design is excellent, and the overall story has a bit more to it than some monster flicks.
Umm… you weren’t actually complaining about the effects, were you? I find them perfectly, delightfully awful, and despite my distaste for stop-motion I love them.
But yeah, they are awful.
I love me a good kaiju film, I love tokusatsu in general. I have a soft spot for Daimajin. Maybe the guys can riff one of Chaiyo’s bootleg Ultraman films.
You forgot Betty White playing a woman who swears like a sailor!
Attack of the Super Monsters is something really special. Giant robots fighting talking dinosaurs, and for an extra dose of surreal, the humans are animated. Plus, some outrageous sexism among the heroes even for the time.
War of the Gargantuas is good…and then “The Words Get Stuck In My Throat” starts playing…oh boy oh boy…
The Giant Claw is a perfect pick. I stan the giant antimatter space buzzard.
I’ve made a handful of discoveries myself for my (formerly) weekly bad movie nights. Big Ass Spider, Avalanche Shark, Chupacabra vs. the Alamo, the list goes on. I’m the biggest sucker for a good creature feature. 100% sign me up for this club.
Every summer on Channel 11’s afternoon movie, “The Big Show” (back when there was still plenty of local content on your local stations), they would have a ‘Godzilla Week’, and that was the best week of the summer (trips to the lake and to Cedar Point notwithstanding). 
One of the first movies I can remember watching was a matinee of Godzilla vs. Megalon, which was certainly one of the lesser movies, but made me a die-hard Godzilla fan (as well as Gigan being one of my favorite heel monsters) and it’s a minor miracle I didn’t keep the Crestwood House monster book covering Godzilla, I certainly checked it out enough times.
Ever since then, I’ve always been keen to enjoy some giant monster fun of all stripes, be it Godzilla, Gamera, Daimajin, etc, etc etc
This movie has been riffed a few times by fans.
I would link Media Center Theater 3000 to you but it looks like they took them off Youtube.
Asking out of honest curiosity here… is it possible to riff The Giant Claw without breaking out in paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter whenever the bird is on screen?
I have yet to watch that movie without uncontrollably laughing at that damn bird. I don’t honestly think I could watch it being riffed, because I’d be laughing to hard at the bird to hear the riffs!
Side note: let me know if you want to hear some fun movie trivia about the movie. I’ve shared it a time or two here before, but I don’t want to overtell the story.
I think the antidote is to disguise your own laughter with the traditional “hyuck hyuck” laugh of stupid cartoon characters, which can pass as a riff. Then from there you might be able to manage some words. Perhaps one can channel Beaky Buzzard as a muse.
