Leofwine_draca William Hope Hodgson was a British writer of ghost and horror stories at the turn of the 20th century. He authored some great works and remains a favourite to this day, but what does he have to do with a Japanese B-movie (from Ishiro Honda, the guy who directed GODZILLA no less) made half a century later? The answer is that ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE (the US television title) is a loose adaptation of Hodgson's short story, The Voice in the Night. The latter is one of my favourites and I looked forward to seeing it put on screen, but only the basic premise remains the same.ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE is very much a product of the '60s. The cast all have stock roles: there's a psychiatrist (very much in vogue during this period), a novelist, some thrill-seekers and a stern skipper. The main problem with this film is that absolutely NONE of the characters are engaging. They're all unlikable, and you end up hoping that they're going to get bumped off as quickly as possible. Not so. This is one of those films that saves up the (admittedly good) action for the last ten minutes. Until then we've got scene after scene of dialogue, some exposition in the form of flashbacks here and there, and most of all, just plain mood building.How can a film about people turning into mushrooms be so slow? Because the film-makers adopt a subtle approach rather than going for a fun, fast-paced B-picture. Subtlety and slow-burn are great in modern horror flicks like JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, but I wasn't expecting the approach in a '60s monster flick, which is why I disliked this film when I first saw it.Things have changed on a second viewing. There is some atmosphere present, and some good creepy scenes involving the mushrooms and what they do to people (the film got into trouble because the make-up resembled Hiroshima victims!). The ending is an all-out cheese fest and a lot of fun. Of course, this is the '60s, and these mushrooms are hallucinogenic, so there are plenty of psychedelic bits and some good old flashing coloured lights thrown into the mix. People are stranded, people bicker, people kill each other, people fall victim to monsters. When those people are uniformly uninteresting, it's hard to care about their fate. Still, this was a nice break for Honda from making movies about rubber-suited giant creatures.

lemon_magic This was a pleasant surprise. I remembered seeing about 15 minutes of this about 30 years ago, and I was interested to see how well "Matango" held up. Very well indeed, as it turned out.My first time out, I missed the whole aspect of the 7 people stuck on the island turning on each other over food and as things got grim. One of the depressing aspects to this plot, of course, is that the group might well have survived and made it back to civilization if they had pulled together. Instead, greed, fear, lust, and weakness in the face of physical hardship tore the group apart and pretty much insured their doom.It was a if the cast of "Gilligan's Island" stumbled onto "The Masque Of the Red Death".The second aspect of the film I missed on initial viewing was how well shot and acted the film was (except for the English dub - more on that in a bit). The sets and the visual design of the island, the wrecked ships, the revelation of the ships' graveyard, the shots of people outlined against the surf, the colors of the various rooms covered in fungus - the people who did the story board and the cinematographers and director knew what they were doing. It was a pleasure to see the cool setups and reveals and camera work here.I really wish I had to chance to see this with English subtitles, though - the dub I heard ranged from mediocre to cheesy and really detracted from my enjoyment of the film. I mean, this wasn't Herzog or Kurosawa or "The Woman In The Dunes", but it had depth and subtext and weight behind the goofy "Attack Of the Mushroom People" title, and the American distributors didn't do it any favors with their treatment. These days, a film like this would be treated with much more care and respect, since the American hunger for "real" Japanese weirdness has created a market for uncut Japanese fantasy and horror.Very impressive. I might go out of my way to get a chance to see "Matango" as the director meant it to be experienced, uncut with subtitles.

doctorspark This movie rocked when i was a kid (30 years ago) and still rocks today. I need to point out something that is very important. The translators took an unbelievable amount of license, so much that they in fact, changed the end of the movie. The version I had grown up with as a child, dubbed in English, has the main character yelling "I ATE THEM" and then revealing that he too has turned into a mushroom. I watched the Japanese version with English subtitles (no English dubbing)the other day, and the Japanese version has the main character claiming that he NEVER ate mushrooms but turned into one anyways. This true ending relates to the main point that the movie is trying to make, that society is deteriorating and that you don't have to "eat the mushrooms" to become one. I.E. the world is going to hell and even if you aren't to blame directly, you still face the consequences. It was so disappointing to think that the translators really messed it up. (or thought American audiences couldn't grasp such a concept). Anyways, a top movie with either ending.

Woodyanders A yacht containing seven people gets damaged in a severe storm and winds up on a deserted island. The shipwreck survivors run afoul of both poisonous mushrooms that cause them to mutate and grotesque humanoid fungi monsters that inhabit the place. While the premise sounds laughable and ridiculous, this film works remarkably well thanks to Ishiro Honda's capable direction, an initially light and breezy tone which becomes more progressively dark, despairing and nightmarish as the absorbingly strange story unfolds, Hajime Koizuma's bright, fluid, polished cinematography, the stunningly hideous make-up effects, the believably drawn characters, Sadao Bekku's brooding gloom-doom score, the deliciously spooky and mysterious atmosphere, convincing performances by the sturdy cast, Takeshi Kimura's intriguing and wildly imaginative script, and a potent and provocative central theme on how such basic human weaknesses as lust, greed and selfishness sow the seeds of man's ruination. Offbeat, original and well worth checking out.