User Reviews

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.

This movie should be seen by any parent who tells his/her kids that they'll turn into whatever food it is they eat a lot of.

I found the film especially frightening due to the fact that this stranded group of people, having survived one horror (the wreck of their ship) encounter a second, more insidious horror -- the loss of their humanity.

The slow-moving monsters are reminiscent of those from mummy movies, but they are not the true danger on the island. "Gilligan's Island" this film is not, but is probably more entertaining. The off sync English translation can be disconcerting, but I didn't find it any worse than that of the original "Godzilla."

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.

This movie use to play on an old, Saturday late night horror movie TV show on a local Chicago station when I was growing up. I could never remember its name, but I remember how spooky it was. And the mushroom makeup was creepy. {{{{Spoiler Alert}}} The ending, where the lead character who's retelling the story is revealed to have turned into a mushroom, freaked me out as a kid. Asian horror films have always been very good and much better and more professional than some of the cheesy monster flicks --which were entertaining in their own right. This film ranks up there with some of the better horror films -- past or present.

TD Chicago