Over the course of nearly ten years, I've made an effort to include at least one giant monster movie on my list, and I'm partial to putting them towards the beginning (not for any particular reason mind you). However, I hit a bit of a snag this time around: there were very few kaiju films that I could cover. I considered tracking down the original Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla, but that won't even see a proper release on home video until the end of the month. There's also deep cuts like Deep Sea Monster Reigo and the Daimajin series, but given my rather poor income situation, I wasn't willing to shill out the money for those. While perusing Toho's catalog of oddities, I recalled seeing a poster for one of their more obscure efforts: the oddly-titled Attack of the Mushroom People (originally released in Japan as Matango). As luck would have it, the flick was also streaming over on Amazon Prime, so I figured that this ought to do for now.
The film opens in a hospital with a man known as Professor Murai addressing someone seen off camera about some rather horrific events that he went though. We're then treated to a flashback of a ragtag group of passengers traveling on a yacht (including Murai), and it isn't long before bad luck hits the crew in the form of a rather serious storm. The boat survives the ordeal, but they end up drifting towards a mysterious, deserted island and decide to explore it. They discover very few foods and drinks, with a notable and plentiful exception being a large forest full of mushrooms and fungi. As if the title doesn't (sort of) give it away, ingesting these mutagenic discoveries leads to some freaky stuff. Fun fact about that Americanized retitling: it's not particularly accurate and kind of misleading. What you might expect is something ala an "undiscovered civilization" kind of story, but what you get is more similar to films from around or before that decade such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Without going too deep into spoiler territory, there's sort of a proto-body horror vibe going on here, and the group's time spent on the island is shot with a sense of slow, creeping dread while emitting a very "alien" vibe. This could be slightly disappointing for someone who's hoping to see what the poster implies, such as a giant mushroom-like being terrorizing these castaways, but I'm all for Toho experimenting. Hell at that point in their career, they absolutely earned the right to do it.
Coincidentally, Matango is filled with other Toho veterans and familiar faces. Professor Murai is portrayed by Akira Kubo, who had previously worked with giants like Akira Kurosawa on movies like Throne of Blood, and would later appear in flicks like Destroy All Monsters and Invasion of Astro-Monster. Supporting him are performers such as Kenji Sahara, who has appeared in nearly every Godzilla-related project throughout that franchise's existence, and the striking Kumi Mizuno, who kaiju eiga fans will likely recognize from her appearances in Invasion of Astro-Monster and War of the Gargantuas. She's easily the highlight of the picture, and I'm still quite astonished that she never made her way over to the states for more projects because she was just that damn good in everything that she appeared in. Unfortunately, outside of their wardrobe choices, none of the actual characters themselves are anything to write home about, and it doesn't help that the English dub that I watched contained a voice cast that seemed unsure of what to make of the movie itself. Still, it isn't as insulting awful as other dubs that I've watched in this marathon throughout the years (I still have painful memories of the botch job known as Varan the Unbelievable).
It certainly won't go down as an essential viewing for J-horror fanatics, but I'd overall give Matango a recommendation. Sure, some of the effects are quite dated and the aforementioned dub is a little shaky, but it's very admirable that director Ishiro Honda (yet another Godzilla veteran) wanted to take a chance on something so drastically different from what he usually tackled. It isn't common to see Toho release ANYTHING that's even horror-adjacent save for the original Gojira or features like The Human Vapor, but I still gotta give respect where it's due. Currently, you can stream the English dub of Matango on Amazon Prime, and there is a DVD out there for purchase, though I am uncertain about if it contains the original Japanese audio or not.
Tomorrow, it's sequel time......for real.
No comments:
Post a Comment