Matango (1963)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writers:

Takeshi Kimura (screenplay)
Shinichi Hoshi (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

11 August 1963 (Japan)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Shipwrecked survivors slowly transform into mushrooms.

Plot Keywords:

Island | Mushroom | Yacht | Radiation | Rifle

Cast

Akira Kubo	...	Kenji Murai - Professor
Kumi Mizuno	...	Mami Sekiguchi - Singer
Hiroshi Koizumi	...	Naoyuki Sakuta - Skipper
Kenji Sahara	...	Senzô Koyama - Sailor
Hiroshi Tachikawa	...	Etsurô Yoshida - Writer
Yoshio Tsuchiya	...	Masafumi Kasai - Owner
Miki Yashiro	...	Akiko Sôma - Murai's Lover
Eisei Amamoto	...	Skulking Transitional Matango
Takuzo Kumagaya	...	Doctor (as Jirô Kumagai)
Akio Kusama	...	Police Personnel
Yutaka Oka	...	Doctor
Keisuke Yamada	...	Doctor
Kazuo Higata	...	Police Personnel
Katsumi Tezuka	...	Police Personnel
Haruo Nakajima	...	Matango

Also Known As:

Attack of the Mushroom People (USA) (TV title)
Curse of the Mushroom People
Fungus of Terror
Matango the Fungus of Terror
Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People (USA) (DVD box title)
Matango: Fungus of Terror

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Hachijôjima, Japan

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

The giant mushrooms that the characters eat were created by the special effects crew from rice pastry. The rice pastry would be picked up from a nearby shop that specialized in it, and taken to the studio where it was shaped and cooked. Because Kumi Mizuno was so well liked, they would add sugar and other flavors.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Kasai shoots at Yoshida and Mami as he chases them off the boat, you can see the bullets ricochet off the ground before he fires a shot.

Movie Connections:

Edited into 42nd Street Forever, Volume 1 (2005) (V)

A certain something...

If you look around on the Internet you can see that almost all the entries for this movie, are above average and there are probably a million different reasons for that. I think they all have in common that somehow this movie really gets people on a sub-conscious level and represents something.

I remember seeing this movie at various times growing up on the late night horror shows, in Houston, Texas, called "Weird" and "Late Wierd", and then in California on "Creature Features".

There is something about watching this movie about a groups of somewhat related friends who are out on a cruise in their rich friends sailboat, well, actually the exact details escape me, and I am not sure that the English tranlation accurately tells what was supposed to be going on in the original story.

The boat is caught in a storm, and they drift through heavy fog to a deserted island where everything is misty, moist, and fungus ridden. To survive they look for food, and find that people have been to the island before, in fact a large group of people on a freighter ship that has wasted away.

There are some clues on the ship as to what happened, and some strange goings on that stress these "friends" to the breaking point, and their cohesion starts to unravel.

There is just something special about this eerie and fun movie that if I ever see it in DVD format I will pick it up.