MATANGO: ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE (1963)

[The Burgomaster]

This is the newest addition to my DVD collection.

First, let me say that the quality of the DVD is impressive (2.35: 1 widescreen, remastered 5.1 audio).  However, the movie itself is not so impressive.

It starts out with original Japanese opening credits!  Then it becomes sort of like Gilligan's Island (7 people aboard a sailboat get shipwrecked on a small island).   The scenes on the boat have the worst blue screen/rear projection effects you will ever see.

Most of the movie involves the castaways sitting around and talking about how they are going to get back home, and what they will eat in the meantime.  Eventually, they start eating mushrooms that have sort of an addictive, hypnotic effect.  Near the very end, the people who ate the mushrooms begin turning into "mushroom people" (human sized mushrooms, with small mushrooms growing out of them).

Overall, pretty boring, but still a required piece of bad Japanese sci-fi.

Extras include trailers for movies like VARAN (the trailers are in Japanese), and an interview with an old special effects expert (in Japanese, with English subtitles).

[Flangepart]

Oh yeah the Tokyoshock DvD! I've got the MYSTERIANS DvD on order. They do good work. I always recomend their disc of GAPPA. It has the original sound track, with a snazzy theme song, too.

[peter johnson]

Christ, I really shouldn't even comment, because I don't have the book on hand, but the entire movie is based on a classic British short horror story from the 1920's -- oh, I really can't remember the author's name now!  The guy who did "The King in Yellow"(?) -- I read it twice in different anthologies --
Anyway, I love the Japanese film too -- good stuff!
peter johnson/denny crane

[DaveMunger]

I just read The King In Yellow, because I found it free online somewhere (probably Gutenberg). Did I miss something or were the last two-thirds kind of non-supernatural, non-horror, mushy girly stuff? Anyway, that was Robert Chambers.

I think I saw this movie when I was too little to have any idea what was going on.

http://davemunger.blogspot.com