Waste of time

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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.

One of my favorite activities in my childhood days was to check out the TV section of the newspaper to see if a monster movie will be running that night, and if it was, I'd check my monster book, draw movie posters and put them up on the wall, and when the movie started, I would turn the lights of with a bag of pop cones and pretend I was watching the movie on the big screen. I think it was around 1970 when the movie aired on Japanese TV and I sat there in the darkened room but the movie was so scary that in the last 15 minutes when the mushrooms actually appear in their full-fledged form, I couldn't keep watching the film because of the creepiness and the tension that had built up in the last hour and 15 minutes was just too much for a 7 year old.The next day I asked a friend if he saw the movie till the end what happened at the end. He told me that the professor blew up the island and the mushrooms all died. I believed this kid for about 30 years until I had the chance to watch the movie again when I realized that this friend hadn't had the guts to watch the movie till the end either.Even as a kid I could feel the tension and desperation that dominates the entire film but more so as an adult and still give you that heavy feeling in your stomach. Compared to modern films it is a bit too slow and a bit too heavy. Risk feeling depressed and stressed after watching the film. Not recommended when feeling down or tired. Still a good movie overall.

As a big fan of bizarre cult cinema, there's no way I could resist a film with a title like 'Attack of the Mushroom People' and resisting this film is definitely not recommended to my fellow cult film fans as this is a highly original and fascinating slice of cinema! The film obviously takes influence from the monster movie genre in the way that the plot is set up; but director Ishirô Honda clearly didn't want to make just another monster film as the 'mushroom people' of the title don't figure much and the real point of this movie stems from the isolation and claustrophobia felt by the central characters. The film gets off to a promising, albeit slow; start as we see a group of people on a yacht get caught in a storm. Their boats sinks and they seek refuge on the closest island to where their boat sank; a seemingly lush paradise. However, the situation soon starts to become awry when they happen upon an abandoned research vessel. There's very little to eat on the island, and even though the research crew noted that there was something wrong with the mushrooms that grow there...they soon become hard for the shipwrecked to resist.In spite of the title, this is not a 'joke' film. The director takes the plot completely seriously and it really benefits the film. The 'monsters' only feature rarely, and mostly towards the end, and the way that the director focuses on the characters and their situation is always interesting and gives the themes of the plot a lot of credibility. Clearly, this is not just a film about funny mushrooms. The radiation theme recalls the director's earlier film 'Godzilla', and in turn recalls the Second World War, which obviously had a big effect on Japan. The mushrooms represent a pleasurable escape to the character's situation, although it is one that will cost them their humanity. The atmosphere is one of the key elements of the film too. Ishirô Honda gives the film a unique dreamlike style and the way that the tropical island is presented is very mysterious. The film has also aged surprisingly well considering it over forty years old. This is a very weird film and I have never seen anything quite like it. I often find myself searching for films like this and while it is not what its title suggests it will be, Attack of the Mushroom People is a fascinating film that should not be missed. Highly recommended viewing!

Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) * (out of 4) Incredibly poor horror film from Toho about seven people who get stranded on an island and turn into the title characters. Toho certainly should have looked at some Roger Corman films for inspiration because the monsters here don't show up for 80-minutes in an 90-minute movie! I'm not sure why Japanese horror movies had to be filled with so much boring talk that doesn't lead to anything except boredom for the viewer. The characters themselves are also annoying, which doesn't help matters. The really bad thing is the fact that all these characters and boring dialogue takes away from the monsters, which look pretty good but again, they appear way too late.