After seeing all the positive reviews on IMDb, I thought I would give this one a try. I liked the first half of the film, the acting was good especially for a B grade horror, the characters seemed to be nicely developed , the build up was neat & eerie at an almost perfect pace.However, after the first half & as it moves towards the end, the movie turns into just about another b grade average, it loses its excitement & turns bland, not the worst, but there isn't anything outstanding about it either. I like the way its shown how the tension & mutual distrust among the characters begins to mount due to the scarcity of food & suddenly some of the members start turning hostile, a somewhat typical trapped in an island/everyone for himself situation, but that was the only part which was entertaining.There are the mushroom people but there isn't anything scary about them, they could have been just as well substituted by zombies & this could have been another dawn of the dead type average movie, with an add on of the forbidden mushrooms.There was some scope here & there was potential, but wasn't banked upon. It may appeal to an occasional horror movie viewer but certainly won't suffice for the horror movie veteran. To sum up, the acting & the pacing was good, the plot was decent, the climax mediocre. I give it a 6 ( to be precise 5.5 would be perfect but IMDb rating only has whole numbers XD) , at least it kept me entertained for about 60 minutes & there's much worse out there.

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.

This is the seventh Honda film that I've watched but only the second that I found to be in any way satisfying – the other being, of course, GOJIRA (1954); actually, I've got five more of his titles to go (which I'll be checking out throughout the week)…though, in all honesty, I only expect the earlier effort RODAN (1956) to be any good!The theme and setting of the film derives from a number of earlier horror/sci-fi classics: for instance, the flashback framework where the hero's tall tale is disbelieved by everyone – not to mention the scene in which he's seduced to the 'other side' by his transformed lover – was certainly inspired by INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956). Conversely, it looks forward to another good Japanese genre outing i.e. GOKE – BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (1968) with its disparate group of stranded passengers and the influence on them of the unfamiliar 'contaminated' environment (which slowly but surely leads to the disruption of the unit).Incidentally, despite the distinction given to each of the characters (psychologist, author, entrepreneur, skipper, etc.) – including two females (one a sluttish chanteuse and the other a naïve student) – none are developed in enough detail to be allowed to take center-stage. Interestingly, too, the identity of the sole male survivor among them is not immediately disclosed; the revelation at the end, then, takes proceedings into unexpected amour fou territory! As for the mutant creatures (the U.S. title of the film, in fact, was the catchpenny ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE), they're quite silly-looking in themselves – but, sensibly, these are mainly depicted as menacing shadowy figures.Though not quite the sci-fi masterpiece that Enrico Ghezzi (eccentric presenter of "After Hours", the programme during which the Honda TV marathon was held) proudly claimed in his introduction, it's quite an engaging and effective piece – if somewhat lacking in pace. All in all, I wouldn't mind owning the SE DVD of MATANGO from Media Blasters eventually (also given the fact that the Italian subtitles on the version I watched were too rapid to read through at times, while the image itself suffered from occasional momentary freezing!)...

A yacht containing seven people gets damaged in a severe storm and winds up on a deserted island. The shipwreck survivors run afoul of both poisonous mushrooms that cause them to mutate and grotesque humanoid fungi monsters that inhabit the place. While the premise sounds laughable and ridiculous, this film works remarkably well thanks to Ishiro Honda's capable direction, an initially light and breezy tone which becomes more progressively dark, despairing and nightmarish as the absorbingly strange story unfolds, Hajime Koizuma's bright, fluid, polished cinematography, the stunningly hideous make-up effects, the believably drawn characters, Sadao Bekku's brooding gloom-doom score, the deliciously spooky and mysterious atmosphere, convincing performances by the sturdy cast, Takeshi Kimura's intriguing and wildly imaginative script, and a potent and provocative central theme on how such basic human weaknesses as lust, greed and selfishness sow the seeds of man's ruination. Offbeat, original and well worth checking out.