Matango (1963)

"This yacht will never sink, it cost a lot of money" Wanna bet?

The 1960's were a fun time for monster movies, case in point this film---Attack of the Mushroom People AKA Matango. The film boasted alums from Godzilla and Kurosawa movies, not a bad way to build a cast for a dark movie about survival on a nightmarish jungle island.

For an older generation or ones who've spent time watching TVLand, see if this sounds familiar---The movie begins with a jaunty tune as seven people frolic on a yacht. A millionaire, the skipper, first mate, television star, professor, and naïve young woman become stranded on a remote island after their yacht is blown off course during a terrible storm. Gilligan didn't have a writer on his island but this island does and this first mate was far more deadly and lecherous than the Skipper's little buddy. Too bad the professor's field was psychology or maybe he could have made a phone out of mushrooms as there were no coconuts to be found.*

The survivors found another ship run aground near the island with a captain's log stating to not eat the mushrooms. Given that the mysterious ship had been studying the effects of radiation on plants and animals, it left the door open that the mushrooms on the island (mushroom cloud?) might have been a scientific disaster either theirs or someone else's. Strange, colorful fungi covered the surfaces in the rooms of the wreck. Human nature began to rear its ugly head as fear and the lack of food chafed on everyone. The class divides fractured causing friction from the top down. Money was of little use when a person was starving.

"The weak constraints of society disintegrate in the face of the will to survive in harsh circumstances."

As polite society broke down and despair prevailed, the survivors slowly succumbed to eating the mushrooms, leading to a terrible fate. We know that the professor survived for he was shown in the opening shot, confined to a psych ward. After the grim transformations of his friends and acquaintances, he was left wandering if he should have stayed on the island as Tokyo could be even more cruel.

Matango built the story slowly, focusing on the different characters and showing their strengths and slow decline as hope withered away. It was fun seeing Koizumi Hiroshi have a nice meaty role after all the Godzilla films he worked in. This film included actors from both Godzilla and Kurosawa films, as director Honda worked in both. The acting was hit or miss with the cast, but the writing for them was stronger than most Kaiju or other monster fare from the era. The story grew darker as civility slipped away with hunger and desire taking hold. The mushroom creatures were typical 1960's people in rubber suits, but disturbing enough. The music and fog set the stage for a creepy tale to unfold.

Unlike the castaways on Gilligan's island Matango's castaways were jealous, lustful and murderous, mortal sins only heightened by the psychedelic fungi. The need to drift away into hallucinations instead of fighting to survive slowly dragged most of the castaways down, transforming them into the fungal creatures. Hunger can drive a person mad but so can monstrous psychedelic mushrooms. Attack of the Mushroom People was a mind-bending study of how people behave when societal norms collapse and when they lose the will to fight or even live.

8/24/23

*My comparison to Gilligan's Island was for fun, keeping in mind that Gilligan premiered in 1963 a year after this film.

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