Matango (マタンゴ) (1963) / Attack Of The Mushroom People (1965)

A little known atypical and interesting tokusatsu classic sci-fi / horror film, that is atmospheric and well-crafted, but somewhat slow-paced at times

Directed by Ishirō Honda
Screenplay by Takeshi Kimura
Story by Shinichi Hoshi, Masami Fukushima
Based on "The Voice in the Night"by William Hope Hodgson
Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka
Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi
Edited by Reiko Kaneko
Music by Sadao Bekku
Production company: Toho Co., Ltd
Distributed by Toho
Running time 89 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese

Cast

Akira Kubo as Professor Kenji Murai
Kumi Mizuno as Mami Sekiguchi
Kenji Sahara as Senzō Koyama
Hiroshi Tachikawa as Etsurō Yoshida
Yoshio Tsuchiya as Masafumi Kasai
Hiroshi Koizumi as Naoyuki Sakuda
Miki Yashiro as Akiko Sōma
Jiro Kumagai as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center
Yutaka Oka as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center
Keisuke Yamada as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center
Hideyo Amamoto as Matango
Haruo Nakajima as Matango
Masaki Shinohara as Matango
Kōji Uruki as Matango
Toku Ihara as Matango
Kuniyoshi Kashima as Matango
Tokio Ōkawa as Matango

In Summary…..

Matango  / Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) is a Japanese sci-fi / horror film directed by Ishirō Honda. It is partially based on William Hope Hodgson's short story "The Voice in the Night." The story involves five pleasure-seeking young people and two crewmen who become stranded on a tropical island. They soon stumble upon a deserted, fungus-covered ship wreck which they discover had been a research vessel examining the effects of radiation on plant and animal life. The crew had eaten some of the fungus and as a result were driven mad. With little edible food on the island, the group of castaways struggle to find a way to survive only to realize that they have each other to contend with along with a mysterious presence in the form of…...deadly mushrooms!


Read on for more……