This movie is a bit of an outlier for director Ishiro Honda, who is a long way from Gojira (1954) and Mothra (1961). It was released direct to television in the U.S., under the title Attack of the Mushroom People. The British title, Fungus of Terror, is somewhat more dignified, perhaps. I like the Japanese poster. I guess the English tagline is referring to ‘Planet Fog,’ since it takes place on an island off the coast of Japan.
Tagline: “Castaway on a forbidden planet…Their craving for the strange exotic fruit…Drives them to madness…And unspeakable horror!”
Aka: Matango, Fungus of Terror, and various permutations
WTF Factor: ***
Notable Dialogue: Yoshida: “I’m going after that thing that came on board and frightened everybody.”
Kasai: “Yoshida, don’t do that. I’m sure it was a human being. Maybe he was a member of the crew of this ship.”
Yoshida: “I certainly hope it is a man because then I’ll be able to talk to him. I’ll be very interested to hear what he has to say. A man thinks strange things when he’s out of his mind. His reality may be far more fascinating than ours.”
Notable Pronouncement:
Mami: “It’s delicious! We should have eaten them sooner.”
It’s difficult to get a good screencap of the mushroom people, so I will lead off with this publicity still:
Synopsis: We open in a psychiatric ward with a great view of Tokyo. Professor Murai (Akira Kubo, future star of Destroy All Monsters) is afraid to tell his story to the doctors. His friends died but they’re not really dead…
Cut to Murai’s flashback of a group on a yacht with jaunty music and credits. Kasai (Yoshio Tsuchiya, ubiquitous actor and author of multiple books on UFOs) is the yacht owner and host, and Mami (Kumo Mizuno, scientist in Frankenstein Conquers the World) is his mistress. However, Mami and author Yoshida (Hiroshi Tachikawa, Throne of Blood) are flirting. Mami is a singer and very lively, while the other woman, who came with Murai, student Akiko (Miki Yashiro, Mothra vs. Godzilla) is shy. The skipper Sakuda (Hiroshi Koizumi, star of Gigantis, the Fire Monster) and sailor Koyama (Kenji Sahara, star of Rodan) despise the rich passengers.
A big storm comes up and the yacht is trashed. They drift through the fog with a dead radio and little food or water. They eventually find an apparently deserted island. The group swims ashore and then tromps through the foggy jungle to find food and water. From now on, the entire movie is foggy outdoors. They find the wreck of an old ship with everything covered in a slimy fungus.
They find a lab, suggesting that this is a research ship. The contents of the lab indicate that the previous residents were studying the effects of radiation. The group decides to clean up and live on the ship. In the lab, they find a crate with a giant matango mushroom in it. Says Murai, accurately, “Everything seems pretty weird.” They find little food on the island. Kasai finds and cleans a rifle that seems to take infinite shots. The group is desperate for food but the ship’s log says that the abundant mushrooms produce a neurotoxin and must be avoided. Apparently the previous crew disappeared one by one onto the island.
Sakuda will swim out to the yacht and see if he can repair it, while the others search the island for food. Sakuda and Koyama bring the yacht to their side of the island and find many wrecks underwater. Murai and Kasai spot a shambling figure in the forest and another one shows up on the ship and shuffles through the hallways.
Koyama is a macho jerk. He finds turtle eggs and hides some of them, which he ends up selling to Kasai, who has been stealing food from the ship’s stores. Yoshida goes hunting for their night visitor and ends up eating some of the mushrooms. Later on the ship he behaves strangely. He gets amorous with Mami and Koyama is not pleased. Kasai, on the other hand, shrugs it off. Yoshida grabs the gun and attacks the group, babbling about the “laughing mushrooms.” The men overpower him and lock him in the captain’s cabin.
Sakuda is still working on the yacht and Kasai suggests that they leave together. Sakuda is not pleased by the suggestion, but then he steals the food store himself and leaves with the yacht alone. Nobody is pleased. Yoshida gets the gun back with Mami’s help and kills Koyama. He holds the others at gunpoint but the men finally wrestle the gun away from him. Kasai orders Yoshida and Mami off the ship. Later, Kasai is going off the deep end with despair and Mami lures him into the jungle to eat mushrooms. Kasai has visions of PG-13 dancing ladies. Mami points out that the mushrooms are addictive as well as hallucinogenic. Kasai is surrounded by walking mushroom people.
Now there are just Murai and Akiko left on the ship. The yacht reappears but it turns out that Sakuda has killed himself and the yacht simply drifted back. Akiko despairs, but Murai proclaims his love for her. We love those professor/student relationships. Akiko is then carried off by mushroom people and Murai is not pleased. When he finds Akiko, she is happily eating mushrooms. After a frantic round of keep-away with the mushroom people, Murai escapes to the yacht and ends up being rescued and sent to the psychiatric ward. It turns out he ate the mushrooms too and is now turning into a mushroom person. He is sorry he didn’t stay on the island with Akiko. The contrast is made between the peaceful jungle and loud, garish Tokyo. The end.
Thoughts: This movie is well worth a watch. It is a general adaptation of a spooky short story by William Hope Hodgson, The Voice in the Night. If you are not familiar with Hodgson, I highly recommend his short story collection, Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, about a 1900’s psychic investigator. The movie moves along fairly well and there is more attention paid to characterization than in many of the kaijus. Usually (and rightfully), when watching a dubbed film, one always wonders what the characters are really saying, but in this case, there seems to be a reasonable match in the actions and words.
This film was a favorite of L.A. horror host Seymour (Larry Vincent), who showed it frequently with a variety of framing comedy bits.
Existential exchange:
Akiko: “Hey, can’t we eat the mushrooms now?”
Murai: “That would really be the end of us.”
Akiko: “But Mami and Kasai…”
Murai: “Fool, they’re half mushroom.”
Akiko: “So what? If we can’t get off this island, maybe there’s no other way to live…”
[Murai slaps her]
There’s a definite ambiguity about Murai’s fate. Would he be happier back on the island as a full-fledged mushroom person? The ending seems to suggest, yes, he would. Things certainly aren’t going to end well in Tokyo.
Suggested double feature: The Hallow (2015), for another fungal villain.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “Is it a phantom, a demon, or the Devil himself?”
