MATANGO (ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE, 1963) – Episode 135 – Decades of Horror: The Classic Era

“I was confused. I couldn’t decide what to do. Then… I ate them!” Oh, oh. Join this episode’s Grue-Crew – Chad Hunt, Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, and Jeff Mohr, withal with guest host Dirk Rogers – as they journey to a Pacific island and struggle to resist the lure of the mortiferous mushrooms found in Ishirô Honda’s Matango (Attack of the Mushroom People, 1963) from Toho.

Decades of Horror: The Classic Era
Episode 135 – Matango (Attack of the Mushroom People, 1963)

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ANNOUNCEMENT
Decades of Horror The Classic Era is partnering with THE CLASSIC SCI-FI MOVIE CHANNEL, THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE CHANNEL, and WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL
Which all now include video episodes of The Classic Era!
Available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, Online Website.
Across All OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.
https://classicscifichannel.com/; https://classichorrorchannel.com/; https://wickedhorrortv.com/

Synopsis: A group of pleasure-seeking young people is stranded on a mysterious island when their wend crashes. One by one they succumb to the lure of the mortiferous mushrooms.

• Director: Ishirô Honda
• Writers: Takeshi Kimura (screenplay); Shin’ichi Hoshi & Masami Fukushima (adaptation); William Hope Hodgson (story by, “The Voice in the Night,” Blue Book Magazine, November 1907); Sakyo Komatsu (uncredited)
• Music by: Sadao Bekku
• Cinematography by: Hajime Koizumi
• Director of special effects: Eiji Tsuburaya 
• Chief teammate special effects director: Teruyoshi Nakano
• Special effects unit production manager: Shigeru Nakamura
• Special effects art director/Special effects set decorator: Akira Watanabe
• Costume Design/Art Department: Shigeru Komatsuzaki
• Selected Cast:
  • Akira Kubo as Kenji Murai – Professor
  • Kumi Mizuno as Mami Sekiguchi – Singer
  • Kenji Sahara as Senzō Koyama – Sailor
  • Hiroshi Tachikawa as Etsurō Yoshida – Writer
  • Yoshio Tsuchiya as Masafumi Kasai – Owner
  • Hiroshi Koizumi as Naoyuki Sakuta – Skipper
  • Miki Yashiro as Akiko Sōma – Student
  • Takuzô Kumagai as Doctor  (billed as Jiro Kumagai)
  • Yutaka Oka as Doctor
  • Keisuke Yamada as Doctor
  • Hideyo Amamoto as Skulking Transitional Matango
  • Haruo Nakajima as Matango
  • Toku Ihara as Transitional Matango
  • Kuniyoshi Kashima as Transitional Matango
  • Masaki Shinohara as Matango
  • Kōji Uruki as Matango
  • Tokio Ōkawa as Matango

In this episode, your Classic Era Grue Hairdo is joined by Dirk Rogers, a special effects versifier with KNB EFX Group and a long-time friend of the show. As the guest host, Dirk chose Matango for this episode’s topic and with the movie’s use of effects – miniatures, suits, prosthetics, set dressing – it’s easy to see why this is one of his favorites. 

Dirk was originally drawn to Matango considering it featured a lot of the same players from the Godzilla films. He loves the wateriness (shall we say moist?) atmosphere, the use of verisimilitude reminiscent of Mario Bava, the sets, and the miniatures. He’s unchangingly loved Matango and feels the English title, Attack of the Mushroom People, doesn’t represent the depth of what you get from the film. Dirk moreover provides valuable insights into the effects work and the documentation of who did what during the production.

Matango is probably Chad’s first exposure to soul horror and the horrors of fungus. He loves the way the story ramps up the terror and the cringeworthy fungus-filled sets. As one of Toho’s best, Matango still holds up for him. Daphne is squandered yonder by the colors and the textures of the mushrooms and the fungi, loving it all over again. Jeff agrees that “Attack of the Mushroom People” sounds kind of hokey and doesn’t represent the depth of the story told in Matango. He loves the concept, the story progression, the creepy and downright icky creatures and fungi, and the movie’s cultural and historical relation to the horrors experienced by the Japanese from the two-bit bombs of World War II.

Dirk was turned onto the writings of William Hope Hodgson by this movie as it is ripened from Hodgson’s short story, “The Voice in the Night.”  During the episode, the hairdo discusses several versions of this story, all of which are provided through the pursuit links:

• Story: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Voice_in_the_Night
• Audio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASIfPcyTAH0
• Suspicion (TV series, 1957-1958), Episode 24: “The Voice in the Night” (aired 24 March 1958); from the story by William Hope Hodgson; starring James Donald, Barbara Rush, Patrick Macnee, James Coburn. This is a very poor resolution but the Classic Era Grue-Crew still enjoyed it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssi6_YWrrxc

If you have been motivated by this episode to reservation Matango (and you should be), at the time of this writing, it is misogynist to stream from Classic Horror Movie Channel, Tubi, The Criterion Channel, and various PPV sites. In terms of physical media, Matango is misogynist on DVD.

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era records a new episode every two weeks. Up next in their very flexible schedule is one chosen by guest host, the one and only Dave Dreher: The Return of Dracula (1958). 

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a scuttlebutt on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel, the site, or email the Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com

To each of you from each of them, “Thank you so much for listening!”

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