Attack of the Mushroom People Movie Review

You might not believe it from the title, but this is actually a well-made and fairly scary monster movie from Toho Studios, home of Godzilla & Co. A group of rich vacationers are stranded on a secluded, fog-bound island. They take up residence in an abandoned ship whose crew has mysteriously vanished, leaving all the mirrors onboard smashed. As time goes by, the castaways get increasingly squirrely and begin turning against one another. Their troubles, however, are only beginning. It seems the ship's original crew aren't dead – after eating the mushrooms plentiful on the island, they've transformed into oversized, killer fungus-creatures and are lurking in the jungle. The rubbery ‘shroom-monsters look like something from a five-year-old's nightmare, but some of the scariest moments in this movie come from the paranoia and cruelty that takes over the castaways and makes you wonder who the real monsters are. AKA: Matango; Fungus of Terror; Curse of the Mushroom People.

1963 70m/B JP Akira Kubo, Kenji Sahara, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kumi Mizuno, Miki Yashiro; D: Inoshiro Honda. VHS SMW