It's the smaller films by Ishiro Honda since he got pigeonholed into the sci-fi/horror genre that I'm finding far more interesting than the bigger ones. This and The Human Vapor are missing the grand scale of something like Gorath or Rodan, but in place we get a stronger focus on character and atmosphere. That ends up combining with Honda's strong technical skills, never in doubt even in his lesser work, to create more complete packages of genre thrills that simply work better overall.
I suppose that I only have two main complaints with the film. The first is the wraparound, a pair of scenes as the one survivor of the film's events speaks, with his back to the camera from a room overlooking the Tokyo skyline (the first real modern look at Tokyo in Honda's work), laying out how many survive while giving the audience the assurance that, yes, they've paid for a horror movie. Just give it a minute because the film's real beginning is almost akin to a beach picture from the 50s as a group of rich Tokyo residents take a yacht out for a couple of days of relaxing boating. My other complaint is that there are probably two or three too many characters, several of them blending together slightly confusingly.
Anyway, the whole affair was arranged by Kasai (Yoshio Tsuchiya), the president of Kasai industries, bringing along his mistress, the television singer Mami (Kumi Mizuno), the writer of mystery novels Etsuro (Hiroshi Tachikawa), the professor of psychology Kenji (Akira Kubo), the student Akiko (Miki Yashiro), the ship's captain Naoyuki (Hiroshi Koizumi), and his first mate Senzo (Kenji Sahara). They're out having a good time, demonstrating their characters in small ways, when a storm comes up. Kasai decides, as the owner of the boat, that they'll keep on, a decision that turns sour when the storm gets too powerful, and they find themselves lost in a fog, sailing in sight of an island that they seek shelter on considering the damaged nature of the boat.
It honestly doesn't take too long for the film to start feeling like a weird, very Japanese, horror film. It's maybe twenty minutes. However, once they get to the island, it's obvious that it's not anything like normal. There are no animals to be found. The place is too quiet. They cross the landmass and find an abandoned vessel with rooms filled with weird growths all over them except the infirmary where the growth won't seemingly thrive around antiseptics. They also find some canned food hidden away, but never any sign of the former crew aside from the log which just stops without an answer.
Trapped, the seven begin to grate on each other with their different priorities, desires, and goals. Kenji is the most pro-active of them all, trying to organize hunting parties for food. Kasai just wants to buy his way through every problem. Mami plays with the men because she's bored. Naoyuki is concerned with fixing the boat. Akiko keeps to herself, all shy-like. Etsuro, perhaps because he's the writer, is the first to eat the local mushrooms, called Matango, that Kenji insists they shouldn't.
It's in this environment that weird things begin to happen. They're visited at night by some kind of man-like creature with growths all over it that may or may not have actually shown up. Kasai tries to steal food in the middle of it all, and he's only stopped by the horror he witnesses and desire to save his own skin. The thin bonds between the men fray. Tensions mount. A gun is used to threaten. People get kicked off of the ship. Bribes are attempted. People disappear and then reappear with surprising smiles and the insistence on eating mushrooms.
I really like all of this. The weirdness of the setting. The focus on characters as they deal with it. The unexplainable nature of the events (well, not unexplainable, but definitely outside the realm of possibility and easy explanation), and the abandonment of any desire to come up with scientific explanations for it. There is some early-ish dialogue about how the previous crew of the abandoned ship were studying the effects of radiation and atomic weapons, but at no point is there a scientist in a lab coat saying that radiation caused people to turn into mushrooms for two straight minutes. That's a blessing.
So, it's a horror movie. It's a very effective horror movie. I get lost in the characters, trying to keep all of them straight, and I don't like the wraparound all that much, but the rest is very solid stuff. I get into the weird atmosphere of it all as the characters go steadily insane while bizarre things unfold around them and engulf them. It's well filmed, well directed, well performed, and well put together. It's a good time at the movies.
I suppose that I only have two main complaints with the film. The first is the wraparound, a pair of scenes as the one survivor of the film's events speaks, with his back to the camera from a room overlooking the Tokyo skyline (the first real modern look at Tokyo in Honda's work), laying out how many survive while giving the audience the assurance that, yes, they've paid for a horror movie. Just give it a minute because the film's real beginning is almost akin to a beach picture from the 50s as a group of rich Tokyo residents take a yacht out for a couple of days of relaxing boating. My other complaint is that there are probably two or three too many characters, several of them blending together slightly confusingly.
Anyway, the whole affair was arranged by Kasai (Yoshio Tsuchiya), the president of Kasai industries, bringing along his mistress, the television singer Mami (Kumi Mizuno), the writer of mystery novels Etsuro (Hiroshi Tachikawa), the professor of psychology Kenji (Akira Kubo), the student Akiko (Miki Yashiro), the ship's captain Naoyuki (Hiroshi Koizumi), and his first mate Senzo (Kenji Sahara). They're out having a good time, demonstrating their characters in small ways, when a storm comes up. Kasai decides, as the owner of the boat, that they'll keep on, a decision that turns sour when the storm gets too powerful, and they find themselves lost in a fog, sailing in sight of an island that they seek shelter on considering the damaged nature of the boat.
It honestly doesn't take too long for the film to start feeling like a weird, very Japanese, horror film. It's maybe twenty minutes. However, once they get to the island, it's obvious that it's not anything like normal. There are no animals to be found. The place is too quiet. They cross the landmass and find an abandoned vessel with rooms filled with weird growths all over them except the infirmary where the growth won't seemingly thrive around antiseptics. They also find some canned food hidden away, but never any sign of the former crew aside from the log which just stops without an answer.
Trapped, the seven begin to grate on each other with their different priorities, desires, and goals. Kenji is the most pro-active of them all, trying to organize hunting parties for food. Kasai just wants to buy his way through every problem. Mami plays with the men because she's bored. Naoyuki is concerned with fixing the boat. Akiko keeps to herself, all shy-like. Etsuro, perhaps because he's the writer, is the first to eat the local mushrooms, called Matango, that Kenji insists they shouldn't.
It's in this environment that weird things begin to happen. They're visited at night by some kind of man-like creature with growths all over it that may or may not have actually shown up. Kasai tries to steal food in the middle of it all, and he's only stopped by the horror he witnesses and desire to save his own skin. The thin bonds between the men fray. Tensions mount. A gun is used to threaten. People get kicked off of the ship. Bribes are attempted. People disappear and then reappear with surprising smiles and the insistence on eating mushrooms.
I really like all of this. The weirdness of the setting. The focus on characters as they deal with it. The unexplainable nature of the events (well, not unexplainable, but definitely outside the realm of possibility and easy explanation), and the abandonment of any desire to come up with scientific explanations for it. There is some early-ish dialogue about how the previous crew of the abandoned ship were studying the effects of radiation and atomic weapons, but at no point is there a scientist in a lab coat saying that radiation caused people to turn into mushrooms for two straight minutes. That's a blessing.
So, it's a horror movie. It's a very effective horror movie. I get lost in the characters, trying to keep all of them straight, and I don't like the wraparound all that much, but the rest is very solid stuff. I get into the weird atmosphere of it all as the characters go steadily insane while bizarre things unfold around them and engulf them. It's well filmed, well directed, well performed, and well put together. It's a good time at the movies.