Effective Japanese horror film involving an island of fungus monsters. While slow and talky for the most part, the film builds up an admirable level of suspense once it takes viewers into the creepy “mushroom kingdom” where one bite turns people into mushrooms. Not as campy as it might intially seem, it’s a better-than-average Asian terror that offers something decidedly different from the average Kaiju nonsense, despite the perdictable twist ending.

This is one of the great, weird Toho movies + one of Inoshiro Honda's best. Amazing soundtrack by Sadao Bekku.

One of the strangest plots I have ever heard of, and yet it actually works. Entertaining and largely well acted.

aka Matango, マタンゴ or Matango, Fungus of Terror
A yacht is shipwrecked on a remote island; those shipwrecked find another, deserted, ship and lots of strange mushrooms. The group start to become very selfish and work against each other, and some start to eat the mushrooms despite fears that they may be poisonous. which proves to be an unwise choice. A very bleak film.

Normally I love films about a group of people who get lost at sea and slowly turn into mushrooms, but I merely liked this one.

Again, as with 'Kong vs Godzilla' (double-bill at the Prince Charles), the print was great - even better actually, newer and still as wide as a football pitch.
Still, could have done with a few more mushrooms.

MATANGO is a finely crafted piece of fantasy. Director Ishiro Honda, best known for creating and directing Gojira (Godzilla), shows his talents again here with a tense and surreal experience. What begins as the classic tale of survival that covers many human conditions such as greed, the search for freedom and happiness, jealousy and love and lust turns into a dreamlike, monster filled nightmare that touches on the deepest of human emotions and desires.

Full review @ celluloidterror.blogspot.com/2012/07/matango-attack-of-mushroom-people-1963.html

Slow-burning Japanese tripfest. Shipwreck survivors are stranded on an island overrun with fungus, but the danger isn't from starvation, but something much more insidious. Shrooms, man.

An enjoyably ridiculous and monumentally bleak horror film from Toho and Ishiro Honda, the director of the original GODZILLA. Unlike in SUPER MARIO BROS., whatever you do, don't trust the fungus.

Effective Japanese horror film involving an island of fungus monsters. While slow and talky for the most part, the film builds up an admirable level of suspense once it takes viewers into the creepy “mushroom kingdom” where one bite turns people into mushrooms. Not as campy as it might intially seem, it’s a better-than-average Asian terror that offers something decidedly different from the average Kaiju nonsense, despite the perdictable twist ending.