Another requested review here for a piece of pure dreadfulness,
i swear this is being done to torture me.
i swear this is being done to torture me.
Director Honda Ishirō, who fathered a colourful family tree of monster movies with Gojira, created this supposed “crazed psychotropic horror” tokushu satsuei movie in 1963 as a reflection on drugs, biological hierarchy in the natural world, money and social status, nuclear fears, lots of the usual acid generation societal problems and taboos. The movie comes thick with the message that being a businessman stands for nothing when you are fending for yourself, when faced with harshities humans can either fight or take the easy way out [and get wasted], and also that a different perspective on reality may not always be a wrong perspective. It was pegged to be a trip in itself to watch and a terrifying insight into the effects of psychotopic drugs
Basically, to be or not to be [nutted on shrooms], that is the question.
i have no idea who was in it, and i dont care enough to find out so there is no cast list this time. It is badly dubbed, as all movies were in the 60’s, uninspiringly shot, dimly lit, effortlessly drawn out [I don’t know how they managed to do it – it’s a serious skill], and the dialogue is tirelessly pointless.
The first sign of any of this weirdness we are supposed to expect is when we start to see some weirdo man walking about 47 mins into the movie - chasing em round the house - drippy clothed and slow footed, creeping round the doorway into view... Then the screen fades to black and they are all suddenly eating breakfast. That was a genius bit of storytelling there.
The first sign of any of this weirdness we are supposed to expect is when we start to see some weirdo man walking about 47 mins into the movie - chasing em round the house - drippy clothed and slow footed, creeping round the doorway into view... Then the screen fades to black and they are all suddenly eating breakfast. That was a genius bit of storytelling there.
Why, i was screaming, was nothing happening?! they get shipwrecked and 54 mins into it they are still just digging around for food, arguing and having stupid fights. Just eat some f*cking shrooms and get nutted already!
At 58mins this Yokoyama dude f*cks off looking for the mushroom guy that attacked earlier saying he might have a cool outlook on life if he’s made of magic mushies, then comes back in nutted on shrooms, saying he’s not hungry. Heh. Genius.
Yokoyama goes ‘mad’ and by that they mean he walks and talks slowly, spouting stuff about peyote, and says he wants to kill the ship mates and have his way with the girl – like you want to do sh*t like that on shrooms(!) so they lock him up in a room. It is all very reefer madness style where whatever it is you’re on turns you into some emotionless but still angry and sex crazed zombie. Complete with the shoe polish dark circles around the eyes.
Yokoyama goes ‘mad’ and by that they mean he walks and talks slowly, spouting stuff about peyote, and says he wants to kill the ship mates and have his way with the girl – like you want to do sh*t like that on shrooms(!) so they lock him up in a room. It is all very reefer madness style where whatever it is you’re on turns you into some emotionless but still angry and sex crazed zombie. Complete with the shoe polish dark circles around the eyes.
They spend more time waxing poetic about the psychological constraints of the human condition and arguing about who has more worth as a human than actually dealing with any psychotic shenanigans. This guy on mushrooms, yokoyama, is sooo not high on shrooms, he’s just turned into a depressed morbid arse with no energy. He weakly attempts to kill the others so they send him packing with the slutty woman cos she had started to get on everyone’s nerves by that point – ? nice.
Uh oh no – then the slutty girl comes back all slow talking and looking like she has been taken over by the aliens in invasion of the bodysnatchers. She leads the other guy off to get high and now everything has gone twinkly and there are chorus girls dancing about... so i guess he’s tripping now then?
“I didn’t tell you that once you’ve eaten it, you become a mushroom too” hahhahahaha brilliant line, as if it wasn’t obvious from the mushroom faced guy that was walking around earlier. Now all the mushrooms are laughing at him in full echoey chorus. Well he’s having a freak out now, all the mushrooms are moving about like a one man operated animatronics school Halloween prop from some bored old failed puppeteer’s basement. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole set was down there.
Now they’ve stolen the other girl, and I’m half expecting that they want to make mutant mushroom babies cos ive seen too many bizarre 80’s American mutant creature features in my life time, and at this point I feel like I’ve been watching this film forever. The last guy left that isn’t already a shroom mutant goes to get his girl back and oh god the big rubber suited guys from sailor moon are attacking him and she’s just sat on the floor stuffing her face getting high - Where the f*ck is that stupid rabbit when you need her! Usagi-chan! Bit fat ass youma shrooms everywhere!
I make this sound far more interesting than it is.
*spoilers*
So there are mushrooms laughing at him and giving it all the sailor moon treatment, he runs off out of the woods, we see him head to the shore. Suddenly he has wound up in a mental hospital wanting to go back to the island and be back with his fungirl now that he’s all half mouldy cos he finally ate some shrooms - then it ends.
...what?
What they were trying to say with this was that cities are savage, as is the natural world, and maybe one is no better than the other etc etc and all the relevant things to do with society and all that sh*t that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The message is obvious just not very eloquently put.
Having spent [or rather, wasted] a stupid amount of my life time watching things like TARANTULA!, and IT CAME FROM OUTERSPACE! and ATTACK OF THE KILLER *input whatever the hell you want here*, and WHEN TOASTERS GO BAD! or something of that ilk, I’m quite used to these movies. Usually though, I have to say, they don’t spend this much time just f*cking arguing with each other. About 50mins of that whole film could’ve been cut and just a short flash back to them being shipwrecked would have done.
Just as many of the movie from the 60’s, none of the characters are likable and everything that happens gets on your nerves. I personally like the way they walk around just pointing at stuff and saying what it is quite a lot of the time. 60’s movies were great for that unnecessary b*llocks. It isn’t one of those films that is so bad you could laugh your whole way through – it is too boring, it would be fine if you just start from, like, 40mins in to it knowing that most of them are Tokyo toffs and the other commoners have a chip on their shoulder about it, then they crash their boat in the bad weather and have been arguing ever since. Hit play with that all taken as read, and just enjoy the stupid sailor moon bad guys mushrooming it up for the last little while. I spent the first half an hour while watching it on the phone to ruku-chan, and i still knew what was going on. Cos nothing was!
I feel like i wasted an entire day watching that movie. Can i have it back please?
~
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