Staring Down a Childhood Fear

[fivecats]

A Steady Calm in the Blur of Life
July 2005 Chapel Thrill, NC
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A while back good friend yes_rhade mentioned in her lj that they Netflixed "Matango: The Attack of the Mushroom People" and actually showed it to Big Bud, their oldest son.

In the comments to that entry I made the following observation:

"I saw just the very end of "Attack of the Mushroom People" when I was at just the wrong/right age. That scared the absolute bejeebers outta me. I think you must be cruel and unusual parents to inflict such horrors on your kids."

(In a lengthy exchange with yes_rhade's husband, good friend zombiefodder, he correctly guessed that it was from Channel 20's "Creature Feature".  Not that that lessened the terror over the years at all)

When we signed up for Netflix one of the things I decided needed to be done was to confront that childhood fear of human beings turning into giant mushrooms and killing each other.  Last week I bumped it to the top of my list and waited for it to come in.

Last night I made dinner, a stir fry of veggies on hand that included 'schrooms.  After dinner Bonn asked if I wanted to watch Matango.

"But we just ate mushrooms!" I said.

"Then we have to!" she replied.

A handful of frozen chocolate chips later (to mask any remaining scent of 'schrooms), I was ready to face my fears like a man.

The movie started with a group of happy, rich people out for a day's adventure on a yacht.  Happy, rich and doomed people.

Ten minutes into it Bonn pointed out that it was a slow, tedious movie.

"Just you wait," I said.  "Just you wait."

Half an hour later she made the same comment again.  I had to agree with her.  There was way too much needless story and odd filler stuff that clearly had nothing to do with mushrooms.  Or mushroom people.  In fact, as good friend zombiefodder pointed out, there were some weird, painfully obvious shadowings of Gilligan's Island gone wrong. 

Somewhere in the last half hour, when someone finally gave in and ate a mushroom, Bonn started asking what part had scared me.  We  hadn't seen anything close to scary yet although I  knew I'd only seen the last bit of the film.  Sure enough, the only part I remembered seeing was about the last 5 minutes.

In fact, those last five minutes were really the best part of the film.  In fact, I'm willing to go on record here as saying that it's a much more powerful movie without the other 85 minutes of build-up.

Bonn and I came to the same conclusion -- that the film is nothing but one Really Big Psychedellic Mushroom Trip Gone Bad.

If I'd only known that as a little kid.

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A note about the picture above:

I was taking some images for a website I'm putting together for a gallery in Chapel Thrill and was up on a ladder, trying to get a usable shot of the full gallery.  Messing around with timed exposures and lights, as I occasionally do, I took this shot. 

What I like about it is that despite all of the obvious up and down motion, somehow Bonn is steady and unmoving in the image.  I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm at least smart enough to recognize what it means in my life.

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Comments

[smileyfish.livejournal.com]

*smiles*

I'm happy =) If you two should ever venture Aus-wards, make sure you come and say hello - you'd be most welcome visitors.

I might make it to the US one day, but I'll admit it's not real high on my list =(

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

I'd love to do Australia, but I'm afraid Bonn has several European countries high on her list right now. Having Genealogy as a hobby has a way of setting a travel agenda for years to come.

(Of course, there's always the matter of money to be dealt with first. And once that hurdle get cleared, there's the separation anxiety from leaving the cats...)

You and The Cuddlesome One are always welcome here as well. (Although I can understand why stateside isn't too high on your list!)

Say, can you cook meatless? :-)

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[smileyfish.livejournal.com]

Well, ~70% of my kitchen repertoir is vegetarian, so I can't see a problem there. Well, so long as you like curries and stir-fries and Thai and Italian foods!

You should try to make it to England next May - just don't say anything to new_brunette

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

Not saying anything to new_brunette would only mean not getting the second or third round bought for me. Definitely not a good thing. :-)

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[drood.livejournal.com]

Now I kind of want to see the darned thing, even if only the last five minutes are good.

Hey, how come we're not on each other's Netflix friends lists?

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that seeing the entire movie would be kind of like meeting me in person. Nice, politley amusing but something of a let-down. (I mean, is that all there is? That story was kind of funny the first time I heard it -- in an lj posting about a year ago) Best to fast-forward to the end and just catch the highly edited best parts.

What email are you using on Netflix? Send me an invite to join your list at the gmail address.

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[zombiefodder.livejournal.com]

I really am surprised that you did not enjoy this movie more.

I found the movie far more entertaining this time around (though, like you, less scary). The real "monsters" in the movie were the humans. (Which I believe was the point of the film.) As they got hungrier, they became more and more barbaric and cruel to each other. The mushroom people, on the other hand, were, in reality, almost benign. Sure, they knew that eating the mushrooms would turn the humans into fungus like them, but they also knew that the mushrooms would 1) feed the humans who would otherwise starve and 2) make all of them a community again. It is not until the last bit where the man realizes this. He is sad, not because he is becoming a mushroom, but because he is stuck in our cruel world where he could have been happy on the island with the other mushrooms (and the girl-mushroom). Did you watch it subbed or dubbed? The ending of the subbed version seems to drive this point home more than the dubbed version.

Also, didn't you find it to be a beautifully shot film? It really did have some lovely sequences.

Oh, and don't forget, this pre-dates Gilligan by several years. I suspect Sherwood Schwartz may have seen this (though I have also read an article that compared Gilligan's castaways to the seven deadly sins).

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

We watched it subbed, which I had remembered you recommending when you saw it. I remembered the "Creature Feature" dubbed version as ending with the Professor saying that he'd ended up eating a mushroom out of love for MaryAnn. (This wasn't in the subbed version and I haven't watched the dubbed version on the dvd to find out if this is accurate or not)

The only flaw I see in your Mushroom Utopia version of the film is that the Mushroom People were attacking the humans. They were coming aboard the ship, they were breaking down doors to get to the people and they even dragged poor MaryAnn off with them to make her one of their own. It's a pretty conformist view of society.

The film was well shot. The colors had obviously been enhances and/or some restoration of the film had to have been done to get the DVD looking so good.

Did you see the interview with the Second Director? He was talking about a few points in the film that were very interesting. The growing mushroom scenes were all done with two chemicals left over from the latex development process that they stumbled upon accidently. Pour the two chemicals together in a bucket with a narrow opening, stir and then get out of the shot -- the substance produced will blossom out of the container in a mushroom shape and continue to expand. (The substance turns out to be styrafoam)

Also, the director had a problem in not wanting to make the female star "ugly" after eating the mushrooms. It was decided that the women would initially become more beautiful (make up, etc.,) after eating the mushrooms as a way of enticing the men to eat the mushrooms as well.

And I ran across the Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan's Island last night. Pretty interesting stuff.

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[velvetink.livejournal.com]

Two movies that scared me silly as a youngster were the original "The Mummy" and The Pod People" or "attack of the pod people"{forget the correct title},must have missed out on the "mushroom people. " I'm curious now and will have to look out for it.

Love the colours in that photo, reminds me of a meteor shower.

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

Turns out Mystery Science Theater 3000 did The Pod People a few years back. Nothing like having MST3K taking on a childhood trauma to produce mixed messages.

And as I said, the last five minutes of "Matango" are really all the film is worth, IMHO.

I hadn't thought of the meteor shower analogy, but it does work.

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[velvetink.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! The Mummy certainly caused some sleepless nights for me...but when I watched it years later..thought "what the!"-for I was more intrigued than scared.

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

I was similarly intrigued by Mantango. I thought much of it was way too overacted and made little sense. If I'd seen the entire movie as a kid I may not have been so scared at what I saw.

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[new-brunette.livejournal.com]

Oh T, what a wonderful commentary on the photo!

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. She does mean the world to me.

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