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).
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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).