Matango, Part 3: What's Out There?

When we last left our 7 shipwrecked seafarers, they had just explored an abandoned ship on the island and had come across a HUGE mushroom stored in an old crate. Not intimidated, they decide to split up to see what the island has to offer. Food? Hopefully. Other humans? Perhaps. Really scary, murderous, mutant mushrooms with bumpy heads wearing bog-stained clothes and smelling real bad? Well not yet.

We start our viewing at about the 37 minute mark.

Mr. Yoshida is sent high above the rocky cliffs to light a fire, in hopes that his smoke signals will be seen by a rescue party. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to make all that much of an effort and begins to do what most of us would do in this situation - hallucinate about a 60's nightclub where folks drink single malt scotch and smoke.

The two women are sent out to gather water. They kind of bumble around a bit, not really doing anything too useful.

Meanwhile, two of the other men go hunting. Along the way they make the first of their odd discoveries - shards of mirror strewn atop the jungle floor. Why would anyone break and dispose of a mirror out here? Hmmm.... Soon, they sight a seagull flying high above their heads... but it gets no closer. Another hmmm.....

Unable to shoot the bird, they turn their attention to the dense jungle. It doesn't take long before they are confronted with... MORE MUSHROOMS! Yeah! Even though just 10 minutes before they swore they wouldn't eat any of these fleshy delights, they are tempted by their sheer number at arm's length.

Now, for my best guess, these mushrooms look like very large, slightly discolored Fall Oysters (Panellus serotinus). Thankfully for them, they are distracted by something huge lumbering in the distance. After a few tense moments they convince themselves that they must be seeing things.

That night all seven return to their wrecked ship. Tensions begin to get high as they still don't have any food except for the few cans they have in storage... which is now kept under lock and key. When everyone else is sleeping Mr. Kasai sneaks out to break into the rations when he is attacked (offscreen, come on... I want to see the monster) by something awful which slowly begins chasing him down one of the boat's corridors. This wakes up the rest of the crew, and then, around the 51 minute mark, we get to see...

Here it comes. Fear personified. A grotesque, rambling, MUSHROOM BEAST!

Business has just picked up!

Next time: Part 4, Something Exciting Must Happen After the Mushroom Beast, Right?

(You can catch up on all the Matango posts, here.)