The H-Man

Finally got to see this gem of Toho weirdness from 1958. Once again, nuclear fallout has done nasty things, this time turning people into slime that can reconstitute into ghostly, green, glowing glob-men. Intermixed with the horror/sci-fi is a police procedural involving a yakuza gang, one of whose members is a very young Makoto Sato (above, right) in his film debut. The cops include kaiju/samurai regulars Akihiko Hirata and Yoshio Tsuchiya. Great flick, with all the creeping, existential dread of Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People) and dialog like this: "The high voltage discharge unit, once deployed, will stop liquid human infiltration upstream at these checkpoints." Unfortunately, dear reader, you will not be able to see The H-Man (aka Beauty and the Liquid Man) unless you're hooked into the Japanese film bootleg underground -- it's not available commercially, at least not yet. Shame that, as it's an absolute must-see for Toho fantasy film enthusiasts. Fortunately this blog is read by all the industry bigwigs, so I'm sure within weeks of this post Criterion, Image, Media Blasters, AnimEigo or some other outfit will be rushing this baby into production. Yeah, right after I turn to slime and drip down the walls of their corporate headquarters ...