ISHIRŌ HONDA
Big Moth Strikes Again
RELEASED OUT NOW! 1958-1961 | 12/PG | Blu-ray Director Ishiro Honda Cast Yumi Shirakawa, Ryo Ikebe, Frankie Sakai
BLU-RAY DEBUT If you know Ishiro Honda’s name, it’s probably because of a little movie he made in 1954: Godzilla. Three more of the director’s Toho Studios productions play with similar elements – radiation, urban devastation, giant monsters – with consistently entertaining results.
Ishiro Honda Double Feature opens with The H-Man. This plays more like a noir thriller than sci-fi, as cynical cops investigate a criminal’s mysterious disappearance against a backdrop of pouring rain and jazz-blaring nightclub. Nuclear testing is to blame again, having created a slimy horror which can ooze, Blob-like, under doors before solidifying as a shimmery green bogeyman to dissolve a victim. The film anticipates the “body melt” movies of the ’80s, and while the effects are nowhere near as explicit, they remain effective.