The H-Man, Ishiro Honda
Written by Joe D on October 11th, 2007
Ishiro Honda cops a feel off a Mysterian
Ishiro Honda created some of the most memorable images of my childhood. Rodan is an amazingly made film. Every shot looks like it was designed in the camera and the flashback sequence is one of the most powerful in Cinema. It’s an operatic monster movie. Ishiro was good friends with mega-director Akira Kurosawa and he directed 2nd unit on some of his epic battle scenes.
Look what a little radiation can do
The H-Man is another cool movie.I was lucky enough to see it projected in Technicolor at Film Forum in NYC, let me tell you, that is the way to see that film! The eye popping color and design. Delicious!. It has an incredible sexiness to it. The gangsters, their babes, the nightclub complete with Japanese Jazz and wild dance numbers. The super slick clothes everyone wears and the monster.
It’s a radioactive slime that slithers through storm sewers and dissolves people leaving only their clothes piled in a heap where they were taken. At one point a gangster kidnaps a woman and takes her into the sewer, he makes her strip and he gets naked so the police can find their clothes and think they were dissolvd into the collective radioactive slime that is The H-Man .
Slime in the Sewer
It slithers into the nightclub office during a rain storm and threatens a performer. Sometimes it assumes a humanoid shape, rearing up on two gelatinous legs maybe some kind of sense memory of when it was a human. The best sequence of the film takes place on an abandoned ship. A trawler finds a ship adrift at sea, the crew board the ghost ship and look for survivors but they can’t find anyone. Unfortunately for them they find The H-Man.
AKA- Beauty and The Liquid People
So open up a bottle of Nigori unfiltered Sake and checkout The H-Man, just remember you need someone to pour your Sake for you and you do the same for them, otherwise Bad Luck and you could wind up slithering in a sewer.
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I hope that you will agree that this movie is a Sci-Fi/ Horror classic in the fullest meaning of the word. I happen to own both the orgional japanese & american ‘Dub’ copies and I can tell you this: ” Both versions ‘ROCK’ “. The Japanese orginal version clocks in at 84 minutes and add great depth to the film. The orginal subtext and flavor of the crime story is better realized. From the the opening sequence where the thug ‘Misaki’ meets his doom, the movie takes off to a rousing climax in the sewers of tokyo. This is definitely a must have film for anyone who loves good sci-fi.
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I agree with you! H-Man rules!
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this was a great movie and I would love to find it on DVD if anyone know’s where to get it write me at bigdiller2@aol.com thanks
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This is the first true horror movie I can remember. I was almost 4 years old when my brothers took me to see this on a Saturday matinee.
To me, the H-man looked like vomit. Everything it touched became vomit. I couldn’t eat my Junior Mints. The popcorn smelled like puke. The floor of the movie house was sticky.
Ahhhhhhhh… the good ol’ days.
H-man rocks!
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It will be shown at 12;30 am Turner movie classics on 4-01-09
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My older brother took me to see this movie in 1959 at the Bama theater in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was 5 years old at the time- I just had to watch it on TCM tonight to possibly discover why I turned out like I did…
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The H-Man had a very powerful effect on young impressionable minds, the killer combination of sexy situations and disgusting horror!
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Yeah, I took Peppino to it. So what. He was strange already!
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Can’t wait for the 3 box set from Sony to be released in 2009 containing Widescreen prints of US version and original Japanese w/subtitles of H-MAN, BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE and MOTHRA
Heaven help me…I am an H-MAN!
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I saw the H-men on a black set one rainy Saturday afternoon with my friends when I was 7 years old. It was the scariest thing I ever saw! I couldn’t take a shower for a week for fear of being engulfed by beings coming up from the drain. I started counting the ways liquid men could come into my room when I slept.
My kids gave me a copy some 45 years later as a gift…
One the the BEST movies I own!!!
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GEEK ALERT! I too have loved this movie but had not seen it until I found a downloadable copy on the INET. However, it is in Japanese with subtitles. But again, GEEK ALERT! The H Man will be shown on 06/30/11 as part of TCM’s month long tribute to B/Drive-in movies. Get those recorders ready.