TheH-Man

The H-Man (1958)

Note: I’m reviewing the original Japanese version of the movie. The American version, as well as the Japanese version is available on the DVD. I choose the Japanese version because it is my understanding that some of the effects work was cut from the American release.

If you ask most movie fans about Toho studios and their efforts at sci-fi movies they will immediately think of the Kaiju movies like Godzilla. But Toho made quite a few different science fiction movies that had nothing to do with giant monsters smashing things up. The H-Man is one of those movies. The story starts here with a couple of gangsters stealing some drugs from another gang. While doing this one of them is attacked, leaving only his clothing behind. Soon the police and the gang are after the missing man’s girlfriend. Additionally a scientist is trying to convince the police that some strange things are happening with people being dissolved by some strange creature. It seems that some fishermen have been changed into atomic creatures that absorb not on the bodies of those they “eat” but some of their consciousness as well. This explains why they are still hanging around Tokyo.

This really is a classic science fiction movie that has sort of gotten lost in the Toho catalogue of giant critters stomping on things. The story is very interesting and works nicely both as an early crime movie and as a creature feature. The H-Man (actually men since there are more than one) work really well as monsters in the movie and are creepy in the way they ooze around dissolving people. I also found it interesting that when I was doing research for the review that this wasn’t “inspired” by the American movie the Blob (also from 1958). In fact while H-Man came out in the U.S. after the Blob it was actually made before that movie. Any way the plot moves along quickly, except for a few musical numbers in the night club scene that seem to be filler or to exploit the pretty young girls in them, and overall the H-Man delivers the goods. I did find it funny that the story does fall back to the old reliable plot device in Japanese Sci-fi and blame the creatures on the testing of A-bombs. But that is fairly common in post WWII Japanese sci-fi flicks so no biggie.

What isn’t common about this movie are the special effects. They pull off some pretty nifty effects, especially for a movie from the 50s. I’m used to bad rubber suits menacing people when I think of the 50s. But here we have globs of goo running up legs and people collapsing in on themselves onscreen! Really this is pushing the boundaries and is pretty gruesome for the era. Not only that but it looks great at well. Top it all off with the fact that the movie is in color and you have yourself a movie that stands out as something special.

If you are a fan of Science Fiction movies from the 50s then you must get your hands on a copy of the H-Man. Lucky for you the very best version available just came out on DVD in the Icons of Sci-Fi Toho collection. Also included are Battle in Outer Space and Mothra, but the cost of the set is worth it for H-Man alone. I can’t recommend it enough to geeks like myself and am sure the rest of you will have fun as well.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer