El Hombre H

Toho are known for dark gritty movies (Usually about Samurai or the struggles of Japanese life) and goofy giant monster films (Godzilla). That is why this came as so much of a surprise to me as it isn't either.

While the west the same year made The Blob (1958) Toho made their own liquid monster movie and truth be told it's not at all bad and makes me wish Toho had done more horror.

What struck me immediatly was how amazing everything looks, sure it doesn't have the usual incredible writing of Toho and lacks the direction of Kurosawa but it looks a couple of decades ahead of its time. Seriously, I'm blown away.

It tells the story of the police looking for a missing man and during the investigation coming across a mysterious liquid creature whose very touch dissolves its prey.

Though the movie isn't outstanding it makes up for it in enough areas to be more than watchable.

Genuinely creepy and unnerving in places, the H-Man is deserving of any horror fans time.

The Good:

Looks incredible for its time

The Bad:

Cast are pretty below par

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Microphones are overrated

Before putting your jacket around a woman dip it in sewage first

As a first grader at age 6, I felt underpriveledged. All my class mates would come to school on Mondays bragging about whatever Saturday movie experience they had. Most of the time it was a Hercules, or Sinbad or other epic tale and their comments were vivid. But when the conversation revolved around a horror movie their version turned out to be a tease. I could tell that the real deal with horror pictures was to experience it personally. Here was the conumdrum, I wasn't allowed to go the the show without an adult and I didn't want to be seen by my friends with a parent. Well finally an aunt stepped up and volunteered to take me. In that darkened theater, finally seeing a horror movie for the first time, my anticipation was peaking: that is until the H Bomb went off and the tale of this insidious monster began. Needless to say my horror fascination came full circle by the end of the first reel, and the experience left me anxious for many, many, months! Thinking back to that screenining I feel that the H man was a landmark movie and probably generated the same type emotional response as the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds had a generation earlier. A remake would be awesome with todays technology, looking forward to it, and even a peak back to the past with the original version would be nice.

Like many other posters, I saw this film as a young boy and it gave me nightmares for weeks (maybe even months)! Luckily, my older brother finally convinced me that the "liquid creature" would not survive a swim from Japan to the United States and I was able to sleep again.

I suspect that the modern age's Freddies, Jasons and Leatherfaces would not hold a candle to the effect that this film had on an impressionable youth back then. Perhaps the very fact that the monster had no tangible qualities and could theoretically be any puddle of water you came across was what gave it its fright value.

It would certainly be interesting to see how a remake of this would play today.

I saw this when it was first released in 1958 in Sydney. The theatre was a very large and cold cinema. The atmosphere of the environs only added to the atmosphere of the film. I was six at the time but I can still remember it fairly vividly today - nearly forty years later. It gave me nightmares for weeks.

I always thought this was the movie that the Blob was based on although the release dates seem to be fairly close. This by far was the better movie of the two. I have seen this once again in my older years and it still resurrects memories of those childhood nightmares.

I would love to be able to obtain a copy of the film but it seems these days no-one seems to know of it.

THE H-MAN is a fine, and most rare, blend of film noir and 1950s Japanese science fiction. The film is filled with startling visuals from start to finish. It grabs your attention and rarely lets up. Favorite scenes involve the events inside the derelict ghost ship and all the scenes in the nightclub which abound with the right atmosphere. Stylistic and often startling visually, this is a lot of fun to watch and get into. It does require one to suspend their disbelief quite a bit though.