Toho has had a long history of adapting Japanese novels into films. The film studio adapted the 1973 novel The Sinking of Japan by Sakyo Komatsu for the big screen twice already; once in 1973 by Shiro Moritani and again in 2011 by Shinji Higuchi. Additionally, many other science fiction films produced by Toho are heavily inspired by popular myths like the Mu Empire in Atragon (1963) or are different takes on popular culture icons such as Frankenstein in Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965). Most of these reimagining’s tend to be made from works already well-known, or popular internationally, like the aforementioned icons Frankenstein or King Kong. I was surprised when I learned that Matango (1963) is actually another one of Toho’s adaptations, albeit with source material that is much more obscure.

Matango is actually an adaptation of “The Voice in the Night” by English horror writer William Hope Hodgson. The short story was first published in 1907 by pulp magazine Blue Book Magazine. Since then, it’s been reprinted in various collections and isn’t hard to find with a quick Google search. It’s a good story. The prose of “The Voice in the Night” is simple and easy to understand, and—like the film that adapted it— its suspenseful and horrific. It’s short and I recommend reading it before proceeding.

To give a summary of the story, two characters, George and Will, are on a boat late at night in the northern Pacific Ocean. The night is foggy, and to George’s surprise, a voice from a small boat calls out to them. The voice is old and polite, and asks for food for his starving wife. Strangely, the man requests that they don’t make direct contact with each other and because of the fog George never sees the man directly. Because of this, George is a bit suspicious of the man, but helps him and gives him some rations. Later that same night, the man returns, having delivered the food to his wife on the island and recounts his tale to the duo.

Originally, the man and his fiancé were on a boat bound for San Francisco. Due to a horrible storm, the ship began to sink and the sailors abandoned the ship. Left to fend for themselves, the couple gathered some rudimentary supplies and constructed a raft. After some time adrift, they found themselves in a strange lagoon, with another boat in the center. Eager to find help, they boarded the boat, only to find it was empty, and covered in a strange greyish fungus. They salvaged what they can and even cleaned up the fungus with a cleaning solution. Running low on supplies they eventually left the strange boat a few months later. After heading towards the shore of the lagoon, they made a horrifying discovery; everything on the nearby land is caked in the same strange fungus except for a small patch of bone-white stone.

Things take a turn for the worse, when the man’s wife noticed a fungal growth on her palm. Despite cleaning it, the fungus kept growing back. Food was beginning to run short, and the wife has also developed an appetite for the mushrooms. Desperate, the man began to explore the island more and made a more horrifying discovery; mushroom-like humanoids. He speculates that the sailors that escaped before them landed here, and have been completely taken over by the fungus. He understood that it’s only a matter of time before him and his wife succumb to this.

Finishing his story, the man leaves on his boat away from George and Will as the sun begins to rise. In a chilling twist, George can see the man is covered in the same strange mushroom like growths.

If a lot of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because Matango is fairly faithful to the plot of the story. Like Matango, “The Voice in the Night” centers around characters who have been shipwrecked by a storm, who then come across a strange vessel covered in mold and fungus. It’s revealed that the fungus is dangerous, consuming and taking over anything that comes into contact with it. While the ending is different in terms of the details, both the short story and film end with the bizarre tale being concluded, only to reveal that the person telling the story has also succumbed to the fungal threat.

The changes to the story in Matango are all character related, and are additions, not subtractions. “The Voice in the Night” features two people that have been shipwrecked, not seven. Furthermore, unlike the characters in the movie, the couple in “The Voice in the Night” are clearly in love with each other; the husband is trying to take care of his wife even after the two of them have begun to transform. He sticks by her even after discovering her horrible secret and goes out of his way to find food for them once their resources run out.

Unlike Matango, the short story is not some elaborate social commentary on the savagery of modern taboo-filled society, but rather a simple and horrific love story. Absent is the alcoholism, the vengeful lust, and barbaric violence that the characters of Matango personify and endure. And because George, the man hearing the tale, ultimately decides to share and help the man, the story is much more optimistic about humanity’s nature than the film. This is a major contrast to the movie where the characters fight and compete over resources the instant they are removed from the restraints of civilization.

Another big difference between Matango and its source material is the mystery of the wrecked ship. While both the story and film don’t state exactly what happened to the mysterious boat, the film provides more clues, by implying that it was part of some greater experiment involving nuclear experimentation. Given that the film was made in the atomic age and the short story was written in a time where even basic electricity wasn’t a guaranteed, this deviation shouldn’t be a shock. Still, both the story and movie excel at building intrigue by not revealing the inherent nature of the abandoned ship. In versions, it’s unclear if the mysterious ship is somehow the catalyst for the mold, or yet another unfortunate victim to the hostile fungus.

While both the story and the novel work well independently, a thought occurred to me; Matango might actually be a sequel to the short story, or at least a companion piece to it. The cast of Matango may just be another another group of unfortunate people that have come across the mysterious island. There’s no hard evidence to support this, but the story does include one location-based detail that makes this possible. The boat George and Will are on is “somewhere in the northern pacific”. It’s believable that the characters of Matango could have wound up on the same island that the man in “The Voice in the Night” shipwrecked on. None of this is important to enjoying the story or the film, but it creates an interesting idea of this island existing for decades and decades, gradually claiming more and more victims silently, until an unfortunate group inevitably spreads the mushroom infection to mainland Japan. At the very least, it’s a unique adaptation by showing a different outcome when a group of unstable people bound by civilization come upon the island instead of two bound by love.

Reading “In the Voice of the Night” has made me appreciate Matango a lot more. I must admit, I was a bit worried that Matango would follow the story too close, and make one of my favorite films feel a bit less original. Despite it being a faithful adaptation in terms of plot, due to a very distinct exploration of different characters, Matango still stands on its own as an independent and original work. The screenplay writer Kimura Takeshi really poured his heart and soul into developing the cast of Matango and turning a simple-yet effective horror story into something much more dramatic and relevant. Ishiro Honda did great work as well, adding more creepy moments and action that culminates in a pulpy psychedelic climax filled with mushroom people. Matango is a perfect adaptation of “The Voice of the Night” in that it mostly adapts the work while also providing its own spin. It doesn’t replace the short story it’s based on and both can be enjoyed separately.

I find the connection between the “The Voice and the Night” to be another fascinating example of intercultural influence over media. While Toho is a Japanese company, I think it’s important to remember that within the arts countless cultures and works influence one another. While there is some merit to understanding cultural differences, there is a fallacy through viewing Japanese media in a bubble due to perceived generalizations of Japanese isolationism. In the same way that Godzilla (1954) was influenced by King Kong (1933), many of Toho’s films, like Matango are part of a greater exchange of ideas through media. Knowing and exploring this will really benefit an understanding of these works, and it’s why I highly recommend reading The Voice in the Night if you like Matango.