THE H-MAN **** Japan 1958 Dir: Ishiro Honda. 86 mins
Following a bizarre series of crimes, the local police are confused about the incident featuring a strange connection to a local criminal gang smuggling diamonds throughout the city. While an inspector begins looking into the case, a scientist finds that a series of strange encounters around the city are tied to a nuclear accident that left various victims afflicted with a condition that turned them into murderous blobs of gas that reduce their victims to pools of slime. Aware that the last killer blob left alive is targeting the members of the diamond smuggling operation, he sets out to protect the last remaining member of the gang.
Overall, “The H-Man” proves to be a highly effective and enjoyable effort. One of the film’s best aspects is the rather ingenious manner the story weaves together several seemingly random plotpoints into a cohesive setup. The classic setup here is a full-on film-noir style story with the focus on the gangsters, the girlfriend who gets dragged into the proceedings against her wishes, and the hard-boiled cops on their trail evoke those classic gangster dramas of the past. There is a general sense of evil pervading every corner of the environment that plays perfectly well with the rather fun horror elements of the story. The appearance of the murders blobs introduced by radioactive poisoning, the criminal gang getting hunted down offers some chilling stalking scenes and delivers some fun action-packed encounters along the way. This all comes together for a great time that holds it up over its main flaw in the unquestionably out-of-place storyline involving the inability to recognize the creatures’ existence. Since it takes two or three visits to the police to get them to believe the truth, it doesn’t really serve any point here, but it’s the main issue here.
Review by Don Anelli
THE H-MAN is available on Amazon