A passenger plane is flying when they get a warning that there’s a bomb on board. A frantic search clears everyone expect one man. The man pulls a gun and hijacks the plane. Just then over the radio the pilots are informed of a spaceship being chased by Japanese and American pilots. Something flashes past the plane and the pilots lose control and an engine bursts into flames. The plane crashes onto an island.
The surviors include the co-pilot Sugisaka (Teruo Yoshida), a stewardess named Kazumi (Tomomi Satô), a senator, an American divorcee, an arms dealer and his wife, a scientist, a psychiatrist, the kid who called in the bomb threat and the hijacker. The hijacker takes Kazumi hostage and leaves the plane. They run into the jungle where they find an alien spaceship. The hijacker enters the ship where a blob-like substance enters his forehead splitting it open. Kazumi passes out. Sugisaka finds Kazumi and brings her back to the ship. The psychiatrist hypnotizes her so they can find out what’s happened. The teenager later pushes the psychiatrist over a cliff. The hijacker catches the psychiatrist and then drains him of his blood.
The survivors hear a knock on the plane’s door. They open it to find the hijacker lying on the ground with a big gash in the middle of his forehead. They bring him into the plane and bandage him when the arms dealer grabs a gun and kicks everyone out of the plane. Locking himself in with the hijacker it isn’t long before screams are heard. They find the arms dealer’s body drained of blood and the hijacker grabs the arms dealer’s wife and runs off. They later find her on top of a cliff where she relates the voice of the alien. It informs the survivors that it is Gokemidoro and it’s invading Earth and wiping out humanity. It then releases control of the woman and dumps her body off of the cliff where she lands drained of life.
The survivors then plan on sacrificing one of the group to try and catch the alien. The teenager is singled out but he has a bomb and wants back into the plane. From here on it starts to become everyone for themselves.
This is an awesome little horror film from 1968. Directed Hajime Satô for Shochiku Studios, one of Japan’s oldest film studios. Shochiku seldom produced anything fantastic. Their mainstay for decades was melodramas. Even in the 1970s when rival studios moved to soft core and gangster films Shochiku stayed with family friendly melodramas which makes their brief late 1960s horror venture interesting and this movie is probably the best of the bunch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh2mvH9QFqY
