Doug
McClure vs mutated fish men that want to mate with our women! I loved this
movie when I was a kid and watched it every time it showed on the late-night
movie programs. Is it any wonder that I turned out to be such a weird kid? Then
again, I wouldn’t be the horror dude without movies like this.
A small
fishing town, Noyo, is in the middle of a crisis. The fish are gone and the
local Indian population is threatening to stop a cannery, that would provide
some much-needed jobs, from opening up. This leads some of the locals to get
violent with Johnny Eagle, who is leading the fight to stop the cannery. While
all of this is going on the company behind the cannery promises that they have
found a way to boost the fish population beyond what it was in the good old
days! Science runs amok though when some of the experimental fish escape and
are eaten by other fish that mutate into the Humanoids from the Deep. They are
driven to do two things, mate with the women and murder everything else! Can
our hero Jim, Doug McClure’s character, save the day?
This is a
quintessential Roger Corman produced movie. The story is solid and the action
is plentiful. Is the entire idea of mutant fish men silly? Of course it is, but
it’s also entertaining as hell. I’ve seen a lot of movies that have a creature
or creatures threatening a community. I mean that is the basis for most all of
the monster movies I’ve ever seen. But Humanoids from the Deep has an edge that
isn’t present in most of those. First up they kill the dogs! Not a dog, but all
of them. And they kill a kid! Remember this is the early ‘80s so the rules
normally were no kids or cute dogs die. So right up front you know that no one
is safe. Then you have the whole “mating” with the women thing. That is way out
there and I can only think of one other movie that even suggested that
(Breeders in case you were wondering). This adds a sleazy edge to the movie
that most other monster flicks don’t have.
Can’t talk
about a creature movie without mentioning the creatures. They had three suits
for the movie and they all look decent. I especially like the one that has the
extended arms which gives it an alien look that works well on screen. When they
interact with the actors they are scary enough to look like a real threat. Thru
some clever editing you would think that there are an army of them which gives
the movie a much larger scale than the budget could have supported. That is
clever filmmaking and something that I wish todays independent filmmakers would
learn. The kills are mostly after the fact appliances with liberal amounts of
blood applied. For the early ‘80s I have no complaints. I would they rather
spend their budget on the creatures anyway.
I wanted
to mention the controversy surrounding Humanoids from the Deep. The original
director and one of the stars of the movie were very unhappy with some
reshoots. At Corman’s direction there were more scenes added in with the
Humanoids and their female victims. This includes a couple scenes that show the
“act”. Nothing explicit just some rolling around. There is also a lot of female
nudity in these scenes. While I get that this wasn’t the movie they signed up
for they had to know whom they were working with. This stuff gives Humanoids
the sleazy feeling that makes it unique.
I have
always liked Humanoids from the Deep and feel that it holds up well some
thirty-seven years later. In fact, for the first few years I only watched it on
T.V. so the best naughty bits were missing. Watching it now uncut makes it even
more fun. I highly recommend it.
© Copyright 2017 John Shatzer
No comments:
Post a Comment