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Humanoids from the Deep | Year: 1980 Classification: Horror Directed: - Jimmy T. Murakami - Barbara Peters (II) The Classic - very few come close It is an honor to review this movie. 20 years ago my girlfriend and I were walking in Times Square past the movie house where Humanoids was playing. She saw a poster of the monster and wanted to know if such creatures really existed. At that point I knew I had to marry her. Title sounds very fifties, doesn't it? With a title called Humanoids from the Deep, you'd probably be pretty dumb to expect anything more than a schlocky B-movie. And since I'm always game for a schlocky B-movie, I actually had decent expectations from this movie (even Leonard Maltin gave it 3 stars out of 4). Maybe not so unsurprisingly, Humanoids turns out to be a pretty lame, but also rather watchable, "monsters run amok" flick. The fishing village of Noyo has a few problems on its hands, actually rather a LOT, in the form of mutated salmon that want to kill all the men and rape the women. We see this cycle play itself out for, well, the entire movie, so that's pretty much all there is plot-wise, excepting the Native American who has trouble from a bigot (played by Vic Morrow). I've always said that it's entirely possible to make a truly entertaining film (for all the right reasons) from a fun premise. So Humanoids from the Deep probably could have made for one wild little horror flick if not for the stilted pacing and second-rate creature effects. The movie certainly has its heart set in the right place. We've got all the ingredients we expect from a movie like this: lots of gore and gratuitous nudity. Now only if the director could have crafted this with more competence and fun. Humanoids feels almost two hours in length, even though it runs barely over eighty minutes. The monotony is occasionally punctuated by the nudity and the kill scenes, but it's a shame all the moments in-between don't hold much interest. This is probably because of the lack of atmosphere; director Barbara Peters doesn't give the film the much-needed creepy edge and look it demands. The movie looks and sometimes feels a little bland. Not helping matters much are the special effects, which are rather poor. These mutated salmon are obviously just men in shoddy suits covered in seaweed. The gore effects, while nothing great, are adequate enough, particularly in the extremely violent climax, which must have made the R-rating a close call. Hard to believe the effects were done by Rob Bottin, who did such a masterful job on the visuals in The Thing. Humanoids' pacing does get better in the last half hour, when all hell breaks loose, and we get a pretty nifty massacre at the end. Peters even throws in some gunplay, which I imagine would have been more exciting with better direction and editing. As far as script and acting goes, the former isn't quite as stupid as I'd expected it (don't get me wrong, the science is idiotic, though plot holes are sort of kept to a minimum) to be and the latter is actually not that bad for a Roger Corman production. The score is done by none other than James Horner(!), who must have been in the budding stages of his career. To his credit, he doesn't rip off John Williams, though the music does have a Bernard Herrman-esque sound to it. Whoh mama. Pretty horrible, but bad in the Burial Ground or Pieces kind of way. The story here centers on a fishing town where the financial hub is evidently salmon. The fish have been thinning out, and all of the fishermen, morose beer-swilling lowlifes for the most part, are bitter. But there is one ray of hope in the form of the cannery that's supposed to revitalize the whole town. Add to this powder keg the Billy Jack-esque Indian guy that wants to preserve the land. Apparently, a scientist working for the cannery has been tampering with salmon, I guess on some genetic level, to make better salmon or something. What this actually does is create a race of humanoid salmon, buck-toothed monsters with bulging brain sacks and gigantic rubber flippers. The monsters are coming ashore and mauling people, but they are particularly driven towards the chicks. You see, salmon monsters need love too, especially when it comes in the the form of bikini-clad or outright naked beach girls. There isn't much romanace involved. The girls just sort of scream and run, then make sure they fall once or twice so the rubber flipper tread can keep up with them. Now, when the girls aren't entertaining the salmon monsters, they're busy getting it on with land-based degenerates (who just want to drink some beer and have a good time.) More to the point, one girl, tenting on the beach near the tide line for some bizarre reason, is actually coaxed out of her clothes by a puppet with only slightly more finesse than the salmon monsters. There is one blonde girl, voluptuous, milky-skinned, that's kind of pretty, and the salmon monsters really take a liking to her. They take her to their lair, which is above ground, and this is okay, since the salmon monsters just randomly venture miles inland and take to the water only when it's convenient. Eventually, one of the salmon monsters is killed, giving the salmon scientist a chance to study it and make a round of profound observations. Evidently these humanoid salmon are in fact humanoid, and their amphibious attack patterns suggest the fact that they might be turning amphibious! There's never really any satisfactory explanation as to why they chase girls. Probably it's just an ego thing. Or maybe they ARE just diehard romantics---personally I think that is the true reason. The Creature from the Black Lagoon needed love too, and his defense, they threw a super hot babe into each one of his movies, and that was because the Creature, unlike the salmon monsters, had panache and that quiet kind of cool. This movie is great if you just want to watch mindless crap, as I very often do. I only got this movie a few days ago, and I've already watched it like five times. It's inexpensive, and for what it is it fits the bill. Buy Humanoids From The Deep at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Humanoids From The Deep Search with the Priority Search Engine on Humanoids From The Deep This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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