Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Again we return to the exploitation of the hand of Roger Corman and we do it with Humanoids of the abyss, a 1980 film of those that no one can miss …

There was a time, back in the 70s and 80s, when the single vision of water could cause, to the most tender moviegoers, an insuperable terror: sharks, killer whales, blue shark, barracuda, octopus, piranhas and other bugs that populate rivers, seas, lakes, reservoirs, swamps and ditches appropriated the screen and from there they conspired, the very young, against the clumsy and defenseless human beings. It was then that we learned that getting a foot in the wrong puddle could be very expensive.

REVIEW

Lynn Theel Breasts Scene in Humanoids From The Deep –

The only thing missing was for someone to think of adding to the long list of aquatic creatures with a murderous instinct the new animal species that stars in this movie, arising from a mutation due to the consumption of genetically manipulated salmon in a cannery (!!!) to finish frightening us definitively.

As in all films of this st, the thing begins with a series of strange events to which no one, except some lucid villager, pays attention, until disaster strikes, that Mr. “Ya-os-lo-warned” will be in charge of tackling. A Doug McClure tripton than usual will be the judicious fisherman who, with the help of an Indian ecologist and a doctor who, in his own words, a “professional scientist”, tries to put an end to these libidinous bicharracos. A lot of subjective camera, a lot of underwater shooting, enough shots and explosions and scares and blows, a discretionary shell, a pinch of politically correct message (peace between races, respect for nature in the face of progress), teenagers on duty and many, many blondes (in bed, in a bikini or on a clean Sunday), in a movie that, despite its obvious limitations of all kinds, is not without its grace, than anything because it is brutal and dull than which is usually common in this type of products. Perhaps it is because it was produced by Roger Corman himself, who apparently devised one of the bloodiest scenes in the movie, halfway between “Alien” and “V”.

In short, a nice camp feedback exercise and a purist Corman production, Humanoids of the abyss comes to recover old flavors of the genre (The woman and the monster) along with recent successes (Shark) to offer us a product last season with no other claim than that of entertain and amuse the respectable. More inclined to gore than I expected, the film by Miss Barbara Peters is loved by her assumed lack of complexes, her trash cast (a Doug McLure innkeeper in command) and the delirium of her script (carnivorous salmon-men and … girls rapists !!). Although tied to the classic patterns of the genre, it surprises for its self-irony and speed, but also for its unusual blackness and rough eroticism, which Peters films with the mind of a horny gangster (I do not know if for being homosexual or because he practices a really subtle guerrilla feminism ).

The fundamental design of the monsters is surprisingly accomplished given its laughable budget: a kind of mix between the Yeti, the big-headed Martians from Mars Attacks! and a lettuce with legs. Even so, the screenwriters cannot contain themselves and we end up filtering a well-intentioned apology for intercultural coexistence that does not come much to the point, this nonsense that at least is supplemented with good taste by the blatant plagiarism of an insultingly commercial character (the end to the Alien) and an unclassifiable freak (the erotic interval with the ventriloquist in the tent) that one would have missed in most of the footage. In short: cool, even with its many flaws. It is cool for its sincerity, because it is not too seedy (that “so bad is good” does not make much sense here), for its tits and its blood, for its monsters and its humor to the Russ Meyer (lowered of testosterone) and because it is very Lovecraft. A Lovecraft of demolition, but Lovecraft after all.

The best: tits and blood, a combination that always works and above all, that the music is by James Horner

The worst: the good vibes message that we wear.

Score: 6.5

Original title Humanoids from the Deep
Year 1980
Duration 80 min.
Country United States
Direction Barbara Peeters, Jimmy T. Murakami
Screenplay William Martin, Frank Arnold, Martin B. Cohen
James Horner Music
Photography Daniel Lacambre
Cast Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Lynn Theel, Greg Travis, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, Meegan King, Breck Costin, David Strassman
Production company New World
Genre Horror. Science fiction | Monsters

Synopsis

Several strange events occur in a small and quiet fishing town. First, a fishing boat explodes causing the death of its crew. The dogs of the port appear dismembered, except that of the Indian Hank. Fishermen believe that he was the author of the slaughter, and do the same with the native’s dog. But when several bathers are killed, and some girls raped, some begin to understand that behind everything that happens there is something else …

Cindy Weintraub