Humanoids From the Deep
Review by Peter Syslo

Last weekend, I found out that Humanoids From the Deep (1980) was going to be on a cable channel, and I just had to watch it. Strangely enough, I think that the last time I saw this movie was around 1980-81, when I was a kid. Seeing it now, I don’t know how my parents could have let me watch this – apparently their instincts were right, I didn’t quite understand some things, at the time. Humanoids… is a racy little piece of B-movie bliss that I am glad I experienced, as a child and as an adult.

Humanoids… is produced by the legendary Roger Corman and is directed by Barbara Peters. It stars Vic Morrow (who died during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie in a helicopter accident), Ann Turkel (I recognized her from an episode of Night Court), Doug McClure, Cindy Weintraub, and Anthony Pena (I swear, it seemed like it everyone and their brother had a part in the film). Basically, the film is about water-based creatures that terrorize a coastal town; because the creatures wish to procreate (more on that later). It turns out that genetic experimentation caused mutations in a species of fish, which resulted in these “humanoid” creatures. The film begins with a few “attacks”, moves along with scientific explanations and creature hunting, and ends with a battle royal, where it is the town vs. the creatures.

Well, let’s get down to the good stuff; I have to say a few words about the creatures procreating – and this is the part I didn’t get as a child – the creatures/humanoids drag their hapless female victims on shore where they, ahem, proceed to “lay some pipe”. I thought that the movie was ridiculous to begin with but that just pushed it over the edge. The movie has at least two scenes of amphibious rape but yet, those scenes were not the most shocking. Let me continue with the hilarity – there is one scene during the battle royal, at the end, where one of the humanoids swipes at a woman in a bikini and it just so happens that her top flies off – funny, funny stuff. Wait, it gets better – in another scene (a prelude to fish-fornication, if you will) a man and woman are in a tent, on the bea ch, and the woman is getting naked while the man is talking to her with his ventriloquist dummy (I know, all jokes are already said within that statement). One of the humanoids falls upon the tent, the man is killed, the woman violated, and I don’t know what happened to the dummy – this movie is really just over the top.

Aside from the comedy, there is a good amount of gore, in this thing. The makeup effects (such as torn flesh) actually look pretty good and the humanoids/creatures look decent too, except for their eyes in certain shots. Probably the most gore is contained in the final scene of the film; it is a birth scene that I remember from seeing this as a kid – the scene is very effective and has always disturbed me a little. Regarding the acting, it is as expected, but it just adds to the “so bad it’s good” quality. Also, an interesting side note is that James Horner, of Titanic fame, did the soundtrack – actually I thought that the music (minimalist/orchestral) fit really well and added a little bit to the overall film.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? If you enjoy strange, whacky, B-movies then you should enjoy watching this. The best way I could describe this is, it is like a cross between Porky’s and Jaws 2 – I’m serious, watch it and you’ll see what I mean! Actually, it is funny because it seems that some scenes were directly influenced by movies of that time period: there is a scene with a winch, on a boat, that is like Jaws/Jaws 2; there is a hand-breaking-windshield scene like in Halloween; the whole atmosphere/setting of the movie is like The Fog or Orca; and the movie as a whole feels like a 1950s creature feature. Have fun with it – I sure did. The movie may be tough to find –VHS may be your best bet (I think the DVD is OOP) – but if you see a copy of it at a garage sale, pick it up