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HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP
aka
MONSTER
Rating:  ½
USA. 1980.
Director – Barbara Peeters, Screenplay – Frederick James, Story – Frank Arnold & Martin B. Cohen, Producers – Martin B. Cohen & Hunt Lowry, Photography – Daniel Lacambie, Underwater Photography – Ted Boehler, Music – James Horner, Special Effects – Roger George, Makeup Effects – Rob Bottin, Art Direction – Michael Erler. Production Company – New World.
Cast:
Doug McClure (Jim Hill), Ann Turkel (Dr Susan Drake), Vic Morrow (Hank Slattery), Cindy Weintraub (Carol Hill), Anthony Penya (Johnny Eagle), Lynn Thiel (Peggy Larson), Denise Galik (Linda Beale), Megan King (Jerry Potter), Breck Costin (Tommy Hill)
Plot: The small fishing town of Noyo is caught in a debate between the desire of the local salmon cannery to expand operations and environmental protest from the Native Indians. All of a sudden swimmers around the area start turning up mutilated. Marine biologist Susan Drake determines that the plant has been treating salmon with experimental growth hormones and that the salmon were accidentally dumped in the sea where they were devoured by coelacanths, which have now mutated into monstrous humanoid creatures. As the mutated creatures emerge onto the land, she realises that they are attacking human women in a desire to climb the next ladder up the evolutionary chain and breed.
Despite being made thirty years too late, Humanoids from the Deep is a 1950s monster movie at heart. Its plot could serve as any of the numerous B monster movies that executive producer Roger Corman was churning out in the 1950s. Humanoids from the Deep was one of a number of B movies films that emerged, seeking to capitalise on the success of Jaws (1975) but came with tongues planted in cheek – others included Piranha (1978), Up from the Depths (1979) and Blood Beach (1980). Humanoids from the Deep cheerfully rips its plot off from everything in sight. The monster owes its source of inspiration to The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). This could be The Creature from the Black Lagoon by way of Alien (1979), another strong influence, particularly during the grotesque chestburster twist ending. Even more so than The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Alien, Humanoids from the Deep owes much inspiration to the Z movie classic The Horror of Party Beach (1964), which had horny sea monsters attacking bikinied teens, and the previous year’s Prophecy (1979) from which it borrows its environmental pseudo-concerns and pollution-caused mutation themes, as well as the introduction of American Indian characters. Indeed, Humanoids from the Deep could be Prophecy without its pretensions and conducted as a much more honest B movie.
The only difference between Humanoids from the Deep and a 1950s B movie is that this leaps in with an unrestrainedly over-the-top barrage of 1980s sex and gore. In the way it relishes the scenes of its rampant piscine monsters ripping the tops off and raping female victims, the film comes in extraordinarily bad taste – yet the exercise is played with a deadpan cheerfulness that makes all of this absurdly entertaining. In some ways, it is only taking to the logical extent the underlying interspecies lust that monsters like King Kong and The Creature from the Black Lagoon displayed towards their respective heroines. Feminist groups targeted the film – many defenders took refuge in the fact that a woman Barbara Peeters directed the film, although there exists some debate whether the sex and gore was edited in by Roger Corman after she had finished. Apparently not, says Rob Bottin who ended up designing as well as playing several of the raping monsters.
The film was later remade for cable tv as Humanoids from the Deep (1996) as part of a package of movies under the umbrella title Roger Corman Presents. This time the nudity and gore was considerably watered down.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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