{"id":6733,"date":"2024-10-25T10:24:14","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6733"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:24:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:24:14","slug":"humanoids-from-the-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/humanoids-from-the-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanoids from the Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 80 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated Version (graphic violence and gore, language, nudity, sexual content including rape, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Barbara Peeters\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frederick James\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Horner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Daniel Lacambre\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 16, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, Lynn Theel, Meegan King, Breck Costin, Hoke Howell, Don Maxwell, David Strassman, Greg Travis, Linda Shayne, Lisa Glaser.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $2.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Movies like Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> make me wish I was born ten years earlier. It would have been great fun to watch this awesome B-movie with other connoisseurs of trash cinema. Sadly, I was only 12 when it came out. I knew it was pointless to even broach the subject with the parental units. The answer would have been a big fat \u201cNO!\u201d Of course, I probably wouldn\u2019t have appreciated it as much then as I do now. At that age, I wasn\u2019t yet acquainted with Roger Corman or New World Pictures. I was only vaguely aware of my love for trashy exploitation movies. I\u2019d have liked it, but it wouldn\u2019t have meant the same to me as it does now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Corman serves as executive producer on Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong>, a fright flick in the tradition of old-fashioned monster movies with a few modern twists. It\u2019s a pastiche of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Horror of Party Beach, Jaws, Alien, Prophecy and a few other titles. First, I LOVE the title Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong>. It\u2019s custom-made for the marquees of drive-ins and 42nd<\/sup> Street grindhouse theaters. It\u2019s certainly better than Monster, the title used by the uncut version on my DVD copy. Second, the title creatures are the work of Rob Bottin, the makeup and effects whiz best known for his work on 1982\u2019s The Thing. Half-man and half-fish, they are fierce! There\u2019s a lot to be said for actors in rubber suits. Last but not least, while it might be derivative of other creature features, it\u2019s still its own movie because of the scenes of the monsters raping young women for the purposes of propagation of their species. These scenes raised a bit of controversy, but I\u2019m going to circle back to that in a bit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the small fishing village of Noyo, CA, times are tough for the local fishermen. There doesn\u2019t seem to be a lot of salmon around these days. This is the main reason a majority of the residents support the opening of a huge cannery by a big corporation- i.e. more jobs. The Native American locals, represented by Johnny Eagle (Penya, Megaforce), are against it because they\u2019ll lose their fishing rights. This creates a great deal of tension with the townsfolk especially Hank (Morrow, The Bad News Bears), a nasty bigot who leads others in blaming all the town\u2019s problems on the Native Americans. And oh boy, does this town have problems.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Something fishy is going on in Noyo. It involves amphibious monsters that kill men and rape women. Since the local sheriff is basically useless, the one leading the charge against the slimy fish-men (and bigotry) is Jim Hill (McClure, The Land That Time Forgot), a working stiff who\u2019s as handy with his fists as he is a rod and reel. He\u2019s joined by Dr. Susan Drake (Turkel, The Cassandra Crossing), a scientist who works for the company that wants to open the cannery. Naturally, she knows exactly what\u2019s going on as she was partially responsible for it. She was experimenting on salmon with a growth hormone when some of them got released in the ocean and eaten by a rare species of fish that then mutated into the humanoid creatures. You see, this is why genetically modified foods are a bad idea.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Corman hired Barbara Peeters (Summer School Teachers) to direct Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong>, a rarity in that horror movies generally weren\u2019t directed by women in the misogynistic 70s and 80s. Dissatisfied with the rough cut, he asked her to go back and film scenes showing nudity and sexual assault by the fish-men. He also asked for more gore to meet his expectations of B-movie exploitation. When she refused to compromise her principles, he brought in second unit director James Sbardellati to oblige. Corman didn\u2019t inform the cast and crew of these plans; most were understandably pissed off about the changes. \u00a0When Peeters saw the final cut, she tried and failed to have her name removed from the film. I don\u2019t know how she feels about it today, but Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> has become something of a minor classic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now let\u2019s move on to something more fun; namely, the gory killings. I could have done without all the dead dogs, but the rest of the bloody monster violence in Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> is cool. Much is made of the elimination of the scene of a man\u2019s head being ripped off from most versions of the film. I\u2019m pleased to report it\u2019s in the DVD released by Shout Factory about ten years ago completely intact. It happens during the finale at the town\u2019s Salmon Festival when the fish-men show up uninvited and create bloody mayhem. It\u2019s the best part of the movie! Well, that and the Alien-inspired birth scene at the very end. There is plenty of S&S (spurt and splatter) in Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong>. Did I mention that the monsters look cool? I did? Well, they do!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> benefits from a nifty cast led by McClure who makes for an affable hero with his level-headedness and natural leadership qualities. Morrow, sporting the dopest Afro ever given to a white guy, growls and chews his way through the role of the town bully. Hank is a complete bastard who tries to redeem himself at the end with an act of selfless heroism, but considering all that came before it, it\u2019s hard to forgive him. Turkel is pretty good as the brains of the group. Penya is great as Johnny Eagle, a noble Native American who just wants to preserve his people\u2019s land. Linda Shayne of Screwballs shows up briefly as \u201cMiss Salmon\u201d at the festival. It\u2019s always nice to see her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What\u2019s interesting about Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> is that it tries to inject statements about the ecology, bigotry and the dangers of science into the bloody mayhem. It\u2019s an ambitious move on the part of Peeters and writer Frederick James. They manage a decent balance between message and monster movie. Things are helped along nicely by James Horner\u2019s score, his first ever. In short, Humanoids from the Deep<\/strong> is AWESOME! It exemplifies everything that\u2019s great about B-movies.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 80 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated Version (graphic violence and gore, language, nudity, sexual content including rape, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Barbara Peeters\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frederick James\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Horner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Daniel Lacambre\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 16, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Humanoids-from-the-Deep-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6733"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7080,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733\/revisions\/7080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}