Humanoids From The Deep

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Runtime: 80 minutes

Directed by: Barbara Peeters... mostly

Starring: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena

From: New World Pictures

A movie better than its infamous reputation.

Friday night I viewed this on Shudder as the second half of the last The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs for the season, where he continued his interview w/ Roger Corman and he continued to provide many interesting anecdotes; before I watched Humanoids I only knew of the movie for its infamy. You see, the title creatures are indeed fish men from the sea and well, the viewer gets to see them sexually assault several women. That was controversial at the time; in 2021, some will be quite offended. Now that I've finally seen this motion picture, it is for certain sleaze and trash... but it's also greatly entertaining.

It is a monster movie where some famous names (Doug McClure, model turned actress Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow w/ a tremendous head of hair) were roped in as it originally wasn't going to be so outrageous and in fact the grossest moments were not filmed by director Barbara Peeters but instead were done by New World Pictures stalwart Jimmy T. Murakami.

She was not happy with the final product for years and that is unfortunate. It's the sort of movie where the first person you see killed is a little boy and after that is several dogs... yes this is outrageous. Yet it's a story set and filmed in a bucolic area of Northern California and a pleasant-looking town known as Noyo where this actually addressed such things as DNA and GMO's long before that became fashionable... specifically, that is modifying animals for the sake of food production. There's also tensions between “the whites” in town and Native Americans. Yes there is prejudice although the main source is controversy over opening a cannery factory in that seaside village. The script was more thoughtful than I expected.

Of course there is plenty of gore and carnage for those that enjoy such things. As that was done by the great Rob Bottin, even on a tiny budget the monsters and the graphic moments all look superb. The final act in particular provided plenty of over the top entertainment. Other familiar names are present: this was an early effort from Mark Goldblatt as editor before he worked on various James Cameron movies... and this was the first ever film score from James Horner. In addition, I did chuckle at seeing Rowdy Herrington's name in the credits... he went on from being an electrician in this to directing the legendary Road House.

Humanoids from the Deep is not the only New World Pictures effort that has been a pleasant surprise-Battle Beyond the Stars is a fun space riff on The Seven Samurai. Those that want another trashy effort should check out Forbidden World.