‘Humanoids From The Deep’ or — Lovecraft… The Porno!
The small fishing town of Noyo, California is having some weird shit going down. Firstly, a young boy is dragged from a boat and pulled under the churning red surface. Someone on the boat comes running with a flare gun but slips and accidentally blows up the boat, killing everyone on board.
Next, the mutilated bodies of dead dogs start being found although this isn’t shocking enough news to stop the local teens from vigorously fucking in every available space. Two teenagers are having sex on the beach when the boy is dragged under the surface, half his head getting torn off, and a horrendous sea-creature bursts from the sea and er… rapes the girl.
Later, two teenagers are camping on the beach and fucking in a tent when a horrendous sea-creature bursts from the sea and horrifically kills the boy. The girl screams and runs away… into the waiting claws of another sea-creature who er… rapes her. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Fortunately Doug McClure lives in this town and he’s fought dinosaurs on forgotten islands so he’s the perfect man to have around at a time like this. He also took on the Warlords of Atlantis so this guy knows how to deal with aquatic pricks. An attractive scientist (who calls ‘coelacanths’ ‘KOALA-canths’!) working for a salmon canning factory with the innovative name of Canco tells Doug McClure that these ‘humanoids from the deep’ could be the result of Canco’s experiments with growth hormones in salmon. Some of these experimental salmon were washed out to sea during a violent storm, got into the food chain and the results could be these terrifying creatures.
Unfortunately by the time they discover this the town’s Annual Salmon Festival is in full swing and by the time they arrive to warn everyone the festival is attacked by hordes of humanoids from the deep. The monsters immediately start killing all the men and, surprise surprise, raping all, and I mean ALL, the women (what, exactly, was in that growth hormone?!!).
Will the sea-monsters be defeated before things go too far? Will the town run out of women? Watch ‘Humanoids From The Deep’ and find out!
‘Humanoids From The Deep’ is a lot of fun, amazingly. It’s barely 80 minutes long, knows exactly what it is and delivers. It also pushes everything as far as it can so there’s tonnes of exploitative nudity, some pretty impressive gore and loads of gruesome killings. The final scene at the festival has to be seen to be believed and if you’re into the whole monsters run amok in civilised society thing, which I am, then this does it nicely. Plus, the coda is a combination of ‘Alien’ (1979) and the birth scene in ‘The Fly’ (1986) and is a very cool way to end a horror flick.
What’s surprising about the film is that for all its low budget trashiness is the obvious talent behind the camera. The film isn’t a masterpiece by any means (and never tries to be thank god) but director Barbara Peeters (yes, this was directed by a female) shows moments of flare (she’d later direct episodes of ‘Cagney and Lacey’ and ‘Remington Steele’) and really knows the horror genre. Kills and scares are effective and fun and the pacing is kept at a suitably bubbly pace.
The creature work is also pretty cool but, then again, it was done by a young Rob Bottin. In fact there are a couple of moments that seem to hint at the work he’d do on ‘The Thing’ (1982). Slime is slimy, gore gory and although the creatures are kinda silly they look decent and give off a decent amphibious monster vibe. Not only that but the score is by James Horner (you can kinda tell it’s him — it’s the use of trumpet that gives it away) and is not too shabby.
‘Humanoids From The Deep’ is a Roger Corman film so that’ll give you some idea of what to expect. It’s stupid, exploitation nonsense played completely straight and is a crazy combination of ‘Jaws’, Lovecraft, ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ and early 80’s monster flicks. The result is more fun than it possibly deserves to be.
