Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Director: Barbara Peeters

Starring: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow

Also known as ‘Monster (Humanoids from the Deep)’

Humanoid sea creatures start killing a fishing town’s residents, and raping their women. It’s up to the townsfolk and a visiting biologist to fight back and fend them off.

There’s something fishy in the waters in the fishing village of Noyo – and it ain’t fish! It’s almost time for the annual Salmon Festival in Noyo when people start disappearing in the ocean, and there are sightings of “sea monsters”. As it turns out, these monsters are in fact mutations – the result of failed growth hormone experiments from a company called CANCO, who plans to build a large cannery in Noyo. These mutations are referred to as ‘humanoids’ – looking human in form but with amphibian faces and spending most of their time underwater. (Parts of the film reminded me of ‘Piranha’.)

I enjoyed the characterization and the premise until they suddenly realized this was in fact an 80’s slasher horror, and then bombarded us with naked women. Yup, boobs, boobs, boobs. Sexual exploitation at its best – or should that be at its worst? There’s also racism (against Indians), which I did not appreciate.

Apart from that, it wasn’t all that bad. There was always something exciting happening from the beginning until the end, with lots of action too. Up close, the creatures looked rather disgusting. Despite a few grotesque scenes during the film’s finale, the humanoids were more funny (unintentionally) than scary. The sounds effects were also pretty bad.

With the humanoids raping women, this must have been very controversial at the time of release. Even now, there’s something really disturbing about the movie. Even so, this B-movie was still better than expected and I think it could do nicely with a modern remake. Oh, and what a classic ending!

Would I watch it again? I don’t think so.