Humanoids from the Deep

Starring:Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Penya, Denise Galik-Furey, Lynn Theel, Meegan King, Breck Costin, Hoke Howell, Don Maxwell, David Strassman, Greg Travis, Linda Shayne, Lisa Glaser, Bruce Monette, Shawn Erler, Frank Arnold (III), Amy Barrett, Jo Williams
Director: Barbara Peters (II), Jimmy T. Murakami
Studio: New Horizons Home Video
Product Type: DVD

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The peculiar genius of schlock-king Roger Corman is in full bloom with this extremely gory, pointedly offensive homage to 1950s monster movies (with a generous helping of Alien thrown in for good measure), in which a legion of mutated salmon-men terrorize a small town in their search for unwilling female companionship. (Potential viewers should be warned that this movie goes to great lengths to show what earlier films in this genre had only implied.) A guilty pleasure for exploitation fans with a strong stomach and a twisted sense of humor. For what it's worth, director Barbara Peters has claimed that additional shock scenes were inserted by producer Corman without her knowledge. The glop-intensive special effects were devised by Rob Bottin, who later went on to gross out the masses with his work on Seven, Robocop, and John Carpenter's graphic remake of The Thing. --Andrew Wright

Customer Reviews:

A TRUE GORE MASTERPIECE, FROM THE AGE OF GORE (1978-1983).......2006-08-23

Humanoids From The Deep was released during the age of gore (1978-1983) in 1980. Incredible film transfer picture is sharp and crisp, audio is loud and clear. An interview with Roger Corman done by Leonard Maltin is really a nice feature on this dvd release. There are also a few other trailers from other Roger Corman movies on this dvd, along with talent bios. Roger Corman really struck a cord with gore fans with Humanoids. Humanoids is 80 minutes just like the old 1950s sci-fi movies. Barbara Peters does an excellent job directing this movie. Vic Morrow plays Hank Slattery so well that I could really believe this hank charachter existed. Doug Mcclure plays the calm and steady Jim Hill. Ann Turkell a believable scientist. All the other lesser known actors really fused the script and the story of Humanoids really well. A young Rob Bottin does an awesome job in the special effects of the mutated Humanoids, Rob Bottins effects work was done for the production of Humanoids in 1979, way before computer animation. I think the effects were quite believable even then in 1980 and even today. The Humanoids are a really believable monster, long teeth, long sharp claws. I could have done without their screeching and wailing but I think it fit the Humanoids perfect. Excellently written story by Frank Arnold and Martin B.Cohen. The ending to Humanoids was shocking for its time, but really quite common as with gore movies at this time (1978-1983). Directors and writers of this film genre were always trying to shock film audiences with gory effects during this time in the film industry. Keep in mind Humanoids came out during the age of gore but also before the MPAA got involved in controlling content in motion pictures. Horror gore movies like Humanoids From The Deep got away with alot of really gory effects. This movie should, I hope will keep your interest, the thing I like about Humanoids is the black humor, black humor aside, viewing the end of Humanoids from the deep will leave you thinking "what if this really happened?". If you have 80 minutes to spare on something wild watch Humanoids From The Deep there is lots of gore and an awesome classical soundtrack by a young James Horner, great Rob Bottin monster effects, political issues about over land development, and by the way a few georgeous ladies to ad to this shlock fest.

Been There, Done It!!.......2005-11-28

I've read the reviews from all 37...and a big kudos to you all for watching this movie. I was a paid extra in the movie(senior year in high school) i can say it was alot of fun being a mindless humanoid when the stunt man refused to get in the suit. Spending my time next to a gas burner to keep us warm at 3:30 in the morning waiting for the next shot. i have great memories of us extras dining with Doug, Vic, Anthony, Ann, Barbra. The movie was campy fun and a definite B movie of desperate measure.

So Bad it's Almost Good.......2005-08-21

Doug McClure established himself as Trampas on tv's "Virginian" that ran from 1962 to 1971. After "The Virginian" McClure had a hit or miss career in the movies. This particular movie is a campy bit of fun that is most assuredly not a family movie, though teenage boys will likely figure out a way to watch it.

The plot is a rehash of monster movie plots that date back to at least the 1950s. We have local creatures that have mutated from fish to become somewhat humanoid. The fish-humanoids move about as fast as an arthritic old man, but that somehow does not prevent the critters from killing dogs and people with abandon. Even more interesting, the creatures seem to figure out a clever way to grab the local ladies, even though they often run away, and mate with them.

Somehow the cast manages to put in a decent acting job in spite of the monster silliness. Doug McClure is level-headed Jim Hill who battles local fisherman and bully Hank Slattery, played by Vic Morrow. Ann Turkel plays a rare female scientist Dr. Susan Drake. Then there are a number of very pretty monster victim babes.

When I watch this movie I think of "Plan 9 from Outer Space," because the monsters shamble along and yet they somehow manage to make victims of healthy men and women. Though some of the victims fall prey to the monsters laying in wait for them, sometimes the victims fall prey through sheer silliness. The monsters are certainly big and strong, and once a humanoid catches a victim the victim is unlikely to survive the encounter if male, and female victims are sexually violated.

The rape of female victims by the monsters raises this movie to a new low. The scenes are graphic and while intended to be horrifying, often end up being a little silly. The victims are stereotypically portrayed as scatterbrained bunnies bolting headlong from a monster only to fall prey to the monster as they somehow manage to fall and scream a lot. For some strange reason the humanoids also have an interest in human female breasts as the monsters rip the bikini tops from their victims. Of course, this movie also assumes that the genetically created monsters have no female monsters to mate with, unless the female monsters were stalking the men in the movie and we did not get to see that.

This movie also features a "surprise" ending that horror film fans will see coming well before the end of the movie. Fans of director Roger Corman will likely intuit the ending from nearly the beginning.

In spite of the rehash of monster movies, and the gratuitous sex scenes, this movie is bad enough to be worth watching at least once. The acting by the leads is decent, and there are some satisfying special effects. This movie is deservedly rated R, and I would be reluctant to watch this movie with anyone else unless I knew they would not be offended.

Misogyny kills it.......2005-08-15

The story is that the original director, a woman, submitted this film and Corman felt there wasn't enough of the T and A factor. So, Corman filmed new scenes to add it in. Okay, that's fine, one expects that in such low-budget, drive-in fare. The problem is that when the director objected to what amounts to scenes of sexual violence against women, along with the bare breasts, Corman fired her and put in a new director. That's really not cool. The movie would have been fine without the depiction of the rapes -- at the very least, the camera could have cut away at one point, leaving us to imagine what may have happened, and it would have made the final scene even more effective. Best to just forget about this one.

Its so corny, its funny!.......2005-08-15

This is one of those unrealistic 80's monster movies. But I consider it a parody of two movies-The creature from the black lagoon and a little like Alien (the first one)

WARNING:Spoilers ahead

CFTBL:The swarm of mutated fish men from the sea
Alien:The part at the end where peggy has the fish creature baby-In alien, in the beginning, an alien breaks out of the girls stomach while shes in bed.

this movie is so corny, its funny! I was laughing the whole time while watching this. Its a fun movie!

Average customer rating:

And why did I want to see this film again?!
Why Roger...why?
Remake From The Deep
fish men want our women!
Have you seen the original version lately?

Humanoids From the Deep
Starring: Emma Samms , Robert Carradine , Justin Walker , Mark Rolston , and Danielle Weeks
Director: Jeff Yonis
Manufacturer: New Concorde
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00009L4TU
Release Date: 2003-08-26

Customer Reviews:

And why did I want to see this film again?!.......2005-09-01

This IS the 1980 film starring Doug McClure. Now, ol' Doug was never going to win any awards for his acting, but even he outdoes himself in the bad acting department in this super cheesy film.

I remembered this film from the days when I got my first VCR. I had remembered it as being fairly well done. Boy, was I wrong! This movie BITES!

HFTD follows the same basic premise that every "seafaring" monster film has since Jaws was made: people get attacked, pets get attacked, locals get angry, loyal local takes charge to get monster, expert scientist is readily on hand to assist, more people get eaten, festival/holiday is disturbed by the monster; hero dispatches monster, and finally, the film sets us up for a sequel.

Jaws was a one time thing. Even Speilberg never thought it was going to be as popular as it was since they hadn't been able to get the shark footage that they wanted. The result was a benchmark film against which all other seafaring "monster" films are judged.

The acting is quite terrible throughout. It's not amateur hour, but you can actually see the non acting throughout (McClure's screen wife has absolutely no expression on her face when she is attacked by several of the Humanoids). The scientist who knows what's going on (Ann Turkel) is so vapid that you just want to shake her. Ann Turkel got her acting chops from the modeling runway and we all know that is sufficient (right!). She has no expression and she moves as if in a dream, delivering her lines evenly and expressionless. Hilariously when the hero, the scientist, and the honorable local (an American Indian) go to the location where the local first saw the monsters, we can tell that the location is anything BUT where he first saw it. How can this be since he saw it on his own property? However the location they identify is NOT his property!

The script is such a pitiful mess that the writer should be ashamed of himself.

The monsters (the Humanoids) are two legged fish monsters with a tail - at about 7 feet tall - they are the result of frog DNA being merged with salmon DNA and then the salmon being eaten by "the once thought extinct but isn't really" coelocanth. So where do they get their two adult legs and extra long five fingered arms (oh, that must be the frog DNA at work, since frogs are bipeds, aren't they?).

Rob Bottin created the monster costumes and while not totally stupid looking, they are quite idiotic (but that's more the director's and producer's fault than his).

Really cheesy and badly done film. Don't bother.

Why Roger...why?.......2005-06-01

I don't see why Roger Corman would allow one of his best, if not best of his works to get butchered like this, even when he was producing. The entire scare factor that the original had is gone, the great music is gone, the characters you could give a damn about are gone, the awesome monsters are gone, leaving this movie a VERY pale imitation of a classic 1980 monster movie.

I can understand that this was a low budget, but so was the original, and it still came out better. The original Humanoids looked much better then these here new ones, the older ones had character and a feeling of terror, these here new ones are horrid, they still have the basic design...but the feeling just is not there. The monsters awesome shreeks are gone, replaced by crappy sounding "ape" grunts.

You couldn't give a care about the characters anymore, that is the best I can say about them. The acting, even by my standards is dreaded, I guess Corman felt that the only way to possibly keep a viewer's attention is throw blood everywhere and womens' chests.

Remake From The Deep.......2004-03-10

This is not the original starring Doug McClure, but the remake staring David Carradine and Emma Samms. While not the original, the story is pretty much the same (complete with some footage from the original added in).

A small town is the setting as a fish plant is targeted for dumping chemicals in the local waters. The fish have gotten bigger as a result but something else has gone wrong as well. The chemicals being dumped are needed by a new resident in the waters, a fish man created by the military.

David Carradine is the head of the plant and is trying to stop his employees from dumping. To make matters worse, one of the animal rights activists has a thing for his daughter. Then people start to be killed in the water. A shark is blamed but it does not explain why only male bodies have been found. None of the females have been recovered. Then most of the animal rights people, and Carradine's daughter, are killed or taken one night.

No one seems to know what is going on except for reporter Emma Samms. But then a survivor shows up and the town finds out that there is something fishy going on. Samms is really a doctor who helped create the creatures. She is trying to stop them and exposes the military involvement. But one survivor points to the possibility of others. The military does not care, they will just blow everything up.

Good ending, nice twist and I liked the way the creatures don't occur just from dumping, but were lab created (a slight improvement over the original). Still, it is a nice remake but I found it hard to take David Carradine seriously (I kept seeing flashes of Revenge of the Nerds). Definitely one to see if you like Roger Corman or a good creature flick.

fish men want our women!.......2003-09-30

Beware all ye expecting the 1980 version of this movie starring Doug McClure! This is a 1996 remake for cable (Showtime), its' real title being Roger Corman Presents 'Humanoids From the Deep'.

This drecky mess stars Emma Samms and David Caradine, along with a number of less noticeable actors who currently reside in the 'where are they now' file. The plot involves a big business/government cover up (gee, how very original), toxic chemicals in the ecosystem, and a small, coastal town under siege by hungry, mutated fish men.

Apparently the government contracted a private company to splice the genetic material of fish with that of convicted felons in an effort to create a race of amphibian soldiers. Sounds like a reasonable idea, right? Anyway, the government isn't happy with the results, so they terminate the project, but some of the fish men escape.

Cut to a small, coastal fishing village. Canco, the major fish catching and canning company in the area, is responsible for dumping a biohazardous growth hormone into the waters to embiggen the fish. Actually, it's one particularly dislikable guy named Bill who is responsible. David Caradine, who plays Wade Parker, also works for the company (seems like he and the evil Bill run the company), finds out what's going on and demands that the dumping stop. Bill agrees, but only to placate Wade as there's good money to be made in those big fish.

Enter a nameless eco-group, whose leader, Matt, is played by Justin Walker. This group knows chemicals are being dumped into the waters, and are protesting Canco. Later they videotape Bill and his cronies at work, pollutin' the waters. No real attempt was made by Bill or his evil lackeys to cover up what they were doing, as they did it in broad daylight, with huge, yellow drums with biohazardous markings clearly visible, so it's no big surprise they got caught on tape. Also, it seems this growth hormone is attracting the mutated fish men, as they need the chemical to survive.

After the death of a little boy, completely ripped off from a much better movie, the fish men start to make their presence known. Their attacks become more brazen, and we soon find out that they are kidnapping, not killing, local females for mating purposes. Yuck....Damn those amorous fish men, stealin' our wimmen!

Man this movie had a lot of problems...worst being the inept direction. The actors, most being fairly capable, seemed totally mismanaged. An extremely poor script and plot certainly didn't help matters any. The thing that really annoyed me was how so many technical aspects were glossed over, like the DNA splicing, effects of toxic chemicals on the environment, the military involvement, etc. No real thought was given to any of these aspects, instead skimming the surface of theses many themes to aid (hinder) the plot along. Mutations, DNA splicing, and conspiracies being the crux of the movie, it's painfully obvious that the writer threw this stuff in the story, without having any real knowledge to support it. And the sets...the interiors were so obviously fake, making parts of the movie seem like a high school production. The characters' motivations are all over the place, causing the actors to appear indifferent to events that should mean more to them than they do. A specific example is when Wade's teenage daughter is taken by the fish men, and presumed dead. Wade doesn't seem all that broken up about it. At some points he does seemed upset, but given that your offspring may have been eaten by a mutated fish man, I'd figured you'd be pretty horrified and suitably despondent, but not so here.

On a positive note, the creatures did look kinda cool, but it was obvious that the suits (no CGI here) allowed for very little mobility, hindering the action in their limited screen time. The suits were fairly detailed, but I think if they were simplified, allowing more mobility, they would have been much more effective. The gore was needless, and the blood looked painfully fake.

In the cheap thrills department, there are a couple of brief nudity shots, if that's your thing, but they were unnecessary, and only served to further exemplified the total lameness of the movie. "Hey, we know this movie stinks, but here's some breasts!" Emma Samms, never got au natural, retaining some of her dignity, but not much.

There are some extras, including a director's commentary (!?) which I was interested in hearing, but was unable to sit through this movie again so soon. Also, there are some trailers for other movies, including one for a movie called Watchers 3. In watching this, I was amazed at how blatantly this feature ripped off the movie Predator. I don't mind producers copping ideas off better movies, but at least try to make it seem not so glaringly obvious. Geez...

Have you seen the original version lately?.......2003-04-28

Perhaps memories fade, because I just viewed both versions of "Humanoids From The Deep" and found the original to be unwatchable. There is a reason Barbara Peters has not become a successful director, and it's because her film is uneven and flat. If it is the amateurish quality that makes people yearn for the original in order to laugh at it rather than be engrossed in the narrative, then those people should watch the original. For those with the expectation of getting caught up in a scary story, the remake is the only film to watch. It follows a similar story but has better caliber actors and some genuinely funny moments like Clint Howard observing that Justin Walker is the only one who survived a monster attack and asking "Did you know these monsters?" See only the remake.

Average customer rating:

A TRUE GORE MASTERPIECE, FROM THE AGE OF GORE (1978-1983)
Been There, Done It!!
So Bad it's Almost Good
Misogyny kills it
Its so corny, its funny!

Humanoids from the Deep
Starring: Doug McClure , Ann Turkel , Vic Morrow , Cindy Weintraub , and Anthony Penya
Director: Barbara Peters (II) , and Jimmy T. Murakami
Manufacturer: New Horizons Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items: