Review: Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

(aka Monster)
Directed by: Barbara Peeters
Starring: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow
Written by: Frederick James
Music by: James Horner
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray & DVD (Scream Factory)
IMDb

Every time I watch Humanoids from the Deep, I’m fascinated anew that it was directed by a woman. A flick about mutant salmon with a predilection for rape doesn’t seem like it would be an easy sell to a female director. Now, reportedly, Roger Corman wasn’t entirely happy with how Barbara Peeters shot the sea monster sexual assault and had some B-roll with extra nudity shot and edited in without her knowledge. But regardless, it’s intriguing that Corman, well known for his insistence on a sleaze quota, gave so many women (Peeters, Penelope Spheeris, Deborah Brock, Amy Holden Jones, Tina Hirsch, Sally Mattison, etc.) relative creative freedom at a time when those opportunities were super rare. Someone who’s smarter than me has probably already written about it. If not, maybe I will some day. But that aside, Humanoids just really works for me. It’s a set in a quaint seaside town where everyone knows each other, there’s some surprising tolerance toward an “outsider” when a movie of this ilk might indulge in casual racism (mind you, there is some, but the characters put aside the tension and band together against the common evil of horny humanoid fish with large, exposed brains and disturbingly long forearms), there’s the aforementioned horny humanoid fish, some gnarly slashed flesh, a fantastic score from James Horner (his first), and it’s so atmospheric you can feel the ocean tickling your nose with its dank brininess. I guess there’s some ecological messaging in there, as well, and Humanoids would make an swell double-feature with something like John Frankenheimer’s Prophecy (1979). This isn’t a stellar work of art — the action is confusingly shot/edited, it could be much more suspenseful, the aquatic beasties are repetitively offed by the same dude with the same weak rifle, and none of the characters are particularly memorable — but it’s a very satisfying mix of monster movie ingredients that never makes any egregious errors.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10