Once again messing around with Mother Nature spawns slimy results in the ROGER CORMAN produced monster-thon HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. Here it is mankind's eternal quest for a superior salmon that gets him into hot water with the powers of fate. Meddling with the DNA of these fishes produces the inevitable result of eight-foot tall, long-armed fish-men with one-track minds. Think late night double feature mash-up of CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON and THE ACCUSED. DOUG McCLURE (You know him from such films as THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS and SATAN'S TRIANGLE) teams up with "a great little lady scientist" (CARLY SIMON double ANN TURKEL) and scapegoat American Indian (apparently sufficiently non-Caucasian Latino ANTHONY PENA) to thwart the horny hybrids power move for the next step on the evolutionary ladder. Whether our heroes are successful is anybody's guess. I do know that the town of Noyo's annual salmon festival was a complete disaster, with dozens of humanoids crashing through the pier to tear the tops off of every female they encountered and ripping the faces off of any man who stood in their way. Directed by "great little lady" BARBARA PEETERS and considered too dull by producer CORMAN, HUMANOIDS was hijacked and injected with extra scenes of gore and nudity to fit the tastes of 1980 teenage audiences. These outlandish, over-the-top trashy breaks from the story have done much to cement HUMANOIDS into the minds of puberty stricken, cable-watching males over the years. Let's be honest, this is one cult favorite where nobody's clamoring to view the original director's cut. Even without the T&A though, HFTD is an entertaining throwback and fun diversion from the then current slasher craze. It's a goofy spectacle of bad taste and, like the impressive ROB BOTTIN creatures that inhabit it, its cross-pollination lineage may be it's strongest suite.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
- PETA baiting multiple dog disposals
- Tent attack ventriloquist dummy gets an eyeful and is unusually animated after owner's demise.
- Baby in danger is saved by drain cleaner
- Salmon festival attack garnished with same scream over and over in maddeningly endless loop
- Dilated eyeball ALIEN rip-off baby birth
I saw Humanoids again just a few years ago, and was startled to see just how much T & A there was for a film that was no supposed to be about T & A (that is, not a Cinemax Late-Night original). It reminded me how people really had to go out to the movies to see any nudity back then and what a treat it was when they saw it. What really struck me however was that all the breasts were real. I don't think I've seen that many real breasts on screen since the first time I saw Humanoids in the early 80's! We have gotten so accustomed to fake boobs on screen that real breasts have become the novelty. They're somehow "throwbacks" to a simpler, more peaceful time.