In today's horror climate there are some pretty crazy directors feeding us some bizarre images. Takashi Miike immediately comes to mind as someone in particular who pushes the envelope as far as what we can see on the screen. Today's filmmakers are also coming up with all kinds of ways to kill people as is evidenced by the Saw and Final Destination movies and countless others. Although gore and dementedness abound, something is missing from the genre. I have found that with a few exceptions such as The Descent, we are seeing a distinct lack of monsters. This is why every so often, I like to look back on my collection and revisit one of these "creature features" from the past and get reminded of why I love the genre so much.

There is not a lot of time spent on exposition, as all we really need to know at the beginning of the film is that the setting is a small fishing village and there are plans to build a controversial new cannery that will be stocked with genetically enhanced salmon. There is the requisite evil businessman (Vic Morrow) and a friendly Indian (Anthony Penya) who opposes what is going on. Within the first five minutes, the tension between these two is established and we are interested in the story and what is going to develop between the opposing views. It is this type of hook is absent from many of the movies being made today and the generic plots being fed to us leave nothing to the imagination as most of the time, we already know what is going to happen in the film and when. In this flick, we have some heavy-duty conflict being firmly established amongst the townspeople well before the gang of mutant sea creatures rise from the ocean and begin to attack the local teenagers. This leads to some interesting dynamics as the bodies begin to pile up and later when there is an assault on the town's salmon festival by the monsters.

Humanoids From The Deep has everything that I like about horror movies. There is a decent story, cute girls get naked, gory monster attacks abound (especially during the chaotic finale), and the cast consists of a number of name actors spouting off cheesy lines. Among these actors, who probably had a blast making the film even though they would never admit it, are Vic Morrow from the classic TV series "Combat" as the cannery builder, Doug McClure (father of B-movie sexpot Tane McClure) as the blue collar hero, Cindy Weintraub (The Prowler) as his wife, and Ann Turkel as the scientist responsible for the mutations. The real star of the show here is the humanoids though. Looking like a low budget lovechild of Alien, Pumpkinhead, and the space creatures from This Island Earth, they are scary looking monsters especially if your imagination will allow you to get past the fact that they are men in suits. The creatures were designed by effects artist Rob Bottin and you can see that he was well on his way to learning his craft but was not quite at the level that gave him his permanent place in movie history with his work on The Thing and The Howling.

There is a bit of controversy surrounding the director credit on this film as rumour has it that Barbara Peeters did not want to participate in the scenes in which the humanoids rape the local woman in an attempt to impregnate them. These scenes were apparently done by Jimmy T. Murakami who also worked for producer Roger Corman on Battle Beyond The Stars. While this very well may have been the case, I find it a little surprising considering the fact that Peeters had previously given us a biker movie and a pair of sex comedies (including one with one of my favorite 70's B-movie babes Candice Rialson). Nevertheless, I suppose it is possible that she was offended by the brief scenes of sexual assault by monster but I can't find anything solid to confirm or deny this rumour.

Look for Linda Shayne (from 80's teen comedy Screwballs) as Miss Salmon, Greg Travis (Showgirls, Starship Troopers) as the radio DJ at the salmon festival, David Strassman as the ventriloquist who gets a girl to get naked, Fred Olen Ray regular Hoke Howell as the fisherman whose chubby son gets thrown overboard, and 1975 Playboy Playmate Lynn Theel as Becky the girl who is impregnated after her boyfriend gets his face ripped off. The music was done by James Horner who has gone on from the Corman school to numerous big-name scores including an Oscar win for Titanic. Similarly, editor Mark Goldblatt went on to The Terminator, Showgirls, Pearl Harbor, and most recently X-Men: The Last Stand. This also marks an early job for FX artist Steve Johnson (Species) as well as future Terminator series producer Gale Ann Hurd who was a production assistant. If anyone ever tells you that New World didn't spawn talent, tell them to check out this flick.

Humanoids was remade in 1996 as one of the "Roger Corman Presents" series that also included remakes of Piranha, Wasp Woman, and A Bucket of Blood among others. (Josh Pasnak, 12/20/06)

Directed By: Barbara Peeters.
Written By: Frederick James.

Starring: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Anthony Penya.