Review by Prof. Aglaophotis
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Plot Outline: We start our little tale in the small Northern
Californian fishing town of Noyo, where much trouble is a brewing. The salmon in the area have been
becoming more minuscule by the day as the town’s festival draws nearer. However, a canning company
known as Can co. (oh yes, THAT’S original) plans to change that, not only to help catch more fish,
but to genetically improve the size and amount of salmon in the area. In the mean time, some odd
problems arrive when fishermen start catching marine life that continues to break the wires, all of the
dogs in the town get slaughtered and Hank Slatery (Vic Morrow) and his inebriated posse find more
reasons to pick on the local Native American Johnny Eagle (Anthony Penya). All the while, beach hopping
amorous couples get violently attacked by vicious sea creatures who hack up the men and rape their
dates and everyday-man Jim Hill (Doug McClure), Johnny and marine biologist Dr. Susan Drake (Ann
Turkel) start playing detective after Jim’s brother gets attacked by a pack of similar inhuman marine
life. Oh, and didn’t I mention the local festival was coming?
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Although a bit of a digression, I have encountered
various unique plot twists and story ideas, one of the more popular being the further development and
future of mankind, after such existence has gone so far in the line of advancing intelligence and
simultaneous stupidity. Yet, I find this question to be irritatingly incessant, for it has been
interpreted in one too many ways and the answers are almost always brought into a black or white
category, with some good occasional imagination, but lack of originality. There is something wholly
unique about Humanoids from the Deep, as it somehow brings a clever method of coming to the conclusion
of that question without incessantly bringing it up through the movie. We are given scenes of social
violence and local acts of racism that was made to recognize the socio-economic impacts of events in
the town, as well as setting up protagonist/support roles and antagonistic categories, and keeping
anyone from acting on the problem at hand, but the question regarding humankind’s future did not fully
arise or show relevance until near the end of the movie as the origin of these creatures were being
analyzed. It’s nothing to make too big of a deal out of, I’ll admit, but when you familiarize with
different storylines, you’ll see a lot of repetition and failed good ideas. While this came close by
means of diction (which I will emphasize on later), the message still delivered. Another level of
importance is to show that even the antagonistic characters showed signs of heroism near the end as
their eyes are opened to the relevance of the creatures, simply to remind the audience that despite
their bad qualities, there’s hardly ever a black or white matter to every human being in this world
(especially when they’re being attacked by murderous amphibious monsters).
The movie had a nice sized budget as it boasts with explosions here and there, shows skin being scraped
off the bone and the minimal use of sets, but its limit shows in various little parts of the movie, as
we see the same close up shots of humanoids getting shot with a 30.6 here and a 3.06 there, repeated
continuity shots of Doug McClure firing a gun in a previous scene, as well as two ‘clever’ reverse slow
motion shots and a crowd’s screams are obviously looped for more than five minutes of film (a flare gun
to some gas on the deck blowing up an ENTIRE ship, or an ol’ Molotv Cocktail blowing up a one story
house on direct impact being the latter). The spectacle of slimy half skeletal monsters slashing and
raping shoves the movie into a different light which is beneficial for the sci-fi/horror movie genre,
for it adds a new level of discouragement for audiences aside from just having bloodthirsty monsters
and gory murders being the primary focus (which is why most people have found it distasteful and I was
just surprised in that ‘Whoa!’ sense) and the monsters themselves were designed pretty well to look
like what they evolved from. Though not particularly well acted or dictated for that matter (it’s
sardonic that a marine biologist cannot even manage to pronounce the word coelacanth correctly), the
characters were believable and the partial exposition amidst conversations worked in order to
understand the characters a little better. Another semi-positive aspect of the film was its almost
apparent lack of clichés, as mentioned earlier with the lack of 100% human antagonists, regardless of
their negative aspects. There was an apparent minimum of over-used/noticeable sci-fi clichés until,
surprisingly enough, the final scene in the movie where the threats of human existence increases, but
in a far too predictable manner.
From the banter I have produced it’s obvious that amidst its pros and cons, I still enjoyed it, but if
the latter you find distasteful (brief monster rape scenes being the bulk), then I doubt this movie
would be your forte. Otherwise, Humanoids from the Deep is definitely a
sit-down with-a-sophomorically-fun-social-crowd-with-pop-and-popcorn-bowl-in-hand sort of movie. The
movie manages to keep your eyes on the screen and keep you involved in the unfolding events regardless
of the occasional flaws.
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