Humanoids from the Deep

Humanoids from the Deep (1980) was an incredible movie, so 16yrs later how did a remake turn out so outstandingly disastrous?

Starring Robert "Revenge of the Nerds" Carradine and career villain Mark Rolston I'm quite frankly blown away by what I just watched.

The visual effects for the movie are dire! That's right, 16yrs later and the special effects are worse!? How did they pull off such a feat? Back in the original movie they only had one functional creature suit and several incomplete which could only be used from certain angles. What is the excuse here? The whole thing is ugly, the creatures are barely on screen and when they are they're obscured and generally not seen very well. How did they take such a huge step backwards?

The cast are not on point at all, almost as if they know what kind of garbage fire they're involved in and just can't be bothered to make much of an effort.

And then there is the most unforgivable thing (Yes even worse than the special effects reversal in quality). They have spliced scenes from the original movie into this! I don't mean in a functional way, I mean out of sheer laziness they have actually taken scenes from the original movie and some carnival b roll and stuck it into this. I'm astonished at the lack of professionalism here.

As for the movie itself its a twist on the original and not in a good way. The racial division plot from the original has been dropped in place of eco-warriors vs cooperate USA.

Ignore this altogether, it's an embarrassment. Want a decent dose of creature feature? Watch the far superior original film.

The Good:

Decent cast

The Bad:

Recycled footage from the original movie

SFX are really poor

Just a shoddy rehash of a superior film

Animal rights protesters picket a fishing company because they're dumping the growth hormone "Synestin" into the ocean to bulk up product. Five giant, gilled monsters live on the chemical, kill people and knock-up kidnapped young women. Star Robert Carradine, playing the type of stubborn, embarrassing, single-father type whose character drives a beat-up old truck and drinks Pepto straight out of the bottle (so much for character development, eh?), teams up with an investigating scientist (Emma Samms) and others after his daughter is kidnapped.

Much of the sleazy audacity from the wonderfully trashy 1980 original is dropped here, but some of the make-up FX are good and it still features two stomach-burster scenes, an eyeball that squirts blood, skinny dipping and naked, bloody women crawling out of a cocoon and swimming to safety. The carnival finale employs most of its scenes from the original feature (I recommend sticking with it).

This was part of the ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS... cable TV series from Concorde/New Horizons (all of which were exec. produced by Corman). The end credits remind us that "No animal or humanoid was harmed or mistreated in the making of this motion picture."

Why anyone would want to remake a gory and filthy exploitation gem from the early 80's is a mystery to me. The original Humanoids is classic B-movie entertainment, but it hasn't really got the potential to be re-told in a 90's sort of atmosphere. Yet, they did and I don't really have a problem with thatbut it really drives me mad that the local shop sold me a copy of this 'straight to video' version instead of the original! Damn, the DVD has the same cover and credits-list as the original but the DVD itself is the remake starring Carradine! Pay attention to this if you'd ever plan to buy it. The less interesting remake could be disguised as the original gore stuff! That said, I have to admit that even this version is more or less satisfying and certainly worth sitting through. Same story is told, only less explicit and more mainstreamMeaning that the violence and nudity is severely cut. An aspect that'll most likely lower the interest of fans of the original. Still, there are more than enough bloody and nasty sequences to sicken the inexperienced horror population. A guy's head is blown off, for example, and there's a woman giving birth to an ugly fish creature on a filthy bar-table. The costumes of the fish-people on the other hand are laughable and idiotic looking. They could have paid a little more attention to that, because it sorts of ruins the whole idea of the 'horrible' mutations that they are supposed to be. The acting is overall decent and some familiar faces are included in the cast. Robert Carradine is a very decent B-actor who still is overlooked often. The same could be said about Mark Rolston, by the way. Danielle Weeks just looks adorable while she's on-screen and Clint Howard walks around in this movie for no particular reasonas he does in most of the films he stars in. In generalyou'll be better off when watching the original this thing is based on, but it's not an entire waste of time. Humanoids is easy to watch and overall entertaining with some good gory stuff and funny sequences. If you've seen the original, you'll also have quite some fun with discovering the references and the spoofs towards it.

Humanoids From the Deep (1996)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Remake of the 1980 film pretty much has the same story as chemicals turn regular salmon into walking killers. The 80's film was a lot of fun due to the violence, gore, nudity, sex and outrageous politically incorrect humor but pretty much all of that is missing here. The director throws out all sorts of gore but he forgets to make the film very fun. Watching both films back to back would just make this one seem even worse than it is. David Carradine is horrid in the lead but Clint Howard has a pretty funny role. Stick with the original.

The title kind of explains everything you need to know about this film anyway. If you can't work out what the film is about and the quality of the movie, then you need to watch more films! A small town gets more than they bargained for when someone does something or other (it doesn't really matter) that makes giant fish men come up from the depths and start trying to 'get to know' the local female population. But don't worry... a plucky band of fish-fighting men are on hand to sort out these aquatic Casanovas.

The film has a real eighties feel about it - which is odd as it was made in 1996 - the same year as sci-fi blockbuster, Independence Day. It's hard to believe that two so radically different looking films can be made at the same time (although, Humanoids From the Deep is a little more believable when it comes to plot - no fish men were killed with the help of an Apple computer).

The first half of the film is played straight, however in the second half, the mood starts to change to something a bit more tongue-in-cheek (definitely how this movie should be taken, in my opinion). Yes, it's cheesy, yes, it's daft and yes, this film will never be up there with The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption. However, it is rather silly fun and if you're a fan of eighties horror movies with men in big rubber suits trying their hand at dating human females, then you might enjoy this - definitely one of those 'guilty pleasure' films.

NB. Was it just me, or did anyone else think there were a few 'Aliens' references in this film? I won't go on about them. It might just be my imagination.

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