Humanoids From the Deep (1980)

Studio: Shout! Factory
Release Date: May 1980
Blu Ray Release: August 3, 2010
Not Rated

Review by James Klein

At a time when Roger Corman ran New World Pictures back in the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s he had distributed a bunch of films that were more or less rip-off’s of big Hollywood movies. Piranha was a Jaws rip-off, Battle Beyond the Stars was a Star Wars rip-off, Rock N Roll High School was a Grease rip-off, Screwballs was a Porky’s rip-off, Carnosaur was a Jurassic Park rip-off and so on and so on. However, all of his low budget films were made with passion and love for film making and it is evident on the screen. Sometimes his films were even better than expected and have outlasted a few of the big Hollywood films that he had ripped-off or as I like to say, “paid homage” to. Depending on the type of film, Corman loaded his films up with music, graphic violence, nudity, car crashes, or special effects. One thing his films never got criticized for was being boring or dull. Shout! Factory’s blu ray release of Corman’s 1980 Alien rip-off Humanoids From the Deep is by far his most exploitative and maybe his most entertaining film that he has produced.

Doug McClure and the late Vic Morrow star in this sci-fi/horror film about a small Northwestern town populated by fishermen who find out that a salmon company wants to come in and create scientific experiments on the fish to produce more salmon thus helping the town prosper. What we find out is that the experiments have gone horribly wrong and the company has created a bunch of half men/half fish creatures that kill the men and rape the women of the town so they can keep producing their own species.

This off the wall premise actually works thanks to some good performances and nasty special effects, thanks to Chris Walas, Steve Johnson and Rob Bottin who have gone on to do make up effects for The Fly, The Company of Wolves and The Thing. McClure and Morrow, no strangers to exploitation and action films take their roles seriously and do a good job in providing the film with a decent protagonist and antagonist while the film is loaded with these creatures offing people in disgusting ways. We get limbs torn off, faces ripped apart, heads decapitated (this was originally edited out to get an R rating upon release but the scene has been re-inserted on this blu ray) as well as plenty of female flesh. Yes you perverts, this film has so many boobs flopping about that you almost get desensitized before the final credits role. The funny thing is that the film is directed by a woman, Barbara Peeters who showed Corman a more toned down version of the film.  He didn’t like it and took it away from her and added more blood and boobs. God bless you Roger!

With a running time of just under 85 minutes, this fast paced gore-fest is a blast and best watched with some friends who enjoy old school monster movies. Shout! Factory’s beautiful blu ray looks amazing and although the picture has some grain at times, it has never looked better. The highlight may be that this is the international version (which is called “Monster”) that has more violence inserted back in. There is also a great interview with some of the stars and crew members who have some interesting stories about the making of the film. There’s even a deleted scenes section that has even more full frontal female nudity! Is this blu ray great or what?

No one does it better than Roger Corman and this blu ray by Shout! Factory of Humanoids From the Deep is a must buy.