Das Grauen aus der Tiefe

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

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.

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."

From the careful hands of Roger Corman, comes a remake of his 1980's produced film of the same name, slightly updated, slightly better, but just as cheap.

Suffering from that awful nineties glare of bad jeans and over acting, this remake offers quite a few decent moments, hilarious monsters, and unintentional dialogue that actually helps to get you through it.

In a nutshell - Scripting and story is so messed up you can't help feel like you've been thrown in at the deep end from the very beginning. Hilarious acting and dialogue make sure you enjoy this low budget cheese-fest that entertains for all the wrong reasons!

In my opinion - Certain movies should never be remade. This is one of them! With a storyline that is more classic 60's sci-fi than anything, the reasoning behind it all seems to be lost in its nineties setting. That said, this is small town America, where strange stuff happens all the time and the locals all dress alike...

To be fair, its leading man, Robert Carridine is quite a likable guy and comes across quite well for the most of it. Everyone else though, not so much, and you can't help not caring for them in the long run. The film hints at action with some scenes as it tries to do with horror, but most of the scary scenes are done with such amateurish direction, it comes across more comical in a sense which makes it less horrific.

The remake of Humanoids From The Deep is fun, in a strange sort of way. Just don't take it too seriously!

In the mid 90's producer Roger Corman did a series of re-makes of his previous movies for the Showtime cable network. Corman is a great low budget producer, but it does not really show here. They have cut back on all of the extreme gore and sex that made the first one a drive-in classic.

All in all, worth a watch for only a true horror, or Roger Corman, fan.