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Most of the reviews would have you believe that this is completely terrible, but actually it's not such a bad effort. It's predictable, to be sure, but directed with more skill than you'd expect, with a score that reminded me (in a good way) of Italian horror movies of the period, and a cute, fairly smart heroine in Janet Julian. Reports of it being "too dark" are true to a degree, but greatly exaggerated; have you seen the much better-known "Hell Night"? (**)

In 1946, a woman is raped during a party on her father's island. Her dogs come to the rescue, viciously attacking her attacker.

More than thirty years later, two brothers, their sister, and their two girlfriends go out on their large boat on a large lake. One of the brothers is a rather disturbed individual, who fires a gun he has nearly pointed at his brother at point-blank range, among other things. They have some trouble navigating the boat at night, and come across someone stranded in his boat. They bring him aboard, and he's grateful. He tells them about the island they are near, where a crazy old lady lives with lots of dogs.

The psycho brother decides he wants to try driving the boat at night, though they had anchored already. He grabs his gun when they try to stop him. The boat runs aground and blows up, landing everyone on the island.

Though they had heard dogs barking, the only dogs them come across are skeletons. There's no sign of the old lady, and someone starts killing them off. It's no secret that the killer is the old lady's son, the son of the rapist, presumably. Though we never get a good look at him, a diary they find indicates he has acromegaly. Having that doesn't make a person a monster (André the Giant and Rondo Hatton, among others, had that condition). Evidently he is brain-damaged as well, or severely screwed up because of the way his mother raised him.

The movie is pretty derivative. I've seen quite a few movies where at some point a young woman pretends to be a killer's mother to try to save herself, for example. At a couple points, the good brother, his girlfriend, and his sister reminded me of Fred, Daphne, and Velma, respectively, from Scooby-Doo.

Many of the scenes take place at nighttime, and on the videotape, yes the picture is often almost completely or completely black. Evidently this was not true when the film had been projected, so it is probably a matter of a bad transfer.

A hulking, brain-damaged beast stalks teens trapped on a remote island: not exactly the most original of plots, for sure, but it sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? Unfortunately, despite this one having many of the raw ingredients necessary for a hugely enjoyable slice of trashy 80s horror, it screws matters up with mundane direction, very dark photography, virtually no decent gore, and a creature that is hidden away in the shadows for most of the film.

Humongous begins with a promising pre-credits sequence set in the 1940s, in which a young woman is raped on Labour Day by a drunken party-goer, who immediately gets his comeuppance when a dog rips him to shreds.

The action then moves to the present day (ie., the early 80s), and sees five teenagers—Eric (David Wallace), his girlfriend Sandy (Janet Julian), nerdy sister Carla (Janit Baldwin), hot-headed brother Nick (John Wildman), and Nick's slutty squeeze Donna (Joy Boushel)—taking a trip on a lake in a motor cruiser.

After becoming lost in a bank of fog, the group happens across a man named Bert stranded in a lifeboat, who warns them that they are approaching some dangerous rocks. Nick seizes control of the boat, but crashes it, and the friends are forced to leap for safety and make for a nearby island, which according to Bert is home to a crazy woman and her pack of dogs. Bert's info, however, is not entirely correct: the old woman, who turns out to be the rape victim from the prologue, has recently died, and her dogs have been devoured by her hideously deformed son, who is on the loose on the island and still very hungry!

The rest of the film sees the teens, and an injured Bert, being hunted and killed one-by-one by the ravenous monster; it's all par for the course, with the expected false scares, sudden deaths, the discovery of the creature's lair, and a scene blatantly cribbed from Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) in which final survivor Sandy tries to confuse the killer by masquerading as his mother.

Although director Paul Lynch seems content to to deliver a by-the numbers product, the film does boast two marvellously tacky scenes that I feel are worthy of note: Donna the slut tries to warm up a shivering Bert by taking off her top and pressing her breasts against him; and Sandy falls backwards onto a mouldy corpse, which somehow becomes attached to her. If only Lynch had included more trash of this calibre, or just gone for a higher level of blood and guts, I might have thought more highly of it. As it is, it's just another title in a long list of instantly forgettable backwoods horrors.

Humongous has been largely forgotten amongst the glut of 80s slasher flicks. However,that is a shame. It's certainly no masterpiece,not even of the slasher genre,but it's quite interesting and better than quite a few of the other,similar films released around that time.

It opens with a brutal rape,and it almost gets the movie off on the wrong foot as although not that graphic it's hard to watch. Then we jump forward to the usual small group of young people discovering an island. Much time is spent of them wondering about,which does make the film a little slow,but there is a fair amount of suspense,sometimes underlined by the synthesizer score,which shouldn't work but does. As has often been said before,the film is too dark,but some of the photography is pretty good,which makes one wonder if the darkness was a deliberate experiment which didn't quite come off.

This movie was obviously {well,in the versions I've seen} heavily cut,during the killings we cut away just before we think we'll going to see something nasty. There's just about enough suspense to almost compensate,and the acting isn't too bad,but gore hounds will probably be disappointed. The climactic scenes are pretty exciting though and even though you still don't get much of a look at the monster,this is actually quite effective.

There's a underlying element of sadness to Humongous which is provided by the film's back story,and it's perhaps this which most sticks in the mind. Nothing in the film is especially remarkable,but it does have it's interesting elements. It certainly deserves a proper,uncut DVD release,and far more than some of the other films of this type which already have been!

This is one of those 80's slashers in which the teenagers are SO stupid that they really deserve to die, and it actually takes way too long until they get wiped out, if you ask me. The movie opens very promising, with a brutal rape-sequence on an island inhabited by a small community of people. This intro fools you into believing that you're about to see a relentless and misanthropic 80's gem. Immediately after this sequence, however, it goes straight downhill. 36 years later, five insufferable teenagers that washed ashore this same island, find out that the place is still inhabited by the cannibalistic offspring of the girl that was raped. Now, I THINK there were some gory death-scenes going on, only I couldn't see it because the photography varies from dark...to impenetrably dark! Most of the playtime, you're just staring at a black screen and it's up to yourself to guess which one of the teenagers is being butchered. Not very interesting for a slasher... The sound effects are reasonably good and there's a handful of atmospheric moment. The same Canadian director also made "Prom Night" which is a lot better. When you eventually get to see the monstrous killer (only briefly, mind you) it exactly reflects the quality of the film: poor, pathetic and extremely disappointing.

Well, what can I say... "B"-movie status would've been an IMPROVEMENT for this movie! I watched this one in fast forward, mostly, and didn't miss much, if anything at all. The only part worth watching was when they find the diary kept by his mother. At least it'll explain the plot which, by the way, is lame: This woman gets raped and takes up residence (from what I can tell) on the same island she was raped on. Her son ends up as a cross between Norman Bates and Frankenstein. He eats anything in site and apparently wasn't well-treated as a child because of his malformation.

But look on the bright side... you'll always have some dumb kids who just happen to be too nosy for their own good stumble on a DESERTED island (gee, how original *sigh*) and drink too much and start doing stuff they shouldn't.

I think I'd have had more pity for the monster if he wasn't put in such dreary lighting conditions (how do you expect to be scared by something you can't see that well?!?!) The only thing I did enjoy from this film was the ending, because that meant it was over. Don't spend your money buying this one unless you can get it for $1.00 or less.

Don't bother. Most of this movie is filmed in the dark. You can't see faces, effects - nothing - for most of the movie. This movie is basically just a soundtrack with shapes moving in the dark. What you can see, isn't worth watching anyway. It's dull & predictable. Pathetic.

I was present at Delmonte in the Pines resort when they filmed this movie. My parents took us there every year. It certainly was no great film, BUT we got to see the actors and the old resort house/area and boat house area in between filming. I was a kid, 9 years old, but I remember seeing dobermans in large fenced areas for the movie and the actor who played "Humongous" was sooo tall, but very nice. They did actually blow up an old boat house out on a little island. When they did that, I was going to bed in the new resort area and remember being afraid of the noise, and the filmed "screaming" from the movie being shot. For a low budget film, it was totally cool to see the remains after the shoot, the old boat house, the props left behind and they ripped an entire floor out of the old resort main house, and there was "blood spatter" etc. in it. That was truly a cool experience.

This Canadian slasher is definitely one of the better slashers of the 1980s and is unjustifiably panned by everyone. When HUMONGOUS was released the biggest criticism against it was how predictable or derivative it was and it was dismissed as being just another slasher. Yes, there's a very familiar feel to the story-line but most slashers are basically the same movie done over and over again so I don't see this necessarily as a bad thing. But the fact is HUMONGOUS actually tries to be different and in some ways, it succeeds in being different. HUMONGOUS is more the unofficial companion and has more in common to that other Canadian horror film, RITUALS, than to HALLOWEEN or Friday THE 13Th. Both HUMONGOUS and RITUALS have almost the same kind of deformed killer who lives in the backwoods. The killer remains unseen until the very end. And there's an obvious Canadian feel to both films.

The beginning of HUMONGOUS is brutal and sets up the familiar story-line of a gruesome incident which happened in the past that will affect a subsequent generation. In this case, the film starts in the 1940s. After a woman from a rich family is raped, she decides to live in seclusion on an isolated island where she gives birth to a deformed kid. Flash forward 40 years and we see a bunch of horny young adults who were vacationing on another island and as they're heading back to the mainland on their boat they crash on the island where the woman lived after one of the passengers, Nick the hotheaded brother, takes control of the boat and rams it into rocky shore. Everyone leaves the burning boat and they all have to go to the island and the rest of the story is basically about the group surviving on the spooky island where there's a monster killing them one by one.

The atmosphere is very good and the cinematography is actually good too. Some interesting camera positions. But like many have mentioned already, many scenes during the night are EXTREMELY dark and it's difficult at times to know exactly what's going on. I set up my TV's brightness level to the max and the image was improved greatly but there were still some moments were I didn't see anything at all. As annoying as the dark scenes were, I believe this was done deliberately, not because the film is a low budget movie and they couldn't afford lighting but because that's what the director wanted. The darkness was at times carried to an extreme which can only be attributed to a director's decision and not some low production value. With that said, I personally find it fascinating that so much happens in the dark. The darkness is stylised. Notice when the monster crashes through the door or when the boathouse catches fire, how the brightness of those scenes create a shock. I think the director wanted to shock people with light by having most of the action happen in so much darkness. In a movie theater, after watching scenes that happen mostly in the dark, a quick shot of a bright image creates tension and actually hurts the eyes. It's like when you wake up in the morning and how the bright lights outside the windows hurt your eyes. Well, that's what Paul Lynch tried to recreate here by having so much of the action take place in near total darkness. The monster's appearances during those brief scenes of brightness must have been startling in a dark theater.

The acting is mostly serviceable but the last three survivors, Janit Baldwin (the girl with the glasses), David Wallace (the blond guy) and Janet Julian (the last girl) are much better than your average slasher actor. The gore is limited and in a way it's unfortunate. I'm not a gorehound but I thought the film needed a bit more blood to be that much more creepy. The biggest weakness of HUMONGOUS (aside from the extreme darkness) is the score. There's almost no music. When the film starts getting scary it's no coincidence that it coincides with the moment when the score finally makes its presence felt. The jazzy music during the opening and closing credits didn't belong in this kind of film though. And the story itself is actually interesting and there's an underlying lurid aspect about it that's fascinating. Dogs are a major part of the underlying story and something tells me they have more to do than meets the eye.

Anyway, I personally like HUMONGOUS. The poster is cool and I really like the title. As a real horror film, it's definitely more successful than Lynch's other horror opus, PROM NIGHT, and a good portion of other slashers made in the same period and those made today, like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, which was obviously inspired by this film.

In northern Lake Michigan two conflicting brothers take their girlfriends and sister on a trip in their father's yacht to St. Martin Island, but wind up in the fog on "Dog Island." The mysterious isle is the home of a reclusive lumber baroness and guarded by a pack of German shepherds. Will they make it out alive?

"Humongous" (1982) is an artistic horror flick with slasher elements obviously influenced by Joe D'Amato's "Anthropophagus" from a couple of years earlier, along with bits from "The Shuttered Room" (1967), "A Bay of Blood" (1971) and "Friday the 13th, Part 2" (1981). Disregarding the lousy title, this is pretty much in the same league and is arguably the most arty with a quality score that recalls Pink Floyd's eerie material from the 70s, like "Dogs" and "Us and Them," mixed with a little of Carmine & Francis Coppola's score from "Apocalypse Now" (1979).

Director Paul Lynch's previous film was "Prom Night" (1980), but this is superior. The nighttime sequences needed to be better lit, which everyone complains about, but this isn't a problem if you view a quality version, like the Blu-ray. While the midsection takes its time and critics understandably object to it as slow-moving, the flick makes up for it one way or another, particularly the creepy ambiance.

Shapely redhead Joy Boushel is a highlight on the female front as Donna and the director doesn't fail to capture her beauty on camera in a (mostly) tasteful manner. While Janit Baldwin plays the nerdy little sister, she was actually 28 during shooting and older than the two brothers by 5-7 years. She also was attractive in a unique, winsome way as observed in "Gator Bait" (1973) and the Columbo episode "Swan Song" (1974). Janet Julian as Sandy is the main protagonist, but she's the least of the three IMHO.

There's a little Scooby-Doo influence, just without Scooby and the cartoonish amusement, which can be seen in the parallels of Eric representing Fred, Sandy as Daphne and Carla as Velma with Nick doing an angst-version of Shaggy. Donna and Bert could be viewed as guest stars.

The movie runs 1 hour, 34 minutes, and was shot at Sparrow Lake, Ontario, which is about a 55-minute drive north of Toronto, as well as Georgetown, which is just west of Toronto.

GRADE: B.

Lights. Camera. Action. Hey what happen to the lights? "Humongous" turned out to be quite a frustrating experience since most of the film occurs within the dark (poorly lit exteriors within confinements or simply the night time sequences), which it was that pitch-black (even after adjusting the brightness on my TV) that made it hard to make out what was really going on. Purposely done for that reason or not, it could have been executed much better. Especially if it was catered for the fact of hiding the monster (as there was a main focus on the heavy-breathing POV shots leering on its victims and the constant wailing that was pulled off rather effectively), which wouldn't bother me but it was simply hard to care at times when you just can't see what's going on. Gladly they revert to using fire in the climatic scenes to brighten things up.

Director Paul Lynch (who directed the 80s slasher "Prom Night") cooks up a raw, primitive if choppy as hell island backwoods survival deformed killer fable which has an engrossing back-story penned by William Gray (The Changeling "1980", Prom Night "1980" and "An Eye for An Eye"). While simple in its long build-up, it tried to be deep in its context (especially the whole Scooby gang doing some investigating) and Lynch was obviously trying for moody suspense than anything really exploitative (despite the opening rape scene). Maybe that's more so a budget restraint as its cheaply projected, but the atmospherics (the island setting) worked despite not always managing to sustained tension due to pitch black confusion. An unhinged electronic score keeps that brooding tone, which definitely can get under your skin. The performances are acceptable enough (Janet Julian is rather good and Joy Boushel adds the spunk); rowdy teenagers and stupid actions.

Fair if somewhat vanilla, but disappointing technical handling is what harms it.

P.s. I recently watched the DVD version of the film and the print is great. A lot of the scenes which were hard to make out on VHS, are clear as day, which enhances the viewing experience.

Second slasher effort from Paul Lynch. HUMONGOUS pits a group of stereotypical early eighties youngsters against a demented hermit on a remote island. So far so good...

A group of fun loving teens head out on a luxury vacation aboard a large boat. Eric (David Wallace), Nick (John Wildman), Donna (Joy Boushel), Carla (Janit Baldwin), and Sandy (Janet Julian) are in deep, dangerous waters when they come across Bert (Lane Coleman) stranded on a lifeboat. They let him climb aboard before the six of them continue on their doomed excursion. As the warm summer's day gives way to a foggy night sky, the overly cocky Nick looses control of the boat and it crashes into some hidden rocks. Just after they all manage to jump into the safety of the cool water, the ship bursts into a ball of flames and disappears into the depths of the ferocious sea. The group manage to swim to a nearby rocky shore, where the screams that pierce the haunting night sky make it sound like it's inhabited by a pack of wild dogs. Bert knows of the stories of Idah Parsons, a lonesome woman who lives all by herself on the island and keeps the animals for protection. They hope that maybe she can call for help. When Nick goes looking for her and doesn't return, the gang begin to realise that there is something far more sinister than a group of mutts or an elderly lady lurking in the dense forest that surrounds them...

As where PROM NIGHT owed more than a touch of inspiration to HALLOWEEN, Lynch's second effort looks as if it's more influenced by backwoods slashers such as THE BURNING or FRIDAY THE 13th. In one scene Sandy dresses as the killer's mother to try and trick him into thinking it's really her. I had to check the cover to make sure I was watching Steve Miner's second edition to the FRIDAY series! But as I've said before 'pinching from your peers' is a common practice in slasher cinema, so this didn't particularly surprise me! To be honest there's loads to recommend about HUMONGOUS. For a start there's some genuinely fine acting on display. David Wallace who plays the heroic Eric is brilliant and so was his leading lady Janet Julian. Director Lynch keeps things smooth throughout and adds some interesting ideas of his own. One bit that immediately caught my attention was when John Wildman was searching the boathouse for some help. He hears strange grunts coming from the other side of the gate and moves closer to see if he can see what's making the noise. He finds a hole big enough to look through and moves his eye up to it to see what he can spot. He jumps back in shock, when he sees a grotesque eye looking through the same hole back again! It's the little touches like that , which can make a movie all the more memorable. The butcher himself is pretty darn creepy too. He's your typical backwoods psycho, in the tradition of Jason, Marz and Cropsy! Big, mean deformed, surly and nasty! He also possesses super human strength and lets just say you wouldn't like to meet him on your way home late at night! He makes his presence known pretty early on in the runtime and he doesn't stay far out of sight for long ever after! So with all that HUMONGOUS has going for it how could it possibly ever fail?

Well...there's a terrible lack of lighting in the night scenes. Some of the best moments of the film can barely be seen because it's just too dark! We only get to see the killer's face for a couple of seconds tops, all the other shots either have him surrounded by silhouette or it's just too poorly lit to get a good view! You may think that this is only a minor set back and I'm over reacting, but when you've watched through the best part of the feature in broad daylight and built yourself up for the 'final showdown' so to speak, it pretty much spoils it when you can barely see a damn thing that's going on! I'd have thought that a director as experienced as this would've been able to handle a problem like that with ease. But that inconsistency alone prevents this flick from ever touching true greatness. As it stands it's not rubbish, but still, with a little more care with the lighting this could've been a classic.

In the odd small way, this manages to even outshine the director's previous effort. It's far more brutal with a stronger emphasis on horror. But due to that aforementioned flaw PROM NIGHT remains the best of Lynch's slasher work. That said though it's still worth watching for the superb cast and some exciting sequences. But be warned...bring your night vision goggles!

Humongous (1982) is a movie I recently watched on YouTube. The storyline follows a group of friends who get stranded on an island that is inhabited by a giant of sorts that was spawned from a violent rape of a woman on an island. This movie is directed by Paul Lynch (Robocop) and stars Janet Julian (King of New York), David Wysocki (General Hospital), John Wildman (My American Cousin) and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker). The storyline for this picture had potential for a great horror movie. The giant in this is often in the dark and isn't displayed overly well. The kill scenes have some great props but not enough gore. The props and settings are good but I just wish there was more scenes with the giant and more killings. Overall this has a lot of potential and some good elements but falls short of what it could have been. I'd score this a 4-5/10.

A woman is raped, and years later she has a child,that grew up to be a monster. Big,scary and ugly.all this takes place on an island.The only drawback on this film is lighting,because mostly shot in the dark,which does add an ominous aura.The acting is decent and the music is scary too,direction is great,Paul Lynch,Also also the director of Prom Night!Which was equally affective as this film.I liked this movie one of the one,s that will make you think can this really happen,like Friday The 13th.It,s a shame they stopped making movie,s like these,80,s is the best of the genre,and this was made in 1982.If your up to watch a tongue in cheek with light,s out horror movie this is one of them. Enjoy

I rented this movie based on its title and interesting cover art and it is definitely one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There's barely a story, basically the movie uses the typical killer stalking teenage victims slasher formula, except the teens are being killed on an island, and the killer, some kind of bigfoot-type creature that is part human, is hardly ever seen, and more than half the movie was shot so dark its hard to tell most of the time what the hell's going on. Both horror fans and non-horror fans alike should avoid this crappy movie. Some hardcore fans of schlock might find some enjoyable qualities about it though, if they can find it anywhere, as it isn't on DVD as far as I know and the VHS copies of it are pretty rare.

I remember when this was released on HBO back in the day. The Canadian Director's Version, uncut. Not the re-released "downgraded" version on video today. The film had received horrific criticism and controversy because of its overall graphic murder content, as compared to the blockbusters of Halloween or Friday the 13th. The opening graphic rape scene, ironically was about the max of the film's gore score. Sadly, much of the action thereafter, as others have already commented, was shot in too-dark of lighting to really connect with, including the reveal of the cannibalistic human monster. But nonetheless, it is a horror classic.

After the success of 1980's Prom Night, screenplay writer William Gray and director Paul Lynch teamed up once more to output another film in the genre, albeit lesser known, that could've counted as another hit for Canada if audiences could tell what was going on for more than 50% of it.

The film opens in 1946 at a cocktail party – Ida Parsons is chased into the woods and raped by a drunken patron. After the completion of this evil deed, the guard dogs on the premises break loose from their protective cages and savagely maul the perpetrator, allowing Ida to procure a sizable rock to smash his skull in with. Fast forward 36 years into the 1980's - three siblings and a couple of friends head out on a boat trip only to experience trouble later that evening when they rescue a stranded sailor who warns them about Dog Island – a reclusive locale that houses a lonely old woman and her dogs. While the night fog renders the coastline invisible and a disagreement between two of the siblings to complicate matters further, the ship runs aground and the troupe of younglings experience first-hard the terrors of Dog Island.

This early Slasher is plagued with various issues throughout the film's duration; quite possibly the most glaring would be the quality. The majority of the story takes place in the black of night and it's very difficult to make heads or tails of what's happening from scene to scene. This final film release is known as the American Embassy video and is not only a horrendously displayed transfer but a sizable chunk of the film's gratuity is trimmed out. There is a Canadian VHS release that's uncut and a more accurate representation of Lynch's lighting scheme for the majority of the film. As of November of 2010, fans are still waiting for an official DVD release of Humongous. For now, the best option available is to purchase it on DVD-R, (basically a VHS copy burned onto a disc) made available on the web.

For those who are aware of this film's existence, they fail to point out another obvious problem with the audio. During many sequences of dialog, as the actors and actresses perform their lines, one can't help but notice that their voices resonate as if they've rattled them off in a studio. Regardless of whether they are trotting outside or sitting in a room, the result is the same. The audio is extremely poor and this could be chalked up to the scrubs over at Embassy or Lynch and the gang failing miserably incorporating the over-dubbed dialog into the film. On account of American Embassy botching the VHS release so horrendously with the visual aspects of the film it wouldn't surprise me if the same could be said about the audio as well.

Well…now that all of the technicalities are out of the way, what should we expect from Humongous? A bit of sleaze, a bit of beer, and a giant deformed human wandering the woods of the island that has no qualms sending each character off to the Charon. There's over an hour of build-up with only two brief killings prior; we've witnessed plots dragged out numerous times from the Slasher vault so it's no longer a shock. Viewers will never truly get to see the face of the monster which could've existed as a highlight of the film. There are some fans who blame the VHS transfer and some that theorize that Lynch purposely executed this idea to compensate for a lousy special effects job. I consider Humongous a rare title that has its share of problems but if one has the patience to overlook them, he or she may be treated to a slightly entertaining film.