Humanoïd - terreur abyssale

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.

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!

This 1996 B-Movie legend Roger Corman TV Movie was a remake to his earlier movie of the same name 16 years earlier,

It's absolutely ridiculous of course the plot goes something like this..... A bunch of death row prisoners are injected with a special gene by the military which turn them into Half-Man Half-Salmon Monsters in rubber suits I last saw on a 50's Monster movie, who terrorise a small town because some shady locals are dumping some nasty stuff into the sea, which these monsters feed on.

They kill the men.. but have sex with the woman and stick them in some sort of slimy cocoon. There is one hilarious scene in which a woman gives birth to a baby monster a-la Alien chestbuster and the locals try to batter it with baseball bats as it runs through a bar....Classic!!! The acting & FX are what you would expect from a movie called 'Humanoids from the deep'

** out of *****

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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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.