Humanoids from the Deep

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."

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

I must say that Emma Samms shines in this film. I thought the film was tense and suspenseful, even though I typically do not like horror movies. The storyline is on the one hand silly, yet frightening at the same time. Robert Carradine and Danielle Weeks play father and daughter and have good screen chemistry. I have not seen the original picture that I see people commenting on, but found this one to be well done. Recommend.

Humanoids from the Deep (1996) is a remake of a 1980 film of the same name. The original was not the greatest, but the remake is horrible. The basic story: Through some crazy experimentation, death-row inmates have been mutated into killer (for lack of a better word) fishmen. They kidnap women with whom they mate. The father and boyfriend of one of the victims must save her before it's too late.

The movie stars Robert Carradine and Emma Samms. For the most part, both act as if they would rather be anywhere than making this movie. Carradine actually sounds as if he's reading many of his lines. His lines are delivered with no emotion whatsoever. And what lines they are. Some of the silliest dialogue imaginable.

The people populating this movie are especially dumb. Once it's established that fishmen are killing and abducting the citizens, do you think the townspeople cancel their water festival? No! They go right ahead. They seem genuinely surprised when the festival is invaded by the fishmen. What dolts! The special effects are also weak. The fishmen are never seen in any one shot for very long. This is probably because their plastic heads are more unrealistic than the cheesiest of the 50s monster films. The birth sequence is a direct rip-off of Alien, but nowhere near as effective.

If you really want to see a monster film, find another. This one is terrible.