Humanoids from the Deep

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) 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.

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.

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.

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.