Customer Reviews

Humanoids From Deep

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Beware all ye expecting the 1980 version of this movie starring Doug McClure! This is a 1996 remake for cable (Showtime), its' real title being Roger Corman Presents 'Humanoids From the Deep'.

This drecky mess stars Emma Samms and David Caradine, along with a number of less noticeable actors who currently reside in the 'where are they now' file. The plot involves a big business/government cover up (gee, how very original), toxic chemicals in the ecosystem, and a small, coastal town under siege by hungry, mutated fish men.

Apparently the government contracted a private company to splice the genetic material of fish with that of convicted felons in an effort to create a race of amphibian soldiers. Sounds like a reasonable idea, right? Anyway, the government isn't happy with the results, so they terminate the project, but some of the fish men escape.

Cut to a small, coastal fishing village. Canco, the major fish catching and canning company in the area, is responsible for dumping a biohazardous growth hormone into the waters to embiggen the fish. Actually, it's one particularly dislikable guy named Bill who is responsible. David Caradine, who plays Wade Parker, also works for the company (seems like he and the evil Bill run the company), finds out what's going on and demands that the dumping stop. Bill agrees, but only to placate Wade as there's good money to be made in those big fish.

Enter a nameless eco-group, whose leader, Matt, is played by Justin Walker. This group knows chemicals are being dumped into the waters, and are protesting Canco. Later they videotape Bill and his cronies at work, pollutin' the waters. No real attempt was made by Bill or his evil lackeys to cover up what they were doing, as they did it in broad daylight, with huge, yellow drums with biohazardous markings clearly visible, so it's no big surprise they got caught on tape. Also, it seems this growth hormone is attracting the mutated fish men, as they need the chemical to survive.

After the death of a little boy, completely ripped off from a much better movie, the fish men start to make their presence known. Their attacks become more brazen, and we soon find out that they are kidnapping, not killing, local females for mating purposes. Yuck....Damn those amorous fish men, stealin' our wimmen!

Man this movie had a lot of problems...worst being the inept direction. The actors, most being fairly capable, seemed totally mismanaged. An extremely poor script and plot certainly didn't help matters any. The thing that really annoyed me was how so many technical aspects were glossed over, like the DNA splicing, effects of toxic chemicals on the environment, the military involvement, etc. No real thought was given to any of these aspects, instead skimming the surface of theses many themes to aid (hinder) the plot along. Mutations, DNA splicing, and conspiracies being the crux of the movie, it's painfully obvious that the writer threw this stuff in the story, without having any real knowledge to support it. And the sets...the interiors were so obviously fake, making parts of the movie seem like a high school production. The characters' motivations are all over the place, causing the actors to appear indifferent to events that should mean more to them than they do. A specific example is when Wade's teenage daughter is taken by the fish men, and presumed dead. Wade doesn't seem all that broken up about it. At some points he does seemed upset, but given that your offspring may have been eaten by a mutated fish man, I'd figured you'd be pretty horrified and suitably despondent, but not so here.

On a positive note, the creatures did look kinda cool, but it was obvious that the suits (no CGI here) allowed for very little mobility, hindering the action in their limited screen time. The suits were fairly detailed, but I think if they were simplified, allowing more mobility, they would have been much more effective. The gore was needless, and the blood looked painfully fake.

In the cheap thrills department, there are a couple of brief nudity shots, if that's your thing, but they were unnecessary, and only served to further exemplified the total lameness of the movie. "Hey, we know this movie stinks, but here's some breasts!" Emma Samms, never got au natural, retaining some of her dignity, but not much.

There are some extras, including a director's commentary (!?) which I was interested in hearing, but was unable to sit through this movie again so soon. Also, there are some trailers for other movies, including one for a movie called Watchers 3. In watching this, I was amazed at how blatantly this feature ripped off the movie Predator. I don't mind producers copping ideas off better movies, but at least try to make it seem not so glaringly obvious. Geez...

Purely by accident, I ended up with this movie. I was after the original.
Anyway, the movie shamelessly pulls scenes from the original 1980's version. The original was scary, this one is . . . stupid. It follows the same storyline, but without the grainly graphics and bad lighting, it just doesn't cut it.
Take my advice, buy the original, NOT the remake. (...)

I don't see why Roger Corman would allow one of his best, if not best of his works to get butchered like this, even when he was producing. The entire scare factor that the original had is gone, the great music is gone, the characters you could give a damn about are gone, the awesome monsters are gone, leaving this movie a VERY pale imitation of a classic 1980 monster movie.

I can understand that this was a low budget, but so was the original, and it still came out better. The original Humanoids looked much better then these here new ones, the older ones had character and a feeling of terror, these here new ones are horrid, they still have the basic design...but the feeling just is not there. The monsters awesome shreeks are gone, replaced by crappy sounding "ape" grunts.

You couldn't give a care about the characters anymore, that is the best I can say about them. The acting, even by my standards is dreaded, I guess Corman felt that the only way to possibly keep a viewer's attention is throw blood everywhere and womens' chests.

The original was much better. This one looks like it was a made for late night cable TV.
The original was a lot more fun to watch. I guess Roger Corman was starting to
"mellow" in his old age. I'm not sure if Joe Bob would have even shown this remake
in his Drive-in Theatre on TMC back in the day. The only cute part was when the character
played by Emma Samms was about to give birth to one of those stomach bursters at the end
of the flick. Oh well, at least I can say I saw the remake. A bit of a stinker.

Humanoids From the Deep
ok there are like 4-5 reviews on this film and being a big fan of the original corman classic i feel this film does not live up to the original.its watchable but the original has a cult status that is insane and will live on in infamy.
however in all of the reviews of this classic remake i have not heard any mention of the final scene where the monsters come out of the sea and attack the fishing village during the cumminity fair was the same exact footage from the original corman classic,they just inserted a good 10-15 minutes of the original film into the remake some twenty years later.am i the only one who notices this as i had not read any other comment on this bizzare twist.???

This is not the original starring Doug McClure, but the remake staring David Carradine and Emma Samms. While not the original, the story is pretty much the same (complete with some footage from the original added in).

A small town is the setting as a fish plant is targeted for dumping chemicals in the local waters. The fish have gotten bigger as a result but something else has gone wrong as well. The chemicals being dumped are needed by a new resident in the waters, a fish man created by the military.

David Carradine is the head of the plant and is trying to stop his employees from dumping. To make matters worse, one of the animal rights activists has a thing for his daughter. Then people start to be killed in the water. A shark is blamed but it does not explain why only male bodies have been found. None of the females have been recovered. Then most of the animal rights people, and Carradine's daughter, are killed or taken one night.

No one seems to know what is going on except for reporter Emma Samms. But then a survivor shows up and the town finds out that there is something fishy going on. Samms is really a doctor who helped create the creatures. She is trying to stop them and exposes the military involvement. But one survivor points to the possibility of others. The military does not care, they will just blow everything up.

Good ending, nice twist and I liked the way the creatures don't occur just from dumping, but were lab created (a slight improvement over the original). Still, it is a nice remake but I found it hard to take David Carradine seriously (I kept seeing flashes of Revenge of the Nerds). Definitely one to see if you like Roger Corman or a good creature flick.

THIS MOVIE WAS BASICALLY ABOUT SCIENTIST DOING TESTS AND THEY BACK FIRE.EMMS SAMMS WAS IN THIS MOVIE AND EVEN THOUGH I ENJOY HER MOVIES THIS ONE WAS WAY TO SCARY FOR ME.FISHMEN ATTACKING A TOWN AND MORE. MY NEPHEW ENJOYED IT BUT I DIDN'T.WHAT THEY DID TO EMMA AT THE END REALLY TURNED ME ON THIS MOVIE THAT WAS REALLY A CRUEL THING TO DO.THAT MADE ME RALLY DISLIKE THIS MOVIE. WATCH THIS MOVIE AND SEE WHAT YOU THINK.

not as good as the original (which wasn't very good) but has enough of blood, beasts and babes to keep you interested. Far more sillier than the original which also makes a more fun casual watch (especially with a few drinks in you).

Perhaps memories fade, because I just viewed both versions of "Humanoids From The Deep" and found the original to be unwatchable. There is a reason Barbara Peters has not become a successful director, and it's because her film is uneven and flat. If it is the amateurish quality that makes people yearn for the original in order to laugh at it rather than be engrossed in the narrative, then those people should watch the original. For those with the expectation of getting caught up in a scary story, the remake is the only film to watch. It follows a similar story but has better caliber actors and some genuinely funny moments like Clint Howard observing that Justin Walker is the only one who survived a monster attack and asking "Did you know these monsters?" See only the remake.

This IS the 1980 film starring Doug McClure. Now, ol' Doug was never going to win any awards for his acting, but even he outdoes himself in the bad acting department in this super cheesy film.

I remembered this film from the days when I got my first VCR. I had remembered it as being fairly well done. Boy, was I wrong! This movie BITES!

HFTD follows the same basic premise that every "seafaring" monster film has since Jaws was made: people get attacked, pets get attacked, locals get angry, loyal local takes charge to get monster, expert scientist is readily on hand to assist, more people get eaten, festival/holiday is disturbed by the monster; hero dispatches monster, and finally, the film sets us up for a sequel.

Jaws was a one time thing. Even Speilberg never thought it was going to be as popular as it was since they hadn't been able to get the shark footage that they wanted. The result was a benchmark film against which all other seafaring "monster" films are judged.

The acting is quite terrible throughout. It's not amateur hour, but you can actually see the non acting throughout (McClure's screen wife has absolutely no expression on her face when she is attacked by several of the Humanoids). The scientist who knows what's going on (Ann Turkel) is so vapid that you just want to shake her. Ann Turkel got her acting chops from the modeling runway and we all know that is sufficient (right!). She has no expression and she moves as if in a dream, delivering her lines evenly and expressionless. Hilariously when the hero, the scientist, and the honorable local (an American Indian) go to the location where the local first saw the monsters, we can tell that the location is anything BUT where he first saw it. How can this be since he saw it on his own property? However the location they identify is NOT his property!

The script is such a pitiful mess that the writer should be ashamed of himself.

The monsters (the Humanoids) are two legged fish monsters with a tail - at about 7 feet tall - they are the result of frog DNA being merged with salmon DNA and then the salmon being eaten by "the once thought extinct but isn't really" coelocanth. So where do they get their two adult legs and extra long five fingered arms (oh, that must be the frog DNA at work, since frogs are bipeds, aren't they?).

Rob Bottin created the monster costumes and while not totally stupid looking, they are quite idiotic (but that's more the director's and producer's fault than his).

Really cheesy and badly done film. Don't bother.