Customer Reviews

Inhumanoids - Evil That Lies Within (Episodes 1 thru 5)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Probably my favorite cartoon ever, and the first real emergence of cartoon horror I can remember. The Inhumanoids themselves, imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, were stark, Lovecraftian monstrosities both in their ancient appetites and titan proportions. D' Compose was a rotten, gangling zombie with the ability to spread undeath by touch. Tendril was a crawling, devouring horror with the tentacled maw of Cthulhu. Metlar was the alpha male demon, hellish king of his elder minions. There was a sense of smallness and desperation to the humans that confronted the monsters, though they were aided by a rival race, again Lovecraftian, that strove to return the Inhumanoids to their prison. Later, we saw even darker twists of the story, such as the arrival of Nightcrawler, undead spawn of D' Compose, or even the emergence of another Inhumanoid, a gelatinous cyclops with an appetite for anything and everything. There's no telling where the show might have gone, if it had continued. But, I guess in those days the show was just squeezing past the censors, so as much as it irritated me it didn't really surprise me when the show got canned. The great ones are all usually cut off in their prime. Nothing makes me happier than to see the show now resurrected, as if by the twisted claw of D' Compose himself. The fact that the Inhumanoids have returned via DVD is better still. Two Big thumbs up to the show, and two thumbs up to the boys at Rhino too.

After making Inhumanoids-Evil That Lies Within the last part of my 80s toons shopping spree (I already picked up Thundercats, She-Ra, Inspector Gadget, Rainbow Brite, Gi Joe, Transformers, etc) I feel that I have had a successful week in reliving my childhood. Viewing this old toon had me wondering the entire time: "Damn, they actually showed some of this stuff when I was growing up?" I only say that because I know some of the scenes with Decompose would never be aired on Children's programming today. Rhino actually did a decent job with this DVD by actually including the first few episodes of the series. If you're a fan of the show from yester'year, then you should definitely check this one out.

This DVD and the other USA Volume only has the first 8 episodes and was released years ago which means the other 5 are not so likely to make it. But In the UK they have released all 13 episodes as a two disc set in one box.
You can order it off the UK Amazon because I am in the UK and order lots off the USA Amazon with my same account details which are recognised in all Amazon sites. BELOW IS THE LINK TO IT

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Just so you know NTSC AND PAL are not really our worry anymore with foreign DVDS because I once had a region 2 only DVD player but still played NTSC DVDS at region zero which is because as of today nearly all USA TVS and DVD Machines for the past 5 years have pal playback, same with UK TVS and DVD Machines having NTSC playback, which is why as long as your TV is less than 5 years old, to play this and all other UK Region 2 DVDS in the USA all you need is a Region free or Multi Region DVD Player.

This series was absolutely amazing. It had a strong story and fresh characters...some quite frightening. It is the story of creatures that have lived on the earth long before the time of man. Through mankinds folly, we unleash some of the worst of them on the earth. Their first move is, of course, to take back what is theirs... It is a fun series, with mutants, heroes, villains, walking dead, tree and stone folk... Check it out if you can. I have been hunting for the last 8 to 10 years for these cartoons and here they are...ON DVD!!!!!!

For anyone who is a fan of the animation of the 80's, like G.I. Joe or The Transformers, this is a must have. Its been years since this movie has been avliable on VHS and I couldn't e more excited about this re-release. The story centers on a classic good-vs-evil motif, but its lively and creative characters make it really interesting. First the is the heroic human group 'Earth Corps', who inadvertantly free and subsequently are inlisted to help recapture the inhumanoids; a subterranean group of titanic monsters. The demon-like trio of Inhumanoids includes Decompose; a skeletal beast, Tedril; a plant creature, and Metlar; a metal-scaled monster whose volcanic core is filled with molten lava!!! In this exciting adventure the Earth Corps must face the danger of the Inhumanoids and survive an encounter with the mysterious Mutores, another subterranean group of creatures who might be either friends, or foes. So for fans of colorful animation of the 80's, look no further.

`Inhumanoids' goes down as the only show bold enough to explore the "monster" or "horror" genre in American animation, a genre typically reserved only Japanese manga and anime.

I remember when `Inhumanoids' first aired I didn't like it as a six year only. I preferred straight forward hero vs. villain `Transformers', `GI Joe' and `Voltron'. No surprise that the horror of `Inhumanoids' didn't catch on with kids. I remember some scenes were so frightening I literally turned off the TV.

But tastes change and as an adult I like the horror genre in comics and animation. `Inhumanoids' embodies everything we love about HP Lovecraft.

The very unconventional plot focuses on an evil eye patch wearing industrialist Blackthorn (if I can recall his name) who researches ancient evil and discovers the HP Lovecraft truth that what we consider "demons" or "supernatural" are merely the remnants of a society that lived on earth before the dawn of man. Three rebellious Godzilla size monsters, Metlar, Tendril and D'Compose tried to take over the Earth including its core. They were impeded and imprisoned by good monsters including humanoid redwood trees.

Now, Blackthorn plans to free these monsters of mass destruction and use them to take over or rather destroy the world. Assigned to stop them are the Earth Corps a team of 5 human heroes with super powered mechanical suites and vehicles. Like `GI Joe' this is a series where we like the villains better than the heroes. Most of the conflicts take place in cities far beneath the hollow earth, think Jules Vern.

If you think about it logically the premise is quite disturbing, monsters are real and they want to destroy the Earth. The most frightening is D'Compose (Chris Latta) whose touch turns humans into freakish zombies. But there is tons of comic relief, the Marvel parody of Geraldo Rivera--Hector Ramirez as sleazy reporter is always in the way as well as a corrupt Senator Charles Masterson like Robert Kelly of `X-Men'. The KGB is also introduced as villain who either plots with or against the Inhumanoids.

This horror genre is one very alive in Japan with hits like `Black Jack' `Hino Horror,' `Devil Lady' and `Elfen Lied' just to name a few. Unfortunately horror comics came to an end with the censorship from the book `Seduction of the Innocent' which blamed juvenile delinquency on the medium of graphic novels, Congress even held hearing. American publishers ended horror comics altogether and even after the censorship ended in the 1980s the genre never started up again.

`Inhumaniods' truly embodies everything we love about horror. Monsters really did once rule the Earth and some still exist to this day. Their actions are pure evil and greedy humans will aid them for their own benefit. It also barrows heavily from HP Lovecraft. One scene is right out of `Call of Cataula'. And the idea of underground civilizations is one that's fascinated us since `Journey to the Center of the Earth'.

I am disappointed that only 9 episodes are to be released. The last one ends with Blackthorn awakening new monsters even more powerful than the Inhumanoids. One is a dragon like beast who literally eats ANYTHING that gets in his way. The other is Blackthorn looses and eye finding in Cambodia when he brings the city of Angkor Wat to life. As I recall the `Inhumanoids' plots disintegrated into Metlar bringing the Statue of Liberty to life to marry her.

This DVD is good enough I guess, it is the first 5 episodes as they were first broadcast with all the recaps and all that. One thing that bugged me right from the start(litterally) was that the intro was changed. The "Inhumanoids" track was much too loud and dominating, the background music was almost inaudible & there was another voice track missing entirely, I just played my copy of the movie to compare. The quality of the picture and sound is probably the best you could expect and there probably isn't a better source. The packaging: Myself I would have preferred some of the original artwork used to promote Inhumanoids rather than the new artwork on the cover. Also one last note on the content of the disc, I've only seen the abridged version before so I never knew how much it goes back on itself, you will get to a break then when it comes back from the brack they pretty much re-enact the last minute or more of action, with different animation and sound, strange.(It's as if they didn't have enough story to stretch over 5 episodes) A note on the title on here, I don't know why they call is Parts 1 & 2 as it's parts 1-5 and the other DVD is the first 4 episodes of the series that came after this mini series, then there is just 4 episodes left after that so the thought of them releasing the whole series (These 5 & 8 More Episodes) is not an unlikely one.

The cartoon is a fun and interesting idea that was ahead of its time wrapped in a low budge poorly handled package.

The voice acting make my laugh, the animation is fair at its best to jerky and bad looking and the story line has several obvious holes in it.

However,

The monsters frightening to imagine and pretty unstoppable and treated that way all the way till the end.

This is one of the few cartoons I watched in my youth that still has any sort of value today. Others like He-Man, Thundercats (I am so ashamed I watched that, snarf, snarf), and Silverhawks are pure kiddy fair. Truly, Inhumanoids was meant for more mature audiences. Scenes of death, destruction, and monster cannibalism made up the roughly dozen episodes made. I recorded a large majority of them back in 1986, but I am still glad that Rhino has decided to issue Inhumanoids on DVD. After all, the VHS is starting too look kinda bad, except for all those killer 80s toy commercials!!!

HEY,HOW'S IT GOING? This series was pretty good for it's time. Action meets Horror with monsters and all. The quality of this show is pretty decent, although I wished they could bring this out in a COMPLETE SERIES DVDBoxset form, (maybe REMASTERED DVDSET?)reason being this only has the first 5Epsds, the origins of the four characters and how they stumbled upon this race of wood creatures(amongst others)that have been battling these monsters and IMPRISONED THEM, since before the human race. It's still good to watch though, but there are no extras or special features whatsoever,it's only the FIVE episodes and THAT'S IT. Which is WHY? I'm only giving it 2STARS. Gotta say though the animation IS STILL PRETTY COOL!