Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

From The Caverns Of The Deep... It Strikes!

A small fishing community is split over the development of a cannery which opponents say will lead to the decimation of fish stocks and environmental degradation. Local First Nations are preparing a struggle against the cannery through the courts. Meanwhile, a militant and bigoted pro-cannery gang plan to make sure that the development goes ahead as planned regardless of the cost or the opposition.

What nobody knows is that the company behind the cannery has been engaging in dangerous experiments with genetic modification under an apparently feeble set of safety guidelines. As a result, a new species of amphibious humanoids has developed and rapidly evolved into a dangerous force. Now they are bent on destroying their human neighbours in order to claim the surrounding territory for themselves. Worse yet, they seek to impregnate human females in an alleged effort to speed up their evolutionary process.

Johnny Eagle (Anthony Penya), Dr. Susan Drake (Ann Turkel), Jim Hill (Doug McClure), and Tommy Hill (Breck Constin), to save the village from the mutants, and show the human villains the error of their ways.

Humanoids from the Deep (aka Monster) is actually a decently made and entertaining sci-fi horror film. The monsters are really cool looking and a lot of the make up is well done as well. The acting is reasonable and no, Tommy is not played by Mark Hamill even if it looks and sounds like he is.

Politically this one is interesting. The film obviously comments upon issues surrounding the over-exploitation of natural resources, environmental degradation, racism, Aboriginal rights, and sexism.

That last point might be the one point of contention on account of the unnecessary monster rape scenes which were obviously added for sensationalism alone since they are not necessary to the plot, and the notion that the monsters are consciously breeding with humans in order to further their evolutionary development is both a little unbelievable and probably very scientifically unsound. Meanwhile the film satirizes sexist treatment of women throughout making a mockery of backwards notions. Of course the final scene may very much have been an end in itself for the monster sex attack scenes. Without spoiling it, the final scene was more or less redone just a few years later in a much more famous film and with an even more terrifying effect.

The film was remade as a toned down TV movie in 1996.

4 humanoids out of 5
Contains violence, nudity, sexuality, language.