Humanoids from the Deep
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''Humanoids from the Deep'' (released as ''Monster'' in Europe and Japan) is a 1980 American
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
starring
Doug McClure Douglas Osborne McClure (May 11, 1935 – February 5, 1995) was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. He is best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1 ...
, Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow.
Roger Corman Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he w ...
served as the film's uncredited
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
, and his company,
New World Pictures New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment, New World Communications Group, Inc., and New World International) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia com ...
, distributed it. ''Humanoids from the Deep'' was directed by Barbara Peeters and an uncredited
Jimmy T. Murakami was an American animator and film director with a long career working in numerous countries. Among his best-known works are the animated adaptations of the Raymond Briggs books ''When the Wind Blows (graphic novel), When the Wind Blows'' and ...
. It was the last feature film directed by Peeters.


Plot

Anglers from the fishing village of Noyo, California, catch what appears to be a monster. The young son of one of the anglers falls into the water and something unseen drags him under the surface. Another angler prepares a
flare gun A flare gun, also known as a Very pistol or signal pistol, is a large-bore handgun that discharges flares, blanks and smoke. The flare gun is typically used to produce a distress signal. Types The most common type of flare gun is a Very (s ...
, but he slips and accidentally fires it into the deck, which is soaked with gasoline dropped earlier by the boy. The vessel bursts into flames and explodes; everybody aboard is killed. Jim Hill and his wife Carol witness the explosion. Later, Jim and Carol's dog goes missing and the pair finds its dismembered corpse on the nearby beach. The following day, teenagers Jerry Potter and Peggy Larson go for a swim at the beach. Jerry is abruptly pulled under the water. Peggy believes it is a prank until she discovers his mutilated corpse. Peggy screams and tries to reach the beach, but a monstrous figure drags her across the sand. The humanoid creature tears off her bikini and rapes her. That night, two more teenagers are camping on the same beach. Billy is about to have sex with his girlfriend, Becky, when another humanoid monster claws its way inside, kills him, and chases Becky onto the beach. She outruns her assailant, but then runs into the arms of yet another monster, which throws her to the sand and rapes her. More attacks follow; not all of them successful, but few witnesses survive to tell the public about the incidents; only Peggy is found alive, though severely traumatized. Jim's brother is also attacked, prompting Jim to take a personal interest in the matter. A company called Canco has announced plans to build a huge cannery near Noyo. The murderous, sex-hungry mutations are apparently the result of Canco's experiments with a growth hormone they had earlier administered to salmon. The salmon escaped from Canco's laboratory into the ocean during a storm and were eaten by large fish that then mutated into the brutal, depraved humanoids that have begun to terrorize the village. By the time Jim and Canco scientist Dr. Susan Drake have deduced what is occurring, the village's annual festival has begun. At the festival, many humanoids appear, murdering the men and raping every woman they can grab. Jim devises a plan to stop the humanoids by pumping gasoline into the bay and setting it on fire, cutting off the humanoids' way of retreat. Meanwhile, Carol is attacked at home by two of the creatures, but manages to kill them before Jim arrives. The morning after the festival, normality seems to have returned to the village. Jim asks the sheriff about Dr. Drake. The sheriff mumbles that she went back to the lab, where she is coaching a pregnant Peggy, who has survived her sexual assault. Peggy is about to give birth when her monstrous offspring bursts from her womb, with Peggy screaming at the screeching baby.


Cast


Production

The film was originally written under the title ''Humanoids from the Deep''. The idea was to update old monster movies like ''The Creature from the Black Lagoon'' to reflect modern day concerns like pollution. The script was sold to New World who filmed it as ''Beneath the Darkness''. The job of directing ''Humanoids from the Deep'' was originally offered to
Joe Dante Joseph James Dante Jr. (; born November 28, 1946) is an American film director. His films—notably ''Gremlins'' (1984) alongside its sequel, ''Gremlins 2: The New Batch'' (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with Counterculture of th ...
, who had just made ''Piranha''; he turned the film down feeling it was too close to ''Piranha''. Barbara Peeters, who had worked in a variety of capacities for New World throughout the 1970s, accepted the assignment. She was recovering from an illness and was unable to find other work. (Peeters had just joined the
Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of Film director, film and Television director, television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Dir ...
. As New World was not a signatory to the DGA, Peeters was fined $15,000 for making the film.) Shooting commenced in October 1979. Primary filming took place in the California towns of Mendocino, Fort Bragg, and Noyo. Portions of the film were directed by an uncredited Murakami, who directed the Corman-produced sci-fi cult classic ''
Battle Beyond the Stars ''Battle Beyond the Stars'' is a 1980 American space opera film produced by Roger Corman, directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, and starring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon, Sybil Danning and Darlanne Fluegel. Inspire ...
'' the same year. The film's budget was reportedly $2.5 million. The monster costumes were designed and created by Rob Bottin.
Gale Anne Hurd Gale Anne Hurd (born October 25, 1955) is an American film and television producer, the founder of Valhalla Entertainment (formerly Pacific Western Productions), and a former recording secretary for the Producers Guild of America. Her notable wo ...
was a production assistant. Ann Turkel, the female lead, said "It was a good quality film and the footage was beautiful. The actors were all excellent."


Reshoots

Executive producer Corman said Peeters' version of the film lacked the required exploitative elements needed to satisfy its intended audience. In an interview included on the 2010
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
release by Shout! Factory, Corman stated Peeters and he had discussed his expectations of the film regarding B-movie exploitation – this being to fulfill Corman's maxim that monsters "kill all the men and rape all the women". In postproduction, Corman said Peeters had done an outstanding job in filming the death scenes involving male characters, but all of the rape scenes had been left "shadowy" or used cutaways before the attacks occurred.
Second unit director A second unit is a discrete team of filmmakers tasked with filming shots or sequences of a production, separate from the main or "first" unit. The second unit will often shoot simultaneously with the other unit or units, allowing the filming s ...
James Sbardellati, who later directed ''
Deathstalker The deathstalker (''Leiurus quinquestriatus'') is a species of scorpion, a member of the family (biology), family Buthidae. It is also known as the Palestine yellow scorpion, Omdurman scorpion, and Naqab desert scorpion, as well as by many oth ...
'', was hired to enliven the film; he filmed explicit scenes in which the humanoids rape women. These changes were not communicated to most of the people who had made the film with the working title ''Beneath the Darkness''; several of them expressed shock and anger at the released film, its changed title, and the nudity and sexual exploitation. According to a journalist from the ''Los Angeles Times'' who attended the screening:
I looked at the faces of the women crew-members. They’d been elated and warm before the screening, but now they were mostly staring at the floor. Some had angry, disgusted looks on their faces. That’s a look I see more and more on women these days. I call it the desperado look. More than anger, more than bitterness, more than the fight-back warning of people beyond being charmed or cajoled, it’s a look of betrayal. All these women looked, one way or another, as though they could write the book on betrayal.
"I never made a film about women being sexually ravaged by monsters," said Peeters who added the film is "offensive to me and all the women who worked on it." Peeters said, "I'm not opposed to shooting nudity... but only when it was integrated into the story. I've never shot rape or violence towards women or things that woud be mean or degrading... I'm goddam mad." Turkel said the new sequences "were like out of a bad porn movie." After Peeters and Turkel saw the additional sequences, they asked for their names to be removed from the film, but were refused. Turkel appeared on television talk shows and castigated Corman for his actions. She also unsuccessfully petitioned the Screen Actors Guild to halt the film's release, on the grounds that it bore no resemblance to the motion picture she was hired to make.


Soundtrack

The score of the film was the second to be composed by
James Horner James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside tr ...
.


Reception


Box office

The film was a modest financial success for New World Pictures. By May 1980 it had earned rentals of $1.3 million. It went on to earn $2.5 million more.


Critical response

Critical reviews were mostly negative. The ''Los Angeles Times'' praised "Peeters' real flair for capturing small town folk without condescension" and the "interesting, stylised, liquid cinematography" but called the movie "a mangled monster horror" with "no consistency of tone." Paul Taylor said in '' Time Out'', "Despite the sex of the director, a more blatant endorsement of exploitation cinema's current anti-women slant would be hard to find; Peeters also lies on the gore pretty thick amid the usual visceral drive-in hooks and rip-offs from genre hits; and with the humor of an offering like ''
Piranha A piranha (, or ; ) is any of a number of freshwater fish species in the subfamily Serrasalminae, of the family Serrasalmidae, in the order Characiformes. These fish inhabit South American rivers, floodplains, lakes and reservoirs. Although ...
'' entirely absent, this turns out to be a nasty piece of work all round". Briefly discussing the film in ''
Fangoria ''Fangoria'' is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr. The magazine was originally released i ...
'', '' Alien'' writer
Dan O'Bannon Daniel Thomas O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American film screenwriter, film director, director and visual effects supervisor, most closely associated with the science fiction and Horror fiction, horror genres. O'B ...
criticized the film, saying, "Roger Corman's people ripped off the chestburster idea for ''Humanoids of the Deep''." Phil Hardy's '' The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror'' stated that additional sex and violence scenes had been edited into the film without director Peeter's knowledge. Hardy continued, "As weighed down as it is with solemn musings about ecology and dispossessed Indians, it looks as if it had always been a hopeless case". Reprinted as '' The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror''. 1995. Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-518-X. Nathaniel Thompson said on his ''Mondo Digital'' website, "Director Peeters claimed that Roger Corman added some of the more explicit shots of slimy nudity at the last minute to give the film some extra kick, but frankly, the movie needed it. Though competently handled, the lack of visual style, occasionally slow pacing, and peculiar lack of (intentional) humor hinder this from becoming an all-out trash masterpiece". In his '' Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film'', Michael Weldon said, "Many were offended by the rape aspect of this fast-paced thriller featuring lots of ''
Creature from the Black Lagoon ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm. It stars ...
''-inspired monsters. Like it or not, it was a hit and is not dull". Author and film critic
Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
gave the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars, calling it "fast, occasionally hilarious gutter trash from the Roger Corman stable". On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has a 50% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 5.17 out of 10. In 2019 Barbara Peeters said "I don't talk about that film".


Planned sequel and remake

A sequel starring Malcolm McDowell was announced but never made. However, in 1996, a
remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...
of ''Humanoids from the Deep'' was produced for Showtime by Corman's production company, Concorde-New Horizons. It starred Robert Carradine, Emma Samms, Justin Walker,
Mark Rolston Mark Rolston (born December 7, 1956) is an American actor and voice actor. He made his film debut as PFC. Drake in '' Aliens'' (1986), and is known for his supporting roles in films like ''Lethal Weapon 2'' (1989), ''The Shawshank Redemption'' (1 ...
, Danielle Weeks and
Clint Howard Clinton Engle Howard (born April 20, 1959) is an American actor. He is the second son born to American actors Rance and Jean Howard, and younger brother of actor and director Ron Howard. His more than 200 acting credits include feature films ...
. It was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
on August 26, 2003.


Home media

On August 3, 2010,
Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...
released a 30th Anniversary Special Edition
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and Blu-ray of the film. It contained a new anamorphic widescreen transfer of the film, as well as interviews and a collectible booklet. In this edition, the film's actual on-screen title is ''Monster'', and thus it contains the uncut European version.


References


Bibliography

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External links

* * (remake) {{Portal bar, Science fiction, Horror, Film, 1980s 1980 films 1980 horror films 1980s American films 1980s English-language films 1980s monster movies 1980s science fiction horror films American exploitation films American monster movies American natural horror films American science fiction horror films American splatter films Films directed by Barbara Peeters Films scored by James Horner Films set in California Films shot in California Films set in 1980 Films about fish Films about genetic engineering Films about rape in the United States New World Pictures films 1980 science fiction films Films based on The Shadow over Innsmouth English-language science fiction horror films