When you watch schlocko-horror cinema, it’s a bit like playing the slots in Vegas. You take a chance with every viewing, hoping you might get a big payoff.
With “Humanoids of the Deep” we hit the jackpot. It is fantastic!!!
The film starts a bit slow. Fishermen and denizens of a small coastal town start to notice strange occurrences. (There are really two eras of horror movies: Pre-1990s where it was okay to kill the dog and past that when it was verboten. “Humanoids” came out in 1980 which tells you everything you need to know.)
Eventually, humans are attacked by man-sized fish monsters with arms and legs. (It’s such a shame when you see two young lovers, so full of hope and dreams, and you know in your gut they’re about to be killed by a staggering fish man.)
By the way, I might take some heat for saying this, but the fish men costumes are pretty realistic.
The craziness and gore builds up to a scene where hordes of slime-trailing humanoids attack a nighttime carnival the town is having. Then it’s twenty minutes of non-stop beheadings, eviscerations and everything that makes American cinema the greatest in the world.
And the final scene…? Mwah! Chef’s Kiss. Veritable perfection! I won’t give away the details but can you say FISH MAN BABY??!!
Image attribution: By [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9765371
