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Shadow's Title: "Fish 'n' Chicks"

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In the coastal Northern California town of Noyo, the economy is built around the salmon fishing industry. So many boats are coming and going, I half expected to see a trawler come sailing into port with the Gorton’s fisherman at the helm. Alas, lately times have been tough. The catches have not been that great and people are starting to worry. Perhaps that is why so many of them support the idea of a cannery opening in town. It will bring money, jobs and the scientific skill to help raise the salmon population, which will in turn increase the size of the catches. Who could complain? Well, Native American Johnny Eagle could, and does. He thinks building the cannery will harm the environment. He’s even willing to file a lawsuit for the return of Indian lands in order to prevent the construction from ever taking place.

This stance has angered a few people, most notably local fishermen and bigoted jerk Hank Slattery. He takes every chance he gets to insult Johnny. Another fisherman, Jim Hill, supports the cannery idea, but he dislikes Slattery and his followers. In fact, he and his brother Tommy, who helps him run his boat, are good friends with Johnny. They come to his defense whenever Hank begins acting like an ass, which apparently like Don Imus, is quite often.

One day at sea, another fisherman named Deke is having trouble bringing up his net. No, that is not a euphemism for E.D. There is actually something physically pulling his net down. Despite his best efforts, his chubby son ends up in the water and reduced to a cloud of red water. Then a series of accidents causes the ship to explode…a lot. Everyone on board is killed.

It should be noted that during that entire sequence, the water can be seen alternating from very calm and still to much more choppy. Continuity? What’s that?

Jim and Tommy witness the explosion from their boat. Later that night at home, Jim can offer the sheriff little information as to what happened when he drops by. Jim’s dog, Baron, senses that something is wrong and in some subtle fashion, little Baby Shawn picks up on that fact and begins to cry. Is the kid psychic or a budding Doctor Dolittle type? I suppose the crying could be occurring simply because the kid has crapped in his pants again, but the dog is definitely bothered by something. Jim opens the front door and lets the dog out.

The dog follows a scent into the trees and after a few moments begins barking at something. A large inhuman figure looms into view and grabs the dog. I’m guessing that what we see next is supposed to be a violent and bloody demise for the canine, but what it looks like is somebody in a cheap Creature From The Black Lagoon costume play-wrestling with a dog that has had red food coloring splashed on it.

The next day Jim finds Baron, who has been reduced to component parts and dumped on the beach. Jim cannot explain it. Meanwhile across town, a bunch of watchdogs down at the docks got killed by something big, strong and mean. All of them except for Johnny Eagle’s dog. Hank Slattery thinks this is proof enough that Johnny is behind the canine deaths.

That night, local teen Peggy Larson is sure someone is prowling around outside her house, but it’s just her idiot boyfriend, Jerry. He notices her skimpy attire and alludes to some potential sex action, but she says that she is too scared, plus Linda and Tommy are on their way over and there just isn’t enough time. The hell there isn't! Any man knows that boom boom can be accomplished quite well and satisfying in under five minutes.

A dance is held in town to help kick off the 75th annual Salmon festival, a yearly occurrence that no doubt ranks right up there with taxes and jury duty on the fun list. At the dance, the musical stylings of Jo Williams and her White Water Boys bore everyone to near catatonia and then some folks from Canco Inc. are introduced, including Doctor Susan Drake. They’re the outfit wanting to build the cannery and they get up on stage to make their big pitch, telling the townsfolk how the company is behind the community, how the cannery they plan to open will brings jobs and how they will even increase the catch. To stress that last point, he relates how Doctor Drake has been conducting tests upstream for the last seven years and how the company now knows how to make the salmon grow bigger, faster and twice as plentiful. All of this elicits various reactions from the crowd.

Johnny Eagle crashes the dance with his dead dog, and it is obvious Hank and his gang killed it out of a perceived need for revenge. So far this movie has more murdered dogs than people, which may seem a bit off, but it sure spooked my pooches. They won’t be going to the beach any time soon, let me tell you. Anyway, harsh words are exchanged between Johnny and Hank. Soon enough there is a fight, Hank’s cronies doing their best to beat the crap out of Johnny. Jim and Tommy jump in to help their pal Johnny. Things only end when the Sheriff fire his gun into the air and tells everyone to go home.

A new day dawns and Peggy, Jerry, Tommy and Linda head to the beach. Peggy and Jerry sneak off further down the coastline to find some privacy, since Jerry’s balls are about to turn deep blue. Alas, before he can get any, he is horribly mutilated and murdered by a Fish-Man. It should be noted that during the entire sequence, some of the footage was run in reverse (or mirrored) as Peggy’s bikini design has green coloration on only one breast cup, but that spot jumps back and forth from the left to the right. Continuity? What’s that?

Now comes the part of the film that many may find distasteful. Poor Peggy is hauled off by one of the icky Humanoids. Well, make that icthy Humanoids. Get it? Hahahaha! Science humor! I just kill me. Off somewhere on some secluded section of beach, we see her thrown to the ground by a large Fish-Man. It wastes no time in jumping on her and clawing away her bikini while she cries in protest. While things don’t get too graphic, the implication is clear: the poor girl is being raped by the Gillman’s fugly cousin. Yikes, not only is that thing green and slimy like the world’s biggest booger, but it probably smells worse than tuna that has been left in the sun for a week. And it didn’t even buy her dinner first! Look closely during this scene at the creature and you will notice that when it bends its head down, you can very briefly see a gap between the suit and the mask that exposes the actor’s skin.

Poor Peggy and unfortunate Jerry are not the only ones to run afoul of the Fish-Men. That night in a tent pitched on the beach, a dork is entertaining his girlfriend with a ventriloquist dummy. WTF? Since when did chicks go for nerdy guys like this? Evidently, the dummy turns her on big time, as soon she has divested herself of ALL her clothing. After conversing with his dummy a little more, the guy finally decides to take advantage of the naked chick in his tent. Too bad for him a large claw tears through the tent and rips a huge hole in his shoulder blade. He topples over, apparently dead. The girl screams as the monster tries to get her.

Before going any further, I must point out that something is seriously wrong with that wooden ventriloquist dummy. I mean it. That thing is possessed. How do I know? Well, after the guy puts it down in order to do the nasty with the naked chick, the dummy’s eyes move. Not once, but twice! First it turns its eyes in one direction and then back again as the monster attacks! WTF?! The film will never explain this behavior, but I am certain that it is evidence that Satan himself was animating the little sucker. Really, I mean it.

So the girl screams and bolts down the beach, completely naked, while the monster continues to rip up the tent. She races straight toward the camera and is completely unable to see the monster standing a couple feet away until she is close enough for the camera to zoom back and get the creature within the frame. It grabs her and throws her to the ground. Then as she struggles to pick herself up, it drops onto her and pushes her flat against the sand, all the while making that high-pitched screeching/wailing sound . Curiously, there is a large boulder a foot or two away that was not there a few seconds earlier. Also, it seems they are now much closer to the water than they were seconds ago. It seems another poor girl is about to get fish f*cked. With her being face down, better hope Mr. Fish-Man gets it in the right hole. Pictures A and B above illustrate the rock that appears from nowhere.

Hank and his buddies decide to up the ante in their crusade against Johnny, so they firebomb his house with a Molotov cocktail that was apparently constructed from pure antimatter. Not only does that single bottle cause the house to go up in a HUGE fireball, but it explodes…a lot. On hand to help put out the flames are Tommy and Linda. She heads into town for help while Tommy is attacked by Fish-Men and saved by Johnny. Linda herself has a bad go if when the truck she is driving is also assaulted by the Mrs. Paul rejects. She drives off a bridge and dies when the truck explodes…a lot.

Jim Hill decides that the matter needs looking into. I mean, this is California. The idea of Fish-Men moving into town must be very unsettling. Since the Fish-Men evolved right there in the area, they cannot be accused of illegally crossing any borders or taking away jobs from the locals, so that call to INS won't do any good.

Jim, Johnny and Susan Drake take a boat trip. Isn’t a cruise how all problems are fixed? They eventually make their way to a section of coastline with lots of caves. Here they find loads of angry Fish-Men. Jim fires off what seems like a thousand rounds, but only kills four of them while Johnny instantly drops one with a single shot from a spear gun. The three amigos also find poor Peggy Larson, though the other woman seen being raped by the Fish-Men earlier in the film is nowhere to be seen or heard. Poor Peggy is traumatized something fierce. You would be to if you’d been fishsticked the way she was.

One of the Fish-Man bodies is taken to Doctor Drake’s lab. After examining it she comes clean to Jim and Johnny. Canco Inc. had been experimenting with some crap called DNA-5, which sounds more like a 60’s Motown singing group than a chemical substance. This stuff jump-started the development of frogs, bringing them to full adulthood is just days. The same substance was applied to Salmon, in hopes of eventually increasing the yearly catches, but a bunch of the fish escaped into the sea. There some other breed of fish (probably a coelacanth) ate the salmon and mutated due to ingesting the DNA-5. Now these mutant Fish-Men are raping human women in hopes of furthering their own evolution.

Jim suddenly remembers that the town has a big carnival planned for that evening. Can they warn people before it is too late? Will Jim’s Wife, Carol and their crying, pooping baby avoid the creatures from the ripoff lagoon? Will Hank and Johnny ever find common ground? Will Vic Morrow ever play another role where he is not an angry, racist white dude? More importantly, will we get to see more bare boobies?

Note - It is at this point that the movie enters its final segment, so if any of you really feel the need to watch this film and not know the ending ahead of time, skip the rest of this section.

We return to Noyo and see that night has fallen and that things are in full swing at the marina. A marching band is strutting around, the rides are running, food and drink is being consumed, games are being played and people are generally having a grand old time. A radio DJ is broadcasting live from a nearby booth, accompanied by “Miss Salmon,” the winner of the festival’s beauty contest. At this point, sensing all that female flesh nearby, the Fish-Men attack. Naturally, people promptly shit their pants and go running. The radio DJ reports on the disturbance though he cannot see anything yet.

Things quickly go down the crapper. One guy is pulled into the water and not seen again – there is just a few bubbles and a big expanding pool of blood to mark his passing. Fish-Men are walking around, grabbing any woman they can get their slimy hands on, throwing them to the ground and humping them. Even one broad on roller skates cannot get away from the stinky suckers. Another gal gets cornered by several as she tries to hop out of the booth she was in. Talk about getting fishsticked! Another Humanoid pulls at a support beam, causing a section of the pier to collapse and sending a bunch of people into the water where one guy is quickly sliced to ribbons. A woman trying to pull herself up the collapsed section is hit by falling debris (including a beer keg that rolls by about three times) and knocked into the clutches of several Humanoids. Jeez, it’s a Gorton’s Gang Bang. One poor sap trying to run from the monsters falls right in front of the radio booth. The DJ and Miss Salmon watch in horror as a Humanoid grabs him from behind and rips his throat open, sending blood spraying everywhere.

Jim and Susan have boarded his boat and are quickly pumping diesel fuel all over the water. While they do this things continue to go from the frying pan right into the fire. Men are being ripped to pieces while women are being raped. I know it may be cold of me, but considering the option, I’d be glad of being a man! There is funny sequence with a Humanoid on the merry-go-round. On the first pass, you see it after a woman and a guy. On the second pass the woman is screaming in horror as the guy is being ripped open. On the third pass the monster and woman are nowhere to be seen, but the guy’s bloody corpse sits all alone in a chair. There was no fourth pass, but I'm sure if there was, it would have shown the Humanoid smoking a cigarette.

Hank and Johnny find themselves working together to save people, the Indian saving the bigot’s life at one point. Finally, Jim fires off a flare gun, igniting the fuel and sending all the Fish-Men up in flames and no doubt producing a smell ten times worse than your local Long John Silvers. Everything is going to be okay now, right?

Wrong.

At the Hill home, Carol has heard the marina massacre on the radio. Alas, she’s too preoccupied fending off Fish-Men to be overly concerned. When one manages to get inside, she grabs a kitchen knife and starts stabbing away like Lizzy Borden’s long lost descendent. Who wants sushi? It’s funny how this entire time the baby has not let out a peep. He was wailing away like lil Pavarotti when she hid him in a room, but he hasn’t made a sound since. You and I both know that the only things kids do is cry and poop (and to quote an animated green ogre, they poop when they cry and then cry when they poop), so it was highly unlikely he was going to stop crying all on his own, especially given the circumstances. Thus, we must conclude that the walls in this house are five feet thick and made from concrete and steel. Eventually, Jim arrives to rescue his wife and baby.

Lastly, we head for Susan Drake’s lab, where she is overseeing Peggy Larson. It seems that accelerated evolution inherent to the Humanoids is passed on to their offspring. Poor Peggy looks like she is about ten months pregnant. The time has come for her to give birth to her little bundle of scales. She writhes around, the large scar on her face quite obvious. There is a tearing sound and her abdomen begins to extend even further (in this shot the facial scars are gone). Susan yells, “Oh my, god,” then runs around to take a closer look. Peggy’s flesh rips open and amidst all the blood and screaming, a baby Fish-Man pokes his head up to peer out of his mother’s ravaged belly. It lets out a horrid little scream of its own and then things go black (Just like the crappy ending to The Sopranos).

The End

This is basically an old fashioned monster movie made by (then) modern standards. Structurally the story is a near clone of the same type of films that graced movie screens more than two decades previously. While the explanation given for the monsters’ origin is rather silly, the film puts them to good use in terrorizing the inhabitants of Noyo. The characters are only given the most basic of definitions up front and development is slow for some and non-existent for others. The movie suffers from a rather uncharismatic and boring lead, though whether this is to be blamed on the script, the direction or the acting is open to debate. The film also isn’t above resorting to stereotypes for its single minority character. The monster suits are pretty good and are given an authentic look and feel, even if they are sometimes short in comparison to some of the humans and feature those comically long arms and static faces. The blood and gore FX all look great, but the circumstances surrounding some of their usage ranges from good to somewhat silly. The music is good, though those familiar with James Horner’s body of work will no doubt catch the similarities between his work here and in other places. The film’s internal continuity flat out sucks, but can be overlooked for the sheer fun factor the film has, though the inclusion of rapes by Fish-Men might turn more than a few away. Overall, Humanoids From The Deep is the very definition of “B Movie” even though it hails from an era long after the double features that beget such a term were popular.

I think one of the more common examples of a basic and deep-rooted fear is the fear of deep water. As someone who somewhat shares that phobia, I know that for me, it is not so much the water itself that inspires that feeling of dread, but rather, what may be lurking in that water that fuels my fear. Let’s face it, when we’re in the water, we are out of our element completely and are utterly at the mercy of the life forms that call it home. The fact that most of the creatures that dwell there and that represent a threat to human life do so because they wish to devour us, doesn’t exactly help, either. That represents a whole new fear of being eaten alive – which can no doubt be traced back to our primitive anthropoid ancestors fleeing from large predators, and when combined with the feeling of helplessness and total vulnerability that deep, murky water brings, can be the reasoning behind more than one person opting to keep their posteriors on dry land rather than risk a fatal chomping by venturing too far from shore (however this would not include myself, as I was an avid surfer in ages past…go figure).

Now take that fear of the beastly things hiding in the water, the fear of being hunted down and consumed and suppose that the creatures doing the hunting are free to come ashore in search of you and I. This adds another near-subconscious level to the fear. Before, we considered ourselves safe in our homes, far away from the water and the hungry things moving about in its depths. Now however, with a threat from the sea that can literally come crashing through the front door, that deep-rooted fear takes on new dimensions…or at least it should. Perhaps now that our would-be killers are in “our” world where the playing field is much more in our favor, we enjoy a measure of confidence, helping us to push those fears aside. Perhaps not. Given the story that Humanoids From The Deep imparts, maybe there is an even more primal fear at work here.

The ocean is often regarded as the source of all life on the planet, the wellspring from which every living thing moving about on the Earth’s continental masses once came. Could new life not rise again from those darkened depths? Maybe deep down in those subtextual levels of the narrative that are overshadowed by the more overt monster attacks, the fear this movie is really playing upon is not so much that something comes out of the sea to kill us (or in the case of those unlucky gals, mate with us), but that something may come out of the sea to supplant us as the dominant life form on the planet. A new species that is better suited to life both in and out of the water. A species that has the potential to be as intelligent as we are, yet not suffer from the racial, economical, social and provincial stratification that serves to hinder our own species’ progress. Perhaps it is through mankind’s own arrogance that Mother Nature gains a helping hand in cleansing the planet of the one life form that has caused it more harm than any other. An accelerated fresh start if you will. So the fear becomes one that is not so much based on personal safety, but one that stems from the fear that as a species, we may be obsolete and in need of replacement.

Then again, this could be nothing more than a killer Fish-Man movie with exploitive elements included in order to draw in the big crowds and maximize profits. As always, I will leave it to you to decide for yourself.

Human deaths: 19
Humanoid deaths: 16
Dead dogs: 9 (4 seen)
Beers consumed: 19
Smokes: 8
Spring loaded cats: 1
Bare boobies: 8
Fist fights: 1
Photos snapped by Susan: 29
Most Humanoids seen at once: 3
Continuity screw ups: Too many to count
Product placements: 9

Shadow's Drinking Game: This one is easy. Whenever you see someone holding a beer, take a drink.

Dr. Drake in scientist mode.

Dr. Drake: “Look at the size of the cranium. That means they have tremendous brain capacity. Does not mean though, that they have the ability to use it all.”

Shadow’s comment: So they’re wrestling fans?

More scientist stuff with Drake.

Dr. Drake: “It’s my theory that these creatures are driven to mate with man now, in order to further develop their incredible evolution.”
Jim: “It’s enough to scare the hell out of me.”

Shadow’s comment: It scares the hell out of me, too! Especially the part about mating with man. Who knew some were batting for the other team?

It’s quite odd, but I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of this movie when it originally hit theaters. I was eleven years old in 1980, watched several hours of television each day and saw commercials for everything under the sun, so it was almost impossible for a monster film to come out and me not know about it. I would even peruse the newspaper’s movie ads and stare at the artwork for new and current films, so how this movie could have escaped my notice just boggles my mind. My introduction to this film was one day when I was visiting the neighbors across the street. At the time they subscribed to HBO, but we did not. I happened to pick up their monthly HBO guide and was leafing through it when I saw the listing for Humanoids From The Deep. I asked if they had seen it and was told yes, and that it was quite the scary movie. The title hung in my memory for months until the movie had its television premiere (on ABC if I recall correctly). I tuned into watch and that one viewing was the only time I saw the film for over twenty years. Still, there were lots of images that stuck in my memory: the scene with Deke’s boat and the kid’s blood in the water, the demise of poor Baron the Dog, the images of Humanoids running loose during the carnival and of course, that final ending shot.

So the years go by and 2002 rolls around. I was living by myself (plus a dog) in a small town south of Sacramento. I had gotten into the habit of leaving the television on at night. Well, it was more like I got into the habit of falling asleep with it on. Have you ever done that and then awakened in the middle of the night with the sound just blasting? When you fell asleep it didn’t seem too loud, but at three AM it’s louder than all hell breaking loose! Either that or there are Gremlins that come out and turn up the volume on the TV’s. So one night I wake up with the sound blasting. I look at the TV screen in my half-awake state of mind and see the scene where Tommy Hill is pulled off Johnny Eagle’s pier by one of the Humanoids. Seeing a monster pop up like that instantly got my attention and I was fully awake. I hit the info button on the remote to find out the title of the film, and low and behold, it was Humanoids From The Deep. Alas I had to go back to sleep because I had work the next day, but not before checking to see if the film was going to be on again soon. Since it was being shown on one of those Showtime or Movie Channel stations, the answer was yes. I went back to sleep and a few days later taped the movie. I watched it again in full a time or two and decided I really needed this one on DVD. After a few days of searching, I found it. A part of me still wishes I had had the chance to see it as a kid, especially with all the bare boobies on display!

Shadow's rating: Six Tombstones

The Good

• Lots of hot chicks!
• Hot chicks get naked!
• Monster costumes look cool
• Good monster action

The Bad

• Soft focus look to film
• Violence towards doggies
• Moron science
• Marine biologist who cannot pronounce coelacanth

The Ugly

• Those long arms on monsters
• Some Fish-men were just too damn short
• Sexual assault by Fish-men
• Continuity sucks

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