Maybe it’s James Horner’s score–which is solid, if a little too Jaws inspired–but if you squint your eyes and turn off your brain, Humanoids from the Deep almost seems like a real movie. It’s not, of course, it’s a New World picture.
It’s got to be hard for a film to waste Doug McClure, but this one does. McClure’s phoning it in so much here, the scenes with him and the infant son are funny. Oddly, the scene where he and wife Cindy Weintraub go looking for their dog, holding hands, works rather well.
Vic Morrow’s the bad guy until the monsters show up and he’s fine. Anthony Pena is really good as Morrow’s nemesis (a well-meaning Native American). Ann Turkel’s hilariously bad as the scientist who has all the answers about the monsters.
The monsters themselves are almost well-designed (Rob Bottin designed them). At times, they almost look good, and then Peters gives them a full reveal (or maybe whoever shot all the gore and nudity gives them a full reveal) and it’s silly. The premise–monsters who mate with human females–is trashy, but the film’s pretty mellow.
It’s kind of slow, but not in a bad way–until the last couple scenes, it seems like it’s going to end better than it should. I think I may have seen it before, but maybe not–I would have remembered the carnival, which goes unmentioned until it’s clear the monsters are going to attack it.
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