Humanoids From The Deep (1980 - Horror/Sci-fi)

[Chedney Honks]

Pure low-budget schlock produced by Roger Corman, and I had a great time with it.

It's a little bit of Jaws, a little bit of Alien, and quite a lot of exploitation. The mutated mermen come on land to 'spawn' with the women to further their rapid evolution and they kill and eat everyone else in the process. It's quite gory, not entirely savoury and very very dumb. My wife has gone to bed early after a long day and this is absolutely perfect with a little rum and a cat asleep in my lap.

88 Films have done a pretty smart Blu-ray release which I will likely keep hold of for when I can watch it again with mates. It's the kind of semi-inspired B-movie tripe that doesn't really get made any more, or only in a knowingly shit way. This is authentic and sincere shit.

As a fair warning, it does feature a few instances of implied merman-on-human rape but you don't actually see anything and those scenes are played as horror, not titillation.

Hopefully it will be added to the Criterion Collection or the Arrow Academy line.

[Chedney Honks]

Oh, and the ending is carnage. Total bedlam. Bare breasts and heads ripped off. Fully expecting a BFI release any day.

[Keebleman]

I remember when it was released in the UK under the title Monster.  The Daily Mail had it as their lead review that week (presumably it was a fairly quiet one) and the sexuality of the attacks was the main focus of attention.  The reviewer remarked how ironic it was that the film had been directed by a woman.

[Sebastian Cobb]

On netters by the looks of it.

[Egyptian Feast]

The reviewer remarked how ironic it was that the film had been directed by a woman.

Corman sacked the director after she refused to shoot some extra scenes of the humanoids attacking young women and tearing their clothes off, so the material that shocked The Daily Mail was most likely the work of a male director.

[Chedney Honks]

I think there are two or three such 'attacks' and for what little is shown for a couple of seconds, you could well imagine they were just eating them. I think it sounds awful 'mermen rape a load of bikini babes' but that's a plot description, not what is represented visually. I don't really know why I'm 'defending' this except it was actually a fun, daft movie and far tamer than the infamy surrounding it.