It was only a matter of time before I would come right back to Roger Corman and his extensive library of films.  I didn’t quite think it would only be two weeks.  I also have been wanting to get back to some monster action too.  I mean I guess I did have Devil’s Express, but was that really a monster movie or just a sweet ass kung fu movie?  So, with that thought, it’s been since The Suckling several weeks ago that I’ve traveled to that sub-genre.

Why not marry the two things I’ve been wanting to explore deeper and look at a more contemporary Roger Corman monster movie???

Humanoids from the Deep is a 1980 movie with a pretty provocative poster about fish monsters that begin to terrorize a small California community.  That’s pretty much it.  Monsters come up from under the water in this fishing town and do monster shit.  There is absolutely nothing more interesting about this movie.  In fact, it seems somewhat tame for me to even talk about on this blog.  That’s right!  Easy peasy little monster movie that involves fish monsters…

Fish monsters that rape women.

There it is.  If you thought a Roger Corman monster movie about fishy guys running amok wasn’t going to have some skeevy shit in it, you were oh so wrong.  These fish monsters want to get their fish dicks into some human ladies’ businesses.  With a premise like that, of course I would come along and write about it!

I don’t think I need any further introduction.  Let’s dive right in!  (See what I did there?  Dive right in?)

It’s morning in the peaceful town of Noyo, California.  People are getting ready for another busy day of fishing and stuff.  There’s some discussion of the town trying to transition into a cannery town instead of a fishing town.  An older guy wants the cannery for “progress” reasons and a younger guy (who is a Native American named Johnny Eagle – which sounds like the Native American version of Captain America if you ask me) doesn’t like the idea.  That’s kind of strange to think that the younger guy is against progress…

HOLY SHIT THAT BIRD ONLY HAS ONE LEG!

Seriously, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime shot, ain’t it?  Did the cinematographer know when he was panning to follow the old guy’s boat that there was a one-legged bird picking shit off of the dock?  There’s no way he knew that!  There’s no “one-legged-bird food” that would attract birds with only one leg.  Give this guy a fucking Oscar for this crazy coincidental shot!

So anyway, this dad is fishing and while his son is working on trying to get the wench motor working, the kid accidentally spills gasoline on the deck of the boat before then accidentally falling into the water and getting eaten by fish monsters.  Another idiot on the boat slips and falls which causes him to fire off a flare that ignites the gas and blows up the boat.

We then get to know Jim Hill (played by Doug McClure – you might remember him from such films like The Land That Time Forgot, At the Earth’s Core, and Cannonball Run II).  He was a witness to the boat explosion and talking to the sheriff about it.  He claimed that even though the guy’s boat was faulty, they were shooting at something.  The dog starts to go nuts so Jim let’s it outside to chase after whatever has him upset, only for the dog to run smack dab right into a fish monster.

The next morning, Jim’s wife, Carol, goes looking for the dog, but only finds this gooey stuff all over the place.  They follow the trail of goopy goo into the woods but can’t find the dog or the source of the stuff.  When they get all the way to the shoreline, they find their dog torn to shit.  In town at the docks, other dogs belonging to the fishermen are seen dead.  The only dog still alive in town belongs to “the Indian”.  However, that dog seems to be completely freaking the fuck out too.

But fuck all that, it’s time to get to the fish monsters going after young, supple women!  The first indication that they have sea cucumbers for human women is when one of the monsters starts peeping into a hot ass blonde’s windows while she wears sexy, silky lingerie and heels while walking around her house alone – because, sure.  She starts worriedly walking around the house looking out for whatever she heard outside.  Her boyfriend pops up behind her like any other scary movie stalker thing.  She turns him down for sexy time in favor to go to some community something or another with their friends.  Though, I’m not sure why that whole part of this movie is here anyway because they sneak out of the event to go fuck in the back of his car anyway.

So while all this is happening, there’s a deeper subplot going on in the movie, as well as something super duper dark that happens during this little soiree.  We learn more about the cannery.  The guy who is in charge of the company pitches to the town about how they will be the best thing that happened since god created, I dunno, bread?  Sure, bread.  He also swears the company will increase the output of fish thanks to some science a hot scientist lady cooked up for this company.  The guy from earlier who is arguing for the cannery, Slattery, is there to show his support and make sure his guys all clap for the pitch.  He’s also the guy who couldn’t help but point out that the Indian’s dog is the only one not slaughtered that morning.

In walks Johnny Eagle holding his dead dog.  Which Slattery killed in retribution.  Jesus Christ, movie.  This thing is only 20 minutes in, and we’ve seen like a half dozen dead dogs.  Oh, and the first victim of the fish monsters?  A child.  A dumb kid, but a kid nonetheless.  Fuck, this is dark.  Johnny Eagle’s sadness over his dog’s death is goddamn heartbreaking too.

Also…  The whole town is totally aware that Slattery fucking murdered a man’s dog, right?  Fuck this guy.  I hope his dick gets eaten off by a fish monster followed by the rest of him.

Also, I was signing up for lady rapin’ fish monsters, not dog murder.

Alright, so just in case you didn’t know that Slattery is like this town’s Donald Trump (I assume Trump would kill an Indian’s dog because he couldn’t get something passed in Congress), he has Johnny Eagle taken outside and held by his goons so he could rough him up.  In front of the whole town.  Doug McClure, which I’m gonna say is this town’s Joe Biden (I assume Joe Biden gets into fistfights outside square dances each night), is there to help out Johnny Eagle.  The sheriff comes along and breaks it all up.

Where is the fish rape?  You’d think that would be the stuff that would bum me the fuck out about this movie, but it’s all the rest of this all-too-real of a real world struggle of white guy versus red man and dead dogs.  I don’t want to ask for fish rape another time, movie.

Say…  I like where this is headed…

Oh boy, even better!

Holy shit…  This is escalating!

Movie, I should have never doubted you.  So it’s the next day and the young couple who was fucking outside the community goings on the previous night are gonna fuck on the beach, but when the above artist lady was peepin’ on their action, they move to a secluded spot on the beach.  Jerry, the dude, gets pulled under the water and gets mutilated.  Peggy, the girl, gets caught by one of the monsters and drug off where the monster rips her top off and… well, rapes her.

Alright, well, fish rape.  Still, I have a whole other, oddly enough, bigger issue with this movie.  Slattery.  This fucker is walking around town like he’s big man on campus.  He’s at the bar to talk to his goons about Johnny Eagle’s plans to sue the cannery and tie them up while he works with a lawyer to get back all the Indian lands along the coast.  So he propose that they “deal with him”.  All the while, he’s makin’ small talk with the rest of the town like he’s some friendly neighborhood Vic Morrow.  Waitaminute…  That is Vic Morrow.  Anyway, does anyone else remember he killed a dude’s dog?  And also jumped him?  Is this town full of insane jerkasses?

Oh who cares, cut to tits, man.

This frisky couple is Billy, who is a ventriloquist, and his girlfriend Becky.  Because he has a dummy and is a ventriloquist, he gets killed by a fish monster.  Becky goes running off – straight into the arms of a second fish monster.  And she gets raped.

Seriously, I will never even ever think the words “Where’s the fish rape, movie?” in that specific order ever again.  This is a, dare I say, particularly unsavory movie.  I mean, who’d thought a movie with five dead dogs, a dead kid, a douchebag asshole, and a couple fish rapes would be unsavory?!?

More people get attacked – among them Jim’s brother, Tommy.  Though, he’s not fish-raped.  I mean, these monsters are monsters, not gay.  Pfffft.  Johnny Eagle is able to kill off a couple of them, and is barely able to save his life.  Also attacked is Tommy’s girlfriend, Linda (seen earlier watching the couple about to fuck on the beach), who was driving a truck at the time and forced off the road to her death. The next morning, when the sheriff has a talk to Slattery and his goon squad, Slattery’s only retort to the sheriff wondering what the hell is happening around town is, “I wanna know why Linda was in Eagle’s truck, what about that?”

Seriously, Slattery, you should run for president.  You’ve got that whataboutism down pat.

Like a boss, Jim decides to go out looking for the monsters.  He takes hot ass sexy scientist lady, Dr. Susan Drake, and Johnny Eagle.  Well, technically, I guess she told them she was coming along with them because she knows what these things are.  By the way, Dr. Drake seems to be pretty in tuned to what these creatures might be.  When she draws a picture of one for Johnny Eagle, she flat out fucking says they are more developed than she thought they’d be.

So she spots some caves along the coast and the three of them decide to take a closer look.  This leads them directly into a fucking nest of the fish monsters.  Jim starts blowing all their asses away.  One nearly makes off with Johnny Eagle.  After killing them all Rambo style, they find Peggy, absolutely traumatized (no shit, right?).  While she gets help, Dr. Drake checks out one of the fish monsters.  She discovers they are in the process of going from an underwater gill-breathing thing to an amphibious creature that can breathe both above and under water.  Drake argues with another guy from the cannery who she says she’s been trying to tell them this shit was going to happen but they kept pushing it aside.Um… Guys?  I think this scientist did something bad.

Basically, the company, cleverly named “Canco” was using experimental growth hormone to make salmon grow faster.  This was how they planned to increase the amount of fishable salmon.  Turns out that shit was what made these fish monsters.  Also, I’m guessing these things are also pumped full of aphrodisiacs because they want to put their little fishes inside lady caves.

Because this movie does play into the Jaws ripoff territory of movies from the late 70s and early 80s, everything rushes headlong toward some big town festival thing that is happening.  And, because the movie has to happen, the fish monsters are predictable and attack the festival.  Naturally, Slattery is there to be a smug prick.  And like any smug prick asshole, he and his men immediately load up on Budwiser from the concession stand.  In what might be the coolest picture from the movie (aside from Becky showing her boobs earlier and Linda watching a couple make out on the beach), the fish monsters don’t just make land to attack the festival, they bust up through the dock and boardwalks.

Pandemonium breaks out.  The fish monsters pull a couple dudes under the water and straight into a bloody death, and they start grabbing women to fuck them.  I’m not kidding.  Shot after shot of fish monsters going after women to fuck them just one right after the other.  Kill the dudes.  Fuck the women.  I mean shit is going nuts.  Guys are getting their heads and various limbs ripped off.  There’s a shot of people on a carousel and with each pass, the fish monster gets closer to the people on the ride.  It’s nuts.  One monster chases after Linda Shayne and rips her bikini top off so she has to beat a fish monster over the head with a rock while her tits hang out.  This place is a fucking madhouse.

Back at Jim’s house, a fish monster is preparing to break in to presumably eat Jim’s young son and fuck his wife, as fish monsters do.  Jim takes off to go protect her after learning she is home alone.  Thing seem to be pretty well in hand at the festival with some of the water on fire and some of the townsfolk beating the shit out of some of the monsters with 2x4s.  Jim’s wife is defending the home with a big ass knife while she hides their son.  The monsters, tired of playing stalker and messing about outside the house come busting in through the door and windows.  She fucks one up by spraying it with drain cleaner and stabbing the fuck out of it.  Jim comes home and all seems to be fine.

The movie ends with the town reeling from the disaster of the fish monster menace.  Wounds are being tended to and mending starts as the town, I guess, realizes that the cannery is no good…?  Dr. Drake goes back to her lab where she helps Peggy give birth, but it comes busting out of her stomach instead as some sort of fish monster human hybrid thing and Peggy’s eyes turn all bluish white for some reason.

I dunno man…  This movie is kinda balls.  Like you’d think a fish rape movie would be kinda interesting in a scumbag late 70s/early 80s way, but it isn’t.  The fish monsters look spectacular.  And you get to see them in lots of different lighting and situations and you can tell that they at least had a little bit of budget for a handful of these costumes for the big climax to the movie.

Doug McClure is perfectly fine as our hero.  He kinda made a living out of fighting monsters during his heyday.  The ladies are pretty sexy – you know it’s a Corman flick because the women are hot.  There is definitely a missed opportunity with the whole Canco using genetics to make good on some promises to increase the output of salmon in a fishing town.  It’s there in the background, but the movie doesn’t do anything with it.  However, the character of Slattery is just the worst.  We see these types of scumbags all the time now in the news.  I didn’t find myself hoping there would be a dickwad racist dog murderer when I sat back to take in my fish rape horror movie.  And, even worse, he gets somewhat redeemed at the end.  He shouldn’t.  He killed a fucking dog.  There’s no redemption from that.

That leads to another huge problem – this movie is really really dark.  Between killing dogs and rape, this movie is super dark!  Sure, the creature in Creature from the Black Lagoon definitely had a thing for human women.  Yes, the giant leeches from Corman’s own Attack of the Giant Leeches were stashing ladies for some reason (rape – it was probably rape).  However, the implication of what might be going on there was enough.  Did we actually need to see it?  After watching this movie, I can undeniably say the answer is no.

No, we did not.

We have come to the end of this week’s B-Movie Enema.  Next week, it’s time to go back to school with a mid-80s slasher flick that I can only assume is set at a college.  That’s because the name of this 1984 horror picture is Splatter University.  See you in one week!