Michael_Elliott Humanoids From the Deep (1996) * 1/2 (out of 4) Remake of the 1980 film pretty much has the same story as chemicals turn regular salmon into walking killers. The 80's film was a lot of fun due to the violence, gore, nudity, sex and outrageous politically incorrect humor but pretty much all of that is missing here. The director throws out all sorts of gore but he forgets to make the film very fun. Watching both films back to back would just make this one seem even worse than it is. David Carradine is horrid in the lead but Clint Howard has a pretty funny role. Stick with the original.

Paul Andrews Humanoids from the Deep is set in the small American coastal town of 'Harbor Shores' where 'Canco Industries' cannery plant is located, lately they have been suffering from protests by environmentalist's who believe that the manager Bill Taylor (Mark Rolston) has been dumping chemicals into the sea. Bill's friend Wade Parker (Robert Carradine) confronts him about it & is given assurances that no dumping of chemicals is taking place which is a lie as Bill has been dumping a growth hormone called 'Synestin' into the sea to accelerate the growth of the fish. An attack on a group of activists leaves four missing, including Wade's daughter Kim (Danielle Weeks), & one guy named Matt (Justin Walker) talking about sea monsters which no one believes, at first that is anyway. Genetic scientist Dr. Drake (Emma Samms) shows up & tells Wade that an army experiment to create amphibious soldiers went wrong & the mutated results are now loose in Harbor Shores...Written & directed by Jeff Yonis this was a made-for-cable TV remake of Humanoids from the Deep (1980), both were executive produced by Roger Corman. The script changes a few things & not for the better, for a start it brings in the obligatory teen cast, it cuts out all the gore, rape & exploitation from the original & introduces the clichéd army involvement & secret Government experiments as an explanation for the origins of the sea monsters, what I want to know is how Emma Samms kept a straight face as her character explained to Wade that these sea monsters are in fact death-row prisoners whose DNA had been mixed with that of a fish to try & create an amphibious soldier! This short passage of dialogue has to be heard to be believed, extremely silly & funny sounding stuff. It's a much smaller scale film, in the original it really felt like the whole town was under attack but in this there are only a few basic character's, the introduction of the army doesn't help & I just thought it was a step down from the original on every level. Having said that it moves along at a fair pace, the basic story of raping sea monsters is still the same & if you don't expect too much it provides a fair amount of fun & entertainment.Director Yonis does a pretty decent job & it looks slightly better than the average TV film, there isn't much in the way of scares, tension, shocks or atmosphere. To save money this uses footage from the 1980 original particularly during the scene set in the funfair, it comes as no surprise that our heroes are nowhere to be seen when all the carnage is taking place as they are seemingly stuck in a funhouse as the sea monsters attack outside, this footage is badly edited into the main feature & looks out of place. The gore is severely toned down, a ripped off arm, an Alien (1979) rip-off monster birth sequence & a guy with one leg missing is about as nasty as it gets. No nudity this time either.Technically Humanoids from the Deep is alright, it was obviously made on a low budget. The monsters themselves look like men in rubber suits because that's what they are although they don't look too bad. The acting was pretty bad.Humanoids from the Deep the remake is not as good as the original in any way but when all said & done I thought it was OK, it certainly passed the time harmlessly enough. Probably just about worth a watch but nothing overly special.

capkronos Animal rights protesters picket a fishing company because they're dumping the growth hormone "Synestin" into the ocean to bulk up product. Five giant, gilled monsters live on the chemical, kill people and knock-up kidnapped young women. Star Robert Carradine, playing the type of stubborn, embarrassing, single-father type whose character drives a beat-up old truck and drinks Pepto straight out of the bottle (so much for character development, eh?), teams up with an investigating scientist (Emma Samms) and others after his daughter is kidnapped.Much of the sleazy audacity from the wonderfully trashy 1980 original is dropped here, but some of the make-up FX are good and it still features two stomach-burster scenes, an eyeball that squirts blood, skinny dipping and naked, bloody women crawling out of a cocoon and swimming to safety. The carnival finale employs most of its scenes from the original feature (I recommend sticking with it).This was part of the ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS... cable TV series from Concorde/New Horizons (all of which were exec. produced by Corman). The end credits remind us that "No animal or humanoid was harmed or mistreated in the making of this motion picture."

davidwall03 After watching the 1980 schlock version, this picture looks like a masterpiece. The updated version has a terrific sense of humor about itself. The filmmaker gets the fact that man mating with fish is inherently silly and, while delivering some genuine scares, never forgets this. "Mimic" could have learned from this picture that humor in these horror flicks is essential. This film recently aired on the CBS late movie, which is how I saw it. I'm glad I did.