Humanoids from the Deep (1996)

The Horror Movie Survival Guide is both where I first learned of the original Humanoids from the Deep and also where I learned that there was a remake in the 90's. The difference is that, while I first saw the original many years ago now, I didn't see the remake until I decided to do both of them as part of this year's line-up. And yet, while I've technically known of this film since early 2002, its existence kind of fell out of my headspace for a long time, as it's extremely obscure and not talked about nearly as much as the original, which itself is a niche cult film. I always remembered remembered that there was a 90's remake of Piranha, another factoid I first learned from that book, but even though Michael Felsher mentioned it at the tail end of the little booklet he wrote for Shout! Factory's DVD release of the original Humanoids from the Deep, it wasn't until I considered doing that as part of Schlocktober 2 that it clicked in my head, "Oh, yeah, there's another one of those." And like how I remembered that Nosferatu in Venice existed back when I did both the original 1922 film and Werner Herzog's remake of it, I couldn't exactly ignore this flick (in this case, I have no one but myself to blame, unlike with Nosferatu in Venice, where some asshole who shall remain nameless "helpfully" reminded me of it). The major difference is that we're talking about a remake to a film that I'm not big on to begin with, so it's not like I was dreading that this was going to sour something for me. In fact, because I knew this was one of a series of movies that Roger Corman produced for Showtime back in the mid-90's, I felt it could either appeal to me more personally, since we're talking about an era of creature and monster flicks that I'm nostalgic for, or I may think this is even worse than the original. Surprisingly, that's not the case, either way. I may like a lot of these types of movies from that era, but this particular one is close to the bottom-of-the-barrel, be it in terms of acting, effects, and especially storytelling. At the same time, though, I can't say that I think this is worse than the original, but I certainly wouldn't say it's better, either. It's much more of a straightforward monster movie, with none of the humor or exploitation elements that people remember the original for, but while that is more my cup of tea, it certainly doesn't help with the film's many other faults. And even though I find the characters more memorable than those in the original (for the most part), it only goes so far. It's just a very cheap, by-the-numbers, made-for-cable movie that served its purpose at the time but is of little use nowadays.

Late one night, the military attempt to destroy some unseen creatures contained within a large chamber, only for them to escape through its back and head down a manhole. After killing one of the soldiers, they make their way through the sewer system and into the sea. Meanwhile, in the coastal town of Harbor Shores, environmentalists are picketing local company Canco for dumping the synthetic hormone, Synestin, into the ocean. When employee Wade Parker confronts the supervisor, Bill Taylor, about it, Bill, in exchange for Wade's silence, promises to stop the dumping; in reality, he has no intention of stopping. Even worse for Wade, his teenager daughter, Kim, begins seeing Matt, who's not only one of the protesters but also yelled profanity in Wade's face at the company gate. The next day, a local captain takes some tourists out on a fishing trip, when he catches something big in his net. While a young boy named Timmy tries to help him pull it in, he gets knocked overboard and is yanked below the surface. His distraught mother jumps in after him, but she disappears as well. The captain claims to the media that it was a shark attack, and when Timmy's remains are found, Wade, who was himself attacked by one, allows the coroner, Duffy, to measure his scars to see if it was the same shark. However, Duffy concludes that it wasn't. That afternoon, two Canco employees are out dumping more Synestin, when Matt, Kim, and their young environmentalist friends catch them in the act and videotape them as evidence. After the teens depart, the two men are attacked by something that gets aboard their boat, and the ensuing struggle leads to the craft being destroyed in an explosion. At the local bar that night, Bill gets into a fight with Matt, and Matt reveals that they were filmed dumping more of the hormone, infuriating Wade. Wade also forbids Kim from seeing Matt again, but she runs out of the house to be with him. That night, the two of them and the other teens go skinny-dipping at the beach, only to get attacked and dragged beneath the surface, save for Matt. He becomes a murder suspect, with nobody believing his story about their being attacked by monsters, including Wade. But it doesn't take long for Wade to see one of the creatures for himself and now, he and Matt must work together to find out what these monsters are, where they came from, and how to stop them.

For a little while, there were plans to make a sequel to the original Humanoids from the Deep, one that would've starred Malcolm McDowell, but it never came to be. Instead, this remake, made just over fifteen years later, was one of a series of films produced for Showtime in the mid-90's called Roger Corman Presents. Made for $1.5 million each, they were shot in very rapid succession (thirteen were shot between January and June of 1995 alone) and included several remakes of past Corman movies, with the others being the aforementioned 1995 Piranha, The Wasp Woman, A Bucket of Blood, and Not of This Earth, the latter marking the second time that Corman had been involved with a remake of his 1957 original (The Haunted Sea, a remake of 1961's Creature from the Haunted Sea, was also meant to air as part of this series but Showtime was dissatisfied with it and released it direct-to-video instead). The writer/director for Humanoids was Jeff Yonis, whose filmography is very to similar to Jim Wynorski, but with a small fraction of the amount of credits. He'd previously written and directed Bloodfist V: Human Target, and after Humanoids, he went on to do Born Bad, with James Remar and Corey Feldman, and an episode of Sci-Fi Channel's Black Scorpion TV series, which itself stemmed from one of these Roger Corman Presents films. Since then, Yonis has mostly worked on educational films for kids.

I don't think I've ever talked about something that featured Robert Carradine before, at least not that I can remember. While most people think of the Revenge of the Nerds movies when he comes up, being someone who grew up watching Disney Channel in the late 90's and around the Millennium, I know him best for their original movie, Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire, where he played a vampire hunter, and as Lizzie McGuire's dad. Otherwise, I mostly just think of him as one of John Carradine's sons and as David Carradine's less charismatic, dorky brother. I've seen him do well in certain roles (I thought he was quite good as the killer in the first story of the Body Bags anthology film, another Showtime production) but, for the most part, I find him to be one of those actors who's just kind of there, and that's definitely true of his role here as Wade Parker. On the one hand, I think he's more memorable than Doug McClure in the original film, but that's mainly because Wade is actually focused on as the lead. Coming off as a decent guy who's just trying to raise his teenage daughter by himself in the coastal town of Harbor Shores, where he works at Canco Industries, Wade is not happy when he learns that his co-worker, Bill Taylor, is having the synthetic hormone Synestin poured into the nearby bay and coastal waters to make fish bigger. He's about ready to tell the environmentalists who are protesting outside what's going on, but Bill guilt-trips him into keeping quiet, while he continues doing it behind his back. Wade is also not happy when he learns that his daughter, Kim, is dating one of the environmentalists, Matt, who happened to call him an asshole during the protests. Things come to a head on both of those fronts when Wade learns that Bill was continuing to pour the Synestin into the ocean, and that Kim was with Matt and the others when they filmed the Canco employees who did it, shortly before their boat exploded. Not liking that she's caught up in this, he tells Kim to stay away from Matt, which only prompts her to run out that night to be with him. When Kim and the others are seemingly killed by the Humanoids, leaving Matt a murder suspect, Wade is anxious to get his hands on him. But when Bill suggests that they drive out to his home and actually kill him, as well as burn the place down, Wade will have none of it. He storms out of the bar where they're talking and then sees a couple get attacked by one of the Humanoids, which he also sees, proving to him that Matt is telling the truth.

Wade and Matt then join forces to learn what exactly these creatures are and where they come from, leading them to confront the mysterious Dr. Drake, whom they're sure isn't the journalist she claims to be. They quickly learn about how the Humanoids were created and that they've been thriving because of the Synestin in the ocean. Eventually, they confront and kill one of them when he attacks both the sheriff and his deputy down in the sewers, and they also witness an escaped female victim violently give birth to one

of the creatures' offspring, making them realize that Kim may actually be alive somewhere. From there, the three of them, along with Bill and his guys, work together to find the Humanoids' lair and save the women they're keeping there for breeding. They also have to work against the military when they come to town, as they're more interested in destroying the monsters than saving anyone. Through it all, Carradine continues to portray Wade as a decent enough every-man, but he's still a pretty bland character all-in-all. They give him this backstory that

he got attacked by a shark some time before, and he still has the scars it left on his side, but this is only touched on briefly in the first act, when it's suggested that a shark killed the tourists and Wade comes in so they can compare the bite marks to Timmy's remains. After that, it's never brought up again, and you also never learn what became of Kim's mother (the only trace of her is in some pictures in Kim's room), so there's very little meat on the bone with Wade. And, while I'm sure Carradine is trying his best, some of his line deliveries, like when he yells at Drake, "They killed my daughter. Don't you even care? Answer me, goddammit!", are really cringe-worthy.

Matt (Justin Walker), to say the least, makes a really bad first impression with Wade when he bangs on his pickup truck's window and calls him an asshole while he and the others are protesting outside of Canco. Thus, he's horrified when he learns that Wade is Kim's father, though that doesn't deter him from dating her. He also takes her concerns about Wade possibly losing his job over the incriminating footage seriously, assuring her that if Wade didn't know, he has nothing to worry about. Speaking of which, his protests and that footage cause him to really run afoul of Bill Taylor and his posse, who threaten him at the local bar, and then ransack his home and search his vehicle for the tape. Matt really steps in it when he and his friends, including Kim, go skinny-dipping in the ocean and the others are taken by the Humanoids, leaving him a murder suspect and a target for Wade's grief and anger. But after Wade saves him from getting blown up along with his house when Bill and the others plant dynamite outside, Matt joins him in uncovering what's going on. Once they learn from Dr. Drake what the Humanoids are, he and Wade help her get the word out to the townspeople and local media, and also try to find Kim and the other women when they realize they may still be alive. I have to say, though, that, while he has noble intentions and does care about Kim, Matt tends to come off as an obnoxious punk, like during the protests at the beginning, especially with what he yells at Wade. And when Bill confronts him in the bar, as much of an asshole as he may be, Matt, in turn, is so cocky, not to mention stupid, when he proclaims that they got footage of him loading the Synestin onto the boat. 

Later, when he's being interrogated by the deputy after the Humanoids attacking Kim and the others, Matt not only keeps insisting that it was the work of monsters, which the guy already isn't buying, but gets indignant with him, yelling, "Alright, man, understand this: there are four, maybe five, of them, and they are still out there! Now the more you stand around here and dick me around with your little fucking questions, they're gonna kill again! Do you get that?!" The deputy is being a sarcastic smartass

about it, sure, but Matt really isn't helping his case, either. (The guy's acting there is pretty bad, too, and earlier, his attempt to sound distraught when yelling, "Why?!", comes off as horribly whiny.) When they're first looking for the Humanoids' lair along the coastline and Wade tells him to get closer, Matt gives him attitude, yelling, "Aye, aye, captain!" In return, Wade tells him, "Closer, or if we find Kim, you're not datin' her! You got that?!" And after one of his friends is found dead on the shore, Matt, while understandably sad, gets all mopey and sarcastic,

even when Wade is trying to come up with ways to find the Humanoids' lair. Wade calls him out on it and Matt yells, "Okay. Well, the monsters seem to like women. Why don't you put a dress on and jump overboard?!" Um, can you spell, "Fuck you,"? Even when they come up with a good idea of luring the Humanoids to them by using the Synestin, Matt bitches about that, even though his environmentalist concerns should take a backseat to finding Kim. Dr. Drake even tells him that the amount of Synestin they're using won't hurt the ecosystem but, with his arms crossed like a pouting child, he grumbles, "Tell that to the fish." In the end, he does come up with a plan that allows him and Wade to reach the Humanoids' lair and save the remaining women in time but, still, I've rarely wanted to punch a protagonist whom I'm supposed to like as much as him.

I hate to admit that this movie managed to get me in some way but, truth be told, after she's taken by the Humanoids, I did think that Kim (Danielle Weeks) was dead for much of it. It hadn't yet been established that these Humanoids were mating with women, so I thought maybe the movie was subverting expectations for those who had seen the original and have them just kill. But, around the 50-minute mark, you learn that's not the case and that Kim is still alive in their lair, along with the other women they've taken. Aside from that, there's not much to say about her, as she doesn't have a lot of screentime before she gets taken, and she mainly comes off as the typical teenager who's trying to get a little independence from her father. Things become tense between them when Wade learns that she's dating Matt, and Kim even takes part in his environmentalist activities, namely when they film the Canco employees dumping the Synestin into the water. When Wade tells her to stay away from Matt, Kim rebels and leaves the house to be with him. She also entices him to come skinny-dipping with her and the others, only for them to be taken by the Humanoids. Fortunately for Kim, Wade and Matt come to save them at the end of the movie, and at the hospital, she learns that she hasn't been impregnated, unlike the poor woman from earlier.

Dr. Drake (Emma Samms) arrives in town after the one pair of Canco employees are killed when their boat blows up, posing as a reporter looking into the rumors that the company has been pouring hormones into the ocean. She also asks Matt about the monsters that he saw while he's being released from custody, although she doesn't get any answers. It's only when Wade and Matt confront her while she's examining the body of another victim that Drake reveals everything, telling them that the Humanoids are the results of an experiment she came up with but decided was too risky to be put into practice. Of course, the military performed it anyway, and they now believe that the creatures died when they escaped containment and made it to the ocean. Drake knows otherwise and is trying to prove that they're still alive so they can be stopped. When the sheriff and deputy are attacked by a Humanoid in the sewer, Drake tells the local media about it, using the dead Humanoid as proof, and demands that the military move in and finish what they started. She also aids Wade and Matt in finding the Humanoids' lair in order to save Kim and the others. However, during an attempt to tag one of them with a tracker so he can lead them there, Drake is herself abducted. She awakens in the nest and attempts to free herself, along with Kim's help, but in the end, Wade and Matt are the ones who save them. Once they're examined and found not to be carrying any of the Humanoids' offspring, Drake, like everyone else, leaves for home. But, at the very end, it turns out that the lab made a mistake, and Drake starts to give birth to a Humanoid while she's stuck in a traffic jam.

For the first half or so of the movie, you're thinking that Bill Taylor (Mark Rolston) is a full-on villain who's going to get his at some point. He not only keeps pouring Synestin into the ocean to make the fish grow bigger, despite protests from both the environmentalists and Wade (whom Bill often calls a pussy behind his back), but also violently confronts Matt in the bar. Once he learns of the videotape, Bill and his little posse go above and beyond in trying to find it, from ransacking Matt's house when he's not home to searching his parked car, which was left at the beach after his friends were attacked. What's really shady of Bill is how he tries to use Wade's despair over Kim's apparent death as a way to get to Matt. He and the boys take Wade to the bar, get him some beer, and Bill tries to talk him into taking the law into his own hands, either by shooting Matt or blowing up his house with him in it. And when Wade, unwilling to go that route, storms out of the bar, Bill and the guys go to Matt's house and plant a bundle of dynamite on his doorstep. It's only thanks to Wade's intervention that Matt doesn't die. After that, when he's at home, we also see that Bill is a lousy husband, as he pays no attention to his wife, Fran, even when she gets scared upon finding a spider in the bathroom (it's not a dangerous spider but, still, he just leaves her in there with it and does nothing). But when she's taken by the Humanoids and he finds no sign of her, but does find the mutilated corpse of their dog, Buster, he suddenly has a change of heart. However, when he goes into town, he and his guys are immediately arrested for trying to kill Matt, which Bill initially denies, until one of them stupidly admits to it. 

But, all that said, like Hank Slattery in the original, the film attempts to redeem Bill; in fact, they give him a full-on redemptive arc, starting when Major Knapp comes into town and proves to now be the real antagonist. After Wade tells him that it's possible Fran may still be alive, Bill helps them to find the Humanoids' lair by getting a hold of some more Synestin in order to lure them in so they can tag one with a tracker. Ultimately, that plan doesn't work, but afterward, Bill not only proves to now have a

conscience but also tries to inspire Wade and the others to be the ones to defend their town. He's also the one who realizes that the Riverborough Salmon Festival is in danger, prompting them to go down there and try to save everybody, which also doesn't work out so well. Notably, during the climax, when Knapp is planning to destroy the Humanoids' lair with dynamite, regardless of whether or not there are people still alive down there, Bill distracts him and the soldiers long enough for Wade and Matt to don wet-suits and dive down to save them. At the end of

the movie, upon being reunited with Fran, he gets deservedly chewed out by her and he promises to come running next time he hears her scream. However, none of this changes how he was a scumbag who wasn't above committing murder in order to keep his company from falling apart due to a scandal (not to mention that Kim says he was a creep and would often hit on her).

It's amazing how much of a by-the-numbers, douchey authority figure with a superiority complex Major Knapp (Warren Burton) proves to be. After appearing in the opening, where he commands some soldiers who attempt to kill the Humanoids when they prove to be too much to handle, he and the military roll into town when Dr. Drake tells the press about how they're responsible for the monsters and demands they come in and kill them. When Knapp sees Drake say this on the television, he sneers, "That bitch," and refuses to listen to anything she, Wade, or any of the locals have to say. He also threatens to send the group to jail after their disastrous attempt to tag a Humanoid with a tracker and, at the end, plans to blow up the spot where they believe the lair is, not caring that there may be people still alive in there. Even when Sheriff Barnes asks if they could make sure there's no one down there, Knapp disrespectfully tells him, "Look, I don't need a bunch of locals tellin' me what to do. Now, get back up top and block traffic." Worst of all, once the explosives have gone off, Knapp, unaware that Wade and Matt went in and got the remaining women out, gives Bill this smug smile, practically rubbing it in his face that he apparently killed his wife and some other women. Fortunately, just as he goes to light a cigar, a stray Humanoid pins him to the ground and tears into him.

As far as Harbor Shores' local law enforcement goes, Sheriff Barnes (Kaz Garas) comes off as a calm and reasonable kind of guy. When Matt becomes a murder suspect, Barnes feels that he has no reason to make up a crazy story about his friends being attacked by sea monsters, that it would've been foolish for him to even report it if he is the murderer, and the evidence itself suggests that it wasn't his doing. He also has to try to keep the distraught Wade from getting at Matt, telling him that they're going to find out what's going

on soon enough. And both he and his deputy get all the proof they need when they investigate a strange disturbance down in the sewers and are attacked and nearly killed by one of the Humanoids, which claws at Barnes and seemingly bites off most of his hand. Speaking of his deputy, he's a more memorable character, despite not having as much screentime, mainly because he's played by the always entertaining Clint Howard. His most memorable scene is when he's interrogating Matt, obviously not believing his story and is very sarcastic about it. When he questions why the Humanoids didn't hurt Matt (which is actually never explained), he asks, "Did you know these monsters?" And when Matt tries to warn him that they're going to kill again, he comments, "Oh, so they shared with you their intent to kill again?" It's not much but Howard makes it work. He's also the one who reports something strange happening near this manhole in town, leading to him and Barnes investigating it. The deputy isn't seen again in any major capacity after he and Barnes get attacked (save for when he momentarily arrests Bill and his guys), but Barnes himself latter attempts to cooperate with Major Knapp and the military, only to be disgusted when he sees how much the guy really doesn't care.

One last noteworthy character is Duffy (Bert Remsen), this old, hard-of-hearing, senile coroner who Wade, at one point, says, "Wouldn't know shit if it fell on him." His bad hearing tends to really annoy people, and he leaves his hearing aids off when he's by himself in order to save the batteries. He also momentarily forgets what he's supposed to be doing in the scene where he compares the bite marks on Timmy, the little boy who's killed by the Humanoids, with those that the shark left on Wade's side. However, when he does so, he proves to be smarter than the others give him credit for, as he determines that it wasn't the "shark" that attacked Wade (he just doesn't adequately explain the full meaning behind his findings to Wade and Sheriff Barnes). And he also later determines that the deaths couldn't be the work of just one creature.

Unlike the original Humanoids from the Deep, the remake has, so far, not gotten another home media release since it was put out on DVD back in 2003. Thus, the picture quality, while above VHS-level, still isn't great and, like a lot of low budget movies from around that time that haven't been upgraded to HD, there are a lot of moments in certain prints where it's so dark that it can be hard to tell what's going on (I managed to find a rip of it that didn't have that problem for these screenshots). It doesn't suffer from the original's choppy editing, which would've made it

virtually unwatchable, but it does have some cheesy moments, like some attack scenes done in slow-motion, while another is played out with the action suddenly getting really fast, which looks really silly. (Also, I don't think it was necessary to cut to brief flashes of Wade remembering getting attacked by the shark when he's first at the morgue, given how superfluous that subplot proves to be.) But, that said, while not a marvel of technical filmmaking by any means, I do like how there's a lot of blue lighting used

in the many nighttime and darkly lit scenes, and the scene inside the funhouse during the third act is memorable thanks to the flashing lights and the use of both blue and red. And during a moment where Matt finds the body of one of his friends on the beach and Wade, fearing it may be Kim, runs over, it makes good use of a Steadicam to simulate his frantic point-of-view.

I won't lie, the setting for this film, which was shot around Malibu, is a little more appealing to me personally than the Northern California locations of the original. The lovely blue water of the harbor and the open ocean, the sandy beaches and rocky coves, and the suburban neighborhood of Harbor Shores are more my kind of setting, although there are places that hearken back to the original, specifically Matt's cabin out in the woods, which is reminiscent of where Jim Hill lived with his family, as well as Johnny Eagle's home, and the local bar where a number of

scenes are set. We also get a little more action out on the ocean, even if it's not much to write home about, and that goes double for the scene at the salmon festival, since most of that is taken from the original film. The only new additions to the latter are some shots with a Ferris wheel and other rides in the background, a spot where people go out on little motorized boats, and the funhouse, which is not that impressive in and of itself, save for some distorting mirrors and some fake scare gags here and there,

along with the colored lighting. Similarly, the scene with one of the Humanoids attacking in the sewer tunnels isn't that impressive, nor is their lair, which is just an underwater cavern with a large air pocket where the women are kept in a slimy cocoon. The lack of any mind-blowing production design or location shooting, as well as any truly noteworthy action sequences (as we'll get into presently, they're quite ho-hum), isn't surprising, though, given how low the budget was, $1 million less than the already cheap original.

Like the Showtime remake of Piranha the previous year, this film makes extensive use of footage from the original Humanoids from the Deep to keep costs down. These include shots from the creatures' underwater POVs; the one getting caught in the net and pulling the young boy down to his death at the beginning; the fishing boat blowing up, this time used for when the Canco boat explodes; Johnny Eagle's house getting blown up, which is now meant to be Matt's cabin (with a stick of dynamite rather than one Molotov cocktail); the entire scene where the Hills'

dog, Baron, wanders into the woods and is killed, which is now meant to be Bill and Fran's dog, Buster; and much of the Humanoids attacking the Riverborough Salmon Festival, as well as the establishing shots of the festival beforehand. A dead giveaway that you're watching footage from the older movie is the design of the Humanoids, especially from the front. And speaking of the original, in an early scene where Wade is lying on the couch when Kim walks in, if you listen to the audio from the offscreen TV, you can tell that's what he was watching (I only realized this because I recognized the audio of that fight scene outside the dance hall).

While Piranha '95 was basically a scene-for-scene copy of the original 1978 film (albeit with all of the tongue-in-cheek humor removed), Humanoids from the Deep '96 is more the type of remake that takes the original's basic story but switches things around to make for a somewhat different viewing experience. Besides the general setting, an early attack scene involving a young boy dying, a boat exploding out on the ocean, a local festival being the setting for a third-act action sequence, and the movie ending with someone giving birth to a Humanoid offspring, it also

has the subplot of a human antagonist targeting another character who lives in an isolated home that gets blown up. Though the harassment isn't partially motivated by racism this time around, it is still connected to the Canco company and their practices. Speaking of Canco, an interesting twist in the story is that the company is already established in the town and our main protagonist works for them. And while the original definitely had an environmentalist aspect to it, it's much more overt here, with the people protesting outside the factory, and the company doing something that's not only flat-out illegal but which exacerbates the issue with the Humanoids.

The biggest change between films has to do with the nature of the Humanoids themselves. Rather than being created by Canco experimenting with synthetic hormones, they're the result of a military experiment to create an amphibious super-solider. They took five death-row inmates and injected them with a genetic code that was an amalgamation of the DNA from various types of fish. But when they became these monsters and proved uncontrollable, the military, under Major Knapp's supervision, attempted to destroy them, only for them to escape into the sewer system and make their way out into the open ocean. Although they should've died out, it happens that Canco's dumping of the Synestin hormone enabled them to survive. Like in the original film, Dr. Drake, this time a scientist who previously worked with the military, who conducted this experiment that she came up with without her consent, is trying to find proof of their existence in order to stop them. Also like in the original, the Humanoids kill all the men they come across but abduct the women, taking them back to their lair and sticking them inside a massive cocoon so they can later mate with them. Fortunately, you don't get any graphic monster-on-human rape scenes here, although you still see the gruesome birth of one of the creatures around the 50-minute mark. These Humanoids prove to be much tougher to kill than the originals, as they have thick skin that's impervious to bullets, with fire being the only thing that can put them down. They're also ridiculously strong, as they're able to shake a good sized boat simply by smacking it on the sides, and in one scene, one of them down in the sewer is able to shake the street up above hard enough to make the deputy think it's a small earthquake. And in one scene, one of them deploys a long, phallic tube out of his mouth that grabs Dr. Drake by the face and pulls her into the water.

You don't get that many clear looks at the new Humanoids, as they're almost always shrouded in darkness when they're onscreen, but when you do, you see that they're basically the same sort of webbed-handed and -footed, sharp-toothed fish-men, with even the big, brain-like craniums making a return. The biggest differences are that the faces are more fish-like, with pronounced movement, and they have big fins on their backs, rather than rows of spines. Their vocalizations are much deeper and more guttural than the high-pitched shrieks of the originals,

kind of sounding the voice work of Ted Cassidy.. Overall, I don't think they look that bad, and they don't seem to have the long, floppy arms that the one suit from the first one did, but given the limits of the budget, the filmmakers probably had good reason for not showing them too much. Unfortunately, the offspring that bursts out of the one woman's stomach in the bar manages to look even goofier than the already rubbery hand-puppet used in the original's finale. And also like the original, there's plenty of

gore to be found here. A soldier's head gets ripped off within the first three minutes, and that's followed by other lovely sights like the mangled remains of the little boy named Timmy, as well as Bill and Fran's dog and someone at the festival later on, a Canco employee getting clawed up, another guy getting his left leg ripped off, the Humanoid offspring gruesomely bursting out of Timmy's mother, one of Matt's friends being found with her stomach burst open, and Bill accidentally shooting up one of his friends while trying to save him from a Humanoid, among others.

The movie's opening seems to be trying to bring to mind the Velociraptor in the crate at the beginning of Jurassic Park, as the first thing you see when it starts up is a shot from one of the Humanoid's POV inside a containment chamber, as he looks at the armed soldiers standing across from him through an opening. As water inside the chamber is drained out through a faucet in the front, Major Knapp has them open fire on it with assault rifles, which they do continuously for just under twenty seconds. Hearing

that the creatures are still alive inside, a pair of soldiers wielding flamethrowers are sent in and blast the square, igniting its front. Hearing a commotion that sounds like metal tearing, Knapp goes around the back and sees that the Humanoids have broken out of the containment. Then, hearing them growl behind him, he turns and sees an open manhole nearby. He has the other soldiers join him to investigate, with one getting right at the edge and pointing his rifle down into the darkness. A Humanoid grabs his arm and rifle and attempts to yank him down in there, as the others

try to pull him free of the monster's grasp. The Humanoid then grabs the soldier's helmeted head and the back and forth leads to his head getting torn clean off, much to the others' horror. As the rest of the opening credits play out, you hear the Humanoids growling in the darkness, followed by a shot of the ocean at the end of the drainage pipe.

When Kim is out with Matt at his cabin, they start making out and playing around by the shore of a small river, where a Humanoid is clearly watching them. However, they hear the creature splash around and snarl very loudly, and they're smart enough to stop making out on the grass, get inside Matt's car, and drive off to safety. The next day, a local captain, John, takes some tourists out fishing. One of the tourists, a young kid named Timmy, proves to be really impatient about it, but just when John tells him

that fishing requires patience, something gets snagged in their net. The two of them attempt to pull it in while, at the same time, the Humanoid that's caught in the net pulls against them, causing the net's rope that's tied to the mast to snap, knocking Timmy into the water. He surfaces and flails around, just as his mother realizes what's happened and runs to the bow. The Humanoid then grabs Timmy's leg and pulls him down into the depths, with blood bubbling to the surface. Panicked, his mother jumps down into the water after him, with John then tossing a life-saver down in there for her. However, she never comes back up, as the Humanoid pulls her down as well.

Shortly afterward, despite Wade's warning about it, Bill sends two Canco employees out into the ocean, their boat loaded with barrels of Synestin. Matt, Kim, and their environmentalist friends watch from nearby, videotaping the whole thing. Once they're out on the ocean, pouring the chemicals into the water, the two men get down and hide behind the barrels when they see the teens' boat approaching. As the boat passes by, one of the Matt's friends uses a bullhorn to warn them that they're being filmed and will be reported to the

authorities. They continue hiding until the boat speeds away, when their boat shakes upon being hit by a tremendous force. Wondering what they hit, one of them, Porter, goes down below and finds it filling with water very rapidly. Up on deck, his friend tries to start the engine, while Porter is attacked by a Humanoid that sneaked aboard, his blood spraying all over a nearby porthole. Hearing the commotion, the other man yells for Porter, and when he doesn't get an answer, he goes down below himself. There, he finds the walls sprayed with blood, along with Porter's

brutalized body, lying against the Synestin barrels. He hears the Humanoid growl, then turns and sees him. The shock of it causes him to drop his cigarette from out of his mouth, which ignites something (it's so dark, I can't tell if there was fuel leaking along with the water or what), causing the boat to immediately explode. The environmentalists see this from their own boat and immediately call the Coast Guard.

After Kim has an argument with her father about Matt when he forbids her to see him and she runs out of the house in retaliation, she joins Matt and his friends on the beach, where they're drinking beer and smoking some weed. When the others decide to strip off their clothes and go skinny-dipping, Kim surprises Matt by doing the same. Naturally, he chases after her, unaware that, at his house, Bill and his posse show up, tearing the place apart to find his videotape of the Synestin dumping. But, while they find the camera,

the actual tape is nowhere to be found. At the beach, everything is going fine, until Kim tells Matt to stop whatever he's doing to her under the water, as it hurts... only to then see that he's not close enough to her to be doing it. Immediately, her foot is grabbed and she's yanked underwater. She starts flailing in a panic, as does everyone else, while Matt watches in terror. He moves to help one of them, when she gets pulled under the water as well. Within seconds, he's the only one there, and sees one of the Humanoids peek his head above the surface and growl at him, before ducking back under. 

The following night, after Matt has been interrogated and then released, Wade rebuffs Bill's attempt to make him take the law into his own hands. He storms out of the bar and gets in his truck, while at that moment, a couple approaches the dock in a rowboat. Suddenly, the boat is violent shaken, sending the two of them into the water, and the man is promptly attacked. Hearing the commotion and seeing what's going on, Wade rushes out of the truck and onto the pier, as the couple swim for it. He manages to get the

woman out no problem, but when he pulls the man out, he sees that his left leg has been reduced to a bleeding stump. Both Wade and the woman see the Humanoid when he sticks his head out of the water, growls, and goes back down (this is the exact same footage from when Matt saw the monster, only reversed). Wade and the woman drag the man across the pier, while Bill and his boys decide to drive back out to Matt's cabin and take care of things themselves. Wade gets the couple over to their car and, seeing Bill driving off, and knowing where he's going, he has the

woman drive her husband to the hospital, while he gets in his truck and rushes after Bill. He and his posse arrive at Matt's cabin, move around to the front porch, and place a lit bundle of dynamite beneath it. Wade arrives and, despite their attempt to stop him, he runs to the porch. Seeing that he has no time to grab the dynamite and dispose of it, he bursts through the door, lunges for the defensive Matt, grabs him, and flings the two of them through the window, right before the cabin is destroyed in a massive explosion.

Next, the following night, when Bill's wife, Fran, lets their dog, Buster, outside because Bill himself is too lazy to do it, we get the recycled footage from the original when Buster encounters a Humanoid. This is followed by the sound of Fran screaming back at the house, but when Bill goes to check on her, he finds her in the bathroom, screaming over a spider. He refuses to do anything about it and walks back into the living room, while she kills the spider with the plunger. She then goes outside, looking for Buster, and walks out of her yard, calling and whistling for

him. There's one moment where the camera runs up behind her, seemingly meant to be a Humanoid's POV, but when she turns around, she sees nothing there. After a few seconds of her scanning the neighborhood, a Humanoid pops up behind her and she turns around and screams at the sight of him. Bill does hear her back at the house but, like before, he's too lazy to do anything, yelling, "Fran, pipe down!" In the main part of town, the deputy is walking back to his patrol car with a coffee, when there's a brief rumble that shakes loose a nearby manhole lid.

Walking over to it and peering down with his flashlight, he walks over to his patrol car and calls it in. He then hears one of the creatures growl within the manhole and requests some backup. Wade, Matt, Dr. Drake, and Duffy hear this over the latter's police-band radio at the morgue and, knowing what's going on, the first three rush out, Wade and Matt stopping at the former's house to load up with a speargun and gasoline. Meanwhile, the deputy is joined by Sheriff Barnes and they climb down the manhole and into the

sewer system to investigate. It doesn't take them long to find what they're looking for, as they're jumped from behind by a Humanoid, which knocks the deputy aside and attacks Barnes, scratching him up and nearly biting his entire hand off. The deputy fires on the monster but it has no effect, and once he's out of bullets, the monster charges at him. Before he can kill the deputy, the Humanoid is hit in the torso with a flaming spear, shot by Wade, and Matt douses him in gasoline, setting him completely on fire and

eventually killing him. Back at Bill's house, he finally goes looking for Fran when she doesn't return. At first annoyed, he grows concerned when he finds the shoal she was wearing discarded on the ground, and after a little more searching, he finds both the Humanoid's footprints and Buster's mangled remains.

After Dr. Drake reports the Humanoids' nature and origins to the press, and learns that the troops will be in town the next day, she joins Wade and Matt at the local bar. Suddenly, Timmy's mother from earlier walks in, soaking wet and in a daze, asking where her son is (sad to say but, the first time I watched this, I didn't remember her at all). Captain John happens to be there and he drops his mug of beer in shock at the sight of her. Wade then comes up and asks her who Timmy is, but just as she answers, she doubles over in pain and they clear a table and place her on top of it.

She begins to violently convulse (this is even more of a ripoff of the Chestburster than the original movie's final scene), when her stomach swells up, bursts through her dress, and a screeching, baby Humanoid rips through, sending blood everywhere. Wade runs to the bartender and has him give him his bat, but before he can kill the offspring, it jumps down onto the floor, speeds past the frightened patrons, and goes out the door, managing to escape. After the woman's body is taken away, they realize that the Humanoids' desire to

mate with human females could mean that Kim is still alive, which is followed by an immediate cut to the lair, where the women are being kept in a large cocoon. The next day, as Wade, Matt, and Drake search the coastline for any caves that might serve as the lair, there's a moment where one of the women there manages to free herself. She then goes to help someone else, only for a Humanoid to walk in behind her and smack her to the ground hard enough to kill her. (I'm not sure, but I think it's her body whom Matt finds washed up on the beach.)

Afterward, the group come up with the plan to try to tag one of the Humanoids and let him lead them back to the lair. Getting Bill and his guys out of jail, they load up a boat with barrels of Synestin and head out into the open ocean. They start pouring the hormone into the water, and it's not long before everything on deck begins shaking, presumably from the Humanoids beating on the side of the boat. The Humanoids then bang on it hard enough to cause one of Bill's men to lose his balance and fall overboard. As soon as he falls in, one of the Humanoids grabs

him, and Wade attempts to save him by throwing him a line, only for his brutalized body to bob up before being yanked back down. While everybody is processing this, the Humanoid shoots the long tube out of his mouth and it comes out of the water, attaches to Drake's face, and drags her overboard. With Wade's encouragement, Matt takes the opportunity to try to tag the creature, and when he grabs the handheld locator device, it seems to have worked. The signal on the screen swims crazily out in

front of the boat, then heads right for them. Both Wade and Bill point their weapons at the water, as Matt counts down to the moment where the "Humanoid" will reach them, only for it to turn out that he ended up tagging a dolphin. Naturally, Wade and Bill are pissed off at this, with Wade yelling, "That fuckin' thing doesn't work, man! Shit!" Afterward, as the three of them, along with Bill's remaining man, Travis, are grilled by Major Knapp back on land (shockingly, no one gets in trouble for breaking Bill and his guys out of jail in the first place), Drake is revealed to have now joined Kim and Fran in the Humanoids' lair. 

Next, upon realizing that the Riverborough Salmon Festival is in danger, and after we're treated to more stock footage from the original, the guys arrive there and attempt to do what they can, such as get those on the little boats out of the water. Meanwhile, a man is walking around with his little boy, asking what ride he wants to go on next, when they hear a Humanoid growling, followed by people running out of the funhouse; the kid excitedly says, "That one!" Hearing the screams, the guys run towards the funhouse and, once inside, split up into pairs: Wade and Matt, and

Bill and Travis. Outside, the Humanoids begin terrorizing the festival, while the four of them make their way through the funhouse. At one point, a guy in a monster mask jumps out at Wade and Matt, with Wade yanking the guy's mask off and yelling, "Get outta here!" They continue on, past a spot where a light is flashing very quickly, and come upon another brutalized victim. Elsewhere, after being startled by a fake skeleton, Bill and Travis head past it, only for a Humanoid to grab Travis ahead of Bill. He opens fire on the monster, but as he does, the Humanoid turns

around with Travis in his arms, causing Bill to accidentally shoot him in the head. The Humanoid drops Travis' body and comes at Bill, who quickly lights a small Molotov that Matt gave him earlier and throws it on the floor. The flames repel the Humanoid, as Wade and Matt come running. Matt, this time, manages to tag the creature right before he flees the scene, and the three of them run out of the funhouse to chase him down. Meanwhile, in the lair, Drake regains consciousness and, seeing and

awakening Kim, tells her that they can fight the Humanoids using fire. She tries to pull herself out of the cocoon enough to where Kim can reach a lighter in her pocket, and Kim does her best to stretch her arm towards her. Back up on the surface, Matt's tracker leads the guys to a cove with a sandy beach. Though it initially looks like a dead-end, Matt figures they may have actually found the lair.

Once Major Knapp and the troops are informed, they set explosives charges underwater, intending to destroy the lair and the Humanoids, not caring whether or not there are any survivors. For a second, it seems hopeless, but then, Wade and Matt spy the two divers who set the charges as they come ashore and leave their wet-suits and air tanks nearby. Exchanging glances, the two of them go for it, while down in the lair, Kim manages to get Drake's lighter and flick it on. At that moment, the Humanoids come for them and she flings the lighter down at the floor,

igniting the flammable liquid that's been dropping from the ceiling onto it (I have no clue what that stuff is and why it's flammable). With eight minutes until the explosives detonate, Wade and Matt slip on the wet-suits and prepare for the rescue. Bill causes a distraction by yelling at Knapp, allowing them to enter the water without being spotted. While the fire keeps the Humanoids back for the time being, Wade and Matt swim towards the underwater entrance (somehow, they know exactly where to go), past the explosives. They come ashore in the air pocket in the

cave just as the fire has died down enough to where the Humanoids are no longer afraid. Wade and Matt come rushing in and find Kim within a cocoon, when a Humanoid comes up behind them and sends Matt flying. Wade quickly shoots the monster with a flaming spear and Matt makes the flames more intense by spraying him with lighter fluid. Looking at his watch, he then tells them that they've only got 48 seconds left, and as the flaming Humanoid collapses to the ground, they remove Kim and the other women

from the cocoon. They quickly get into the water and swim for safety, just as the timer reaches zero and a huge explosion sends a geyser up into the air offshore. While the troops celebrate, the survivors surface nearby. Just as Knapp smugly goes to light a cigar, one last Humanoid lunges at him, pins him to the ground, and rips into him. The monster is promptly shot up and set aflame, and he stumbles and flails around in the shallows (he literally stops, drops, and rolls), before dying.

The women are examined at the hospital and they're all deemed not to be pregnant with any unwanted offspring. Matt tells Wade that he's going to date Kim whether he likes it or not, Bill promises Kim that he'll be there the next time she needs him, and Drake, after being gifted with a new cigarette lighter from Kim, leaves town. All seems well until, at the hospital, Dr. Sampson is told by a nurse that the lab made a mistake with one of the blood tests, namely Drake's. And at that very moment, a baby Humanoid starts to burst out of her stomach, while she's stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. 

While James Horner went on to become one of the greatest composers of all time following his early days with Roger Corman, the same can't quite be said for the remake's composer, Christopher Lennertz. Like Horner before him, this was early in Lennertz's career (he'd also scored Piranha '95), and while he has scored some fairly popular movies since then, like the first Alvin and the Chipmunks movie and Horrible Bosses, his filmography also includes stuff like Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Vampires Suck, Baywatch with Dwayne Johnson, and the 2021 Tom & Jerry movie, among others. Guy sure can pick 'em, can't he? In any case, his score for this film is decent enough, if rather generic, especially in how he scores the suspense and scare scenes, as well as the action scenes. There are a few instances where he uses this emotional piece of music, such as when Matt finds his friend's body on the shore, that I do kind of like the sound of but, otherwise, like the original's score, I don't have much to say about it. There are also some songs on the soundtrack that you hear in the bar and on people's vehicle radios, some of which are written and performed by The McCain Brothers, one of whom, Ben, is someone who Wikipedia and IMDB saw fit to give co-credit for the music, along with Lennertz. Not being a big music person, I don't know if The McCain Brothers are a big enough deal to warrant or not. You tell me. The only songs that I remember are this country sob song that Wade listens to on his truck radio when we first see him and Messed Up On The Inside by Willoughby, which plays in the bar and over the ending credits. It's a totally inappropriate tune to close this movie out with.

Humanoids from the Deep '96 is one of those movies that, while harmless at the end of the day, is just kind of there and doesn't have much to offer, especially for those who are fans of the original. While I can say that I find the characters to be more memorable than those in the original, especially the protagonist, and I do prefer the setting here, that, along with some okay creature designs, decent makeup effects and gore, and an okay music score, are about the only compliments I can give it. The characters aren't much to write home about, with Robert Carradine making for a bland lead, Justin Walker often being obnoxious as Matt, and the attempt to make the character of Bill Taylor a good guy after he's such an awful person beforehand being very ill-advised; the action sequences are "meh" and unimpressive due to the low budget; the movie is often padded out with footage from the original; and overall, it's a prime example of the generic type of creature features that proliferated the 90's, with none of the humor or exploitation elements that make so many people love the original. Unless you're a completionist or very curious, I wouldn't advise tracking this down, especially since there's not a really good version of it available at the moment.