Humanoids From The Deep

We're tossed into Humanoids From The Deep pretty quickly. We start off being introduced to the town of Noyo, a fishing community with a society that's becoming stressed now that a large-scale industrial fishing cannery (which the filmmakers creatively named Can-co.) is trying to move in.

The fishing's not so good anymore anyway, so much of the town is happy to see the new job opportunities come, but others (particularly the Native American population) aren't so happy about it.

The racist townsfolk squabble about their differences for a while, and then go their separate ways. We go along with one of the fisherman, who promptly nets a Humanoid accidentally. Thanks to that, his kid is pulled underwater and killed.

At first we're only shown a single webbed hand, but pretty soon we find out what they look like and it's hilarious.


Apparently the Humanoids are a cross between The Creature From the Black Lagoon and a Hobgoblin.

Soon after the boat scene, we're in someone's home when suddenly the dog senses something outside (as does a toddler somehow). The dog is let outside to explore. Soon enough, the dog finds a Humanoid and tears it to pieces.

Or something like that.

In the next scene we find out that the Humanoids just went ahead and got rid of nearly all the dogs in the town; they're littered all over the pier.

By this point the movie's made us well aware that it's not holding anything back. We've already broken horror-conventions and killed both a young child and a bunch of dogs... both ridiculously, and both while we're only about 10 minutes into the movie.

Most of the next 30 minutes are about the arguments the townsfolk have over Can-co. There's also a barn-dance of some sort where white people dance poorly, get drunk, and then beat up a minority. There are also a couple more kill scenes, the best of which starts off with a great lesson in how to seduce a woman in well under a minute. Can you guess what the trick to it is?

A few bad puns and she was like naked putty in his hands.

At about the 50 minute mark we get a scientist (Ann Turkel) who comes in to explain all the crazy stuff we've seen thus far using some of the most absurd movie-science I've heard since Plankton. First of all we learn that Can-co has created something called DNA-5. This is an agent that causes very rapid growth in frogs and fish. Apparently 3000 of the DNA-5 animals were accidentally released when their upstream facility was damaged. This brings her to the obvious conclusion that the monsters must be Coelacanths (see'-lah-kanths') who assimilated the DNA-5 and were then rapidly evolved to the point that they became humanoid and could wander around on land.

Unfortunately for the humans already living on land, these are some very horny coelacanths and they intend to mate with human women (hilariously) to try to evolve their species even further.


Unfortunately for the marine biologist explaining all of this, she can't pronounce Coelacanth. Everyone in the movie calls it Ko-ahl'-ah-kanth'.

Pictured: Koalacanth (artist's rendering)

After all the explanations are given, they suddenly remember that there's a big festival going on in town and everyone's probably going to be attacked there, so they rush back to town as well. As it turns out, that's exactly what's happening.

The Humanoids slowly stomp around town looking ridiculous, people run, and then someone has the bright idea to squirt gas into the bay and then light the water on fire. They ride around in a boat pouring gas into the water until they've emptied their tank, then they come to a stop.

At this point, one of the creatures actually happens to be set on fire and rolled into the water, but of course this has no effect.


Immediately after that though, the woman on the boat decides that now is the time for the water to magically burst into flames, so she shoots it and it does.


Don't ask me what effect this is supposed to have on the Humanoids, considering they're mostly on land at the moment, but somehow this alone is enough to almost completely defeat them. Whatever Humanoids weren't killed in the magic fire are killed in the next scene in their final attack on a house.

Right as we're wrapping up those last surprisingly gory scenes comprising the final Human Vs. Humanoid showdown, the movie fades to black... and then fades back in and treats us to one final bit of ridiculous gore.

The one downside to all of this is that the DVD is out of print. While you can still find it online on Amazon and Ebay I didn't see it any cheaper than about $40/$100 USD (Used/New). Needless to say, if you find a copy for cheaper, you should definitely grab it and settle in for a night of fish-sex themed horror/comedy.

Available on Amazon: Humanoids From the Deep