Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] Exploitation Creature Feature ‘Humanoids from the Deep’
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. From grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
The major success of Jaws inspired a bunch of low budget B-movies in its wake, many from legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman. Right on the heels of 1978’s Piranha came the much sleazier, gorier Monster, aka Humanoids from the Deep. Both released under Corman’s company New World Pictures. Humanoids from the Deep took a kitchen sink approach to its plot; from creature feature to eco horror to even social politics, there’s a little bit of everything and a collage of overt influences worn on its sleeve. At the forefront of it all, though, is exploitation.
For the fishing village of Noyo, California, the salmon seem to be disappearing from the waters at a rapid rate, just before the town’s annual festival. It places a severe economic burden on the fishermen, and creates mounting tension between them and the Native American community. Tensions are heightened even further with the arrival of a canning corporation. Enter a scientist on behalf of the corporation who promises to replenish low stock with genetically engineered salmon. Much of which includes frog DNA, because reasons. Thus, Noyo quickly becomes inundated with slimy aquatic humanoids who slaughter anything in their path save for women. These humanoids were engineered with an insatiable need to reproduce, thus all women they come across are raped. Or at least that’s the goal.
Corman is a savvy businessman above all, and with now over 400 movies under his belt, he has a formula for creating successful projects. When it comes to horror, he’s pretty easygoing with plot and gives his directors a lot of freedom – as long as the movies contain a certain amount of nudity and gore. When Corman hired director Barbara Peeters to helm the feature, his main directive was that these monsters slaughter all the men and rape all the women. She delivered on the kills, but she was more tasteful in her filming of the rape scenes. They were handled usually via cutaways or hidden in shadows. Corman tapped second unit director James Sbardellati to redo those scenes, making them much more lurid and explicit. Peeters apparently wasn’t even aware of these reshoots until the movie’s release.
As for the humanoid creatures, they were designed and created by Rob Bottin. While they’re pretty much just men in rubber suits (Bottin himself played one of them), the design is still pretty cool for such a low budget feature and it’s easy to see why he started to gain traction at this point. Bottin was fresh off The Fog when he landed Humanoids, and the following year he would capture major attention with his work on The Howling. All of which he accomplished in his early 20s, no less.
For a pretty straightforward creature feature chock a block full of exploitative gore and nudity, there’s a lot going on in Humanoids from the Deep. Perhaps too much. Some of the subplots feel sloppy, but then, that’s not really why people push play on this one. The deaths are often bloody and the creatures themselves are memorable; Corman’s exploitation blueprint often achieved the effect he wanted and appeased his fanbase. And the controversy of the behind the scenes directorial and reshoot changes also gave this one a level of notoriety.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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