30ml of Concentrated Invincibility

Title: Creature
Director: William Malone
Year: 1985

It is generally referred to as a big fat Alien ripoff, but after viewing 1985's Creature I have to agree to the letter of this sentiment, but not the spirit. It definitely is a BIG, FAT, AWESOME Alien ripoff. Of the glut of movies which would eventually try to claim this (non) distinction, Creature stacks up as the best, biggest-budget, most original Alien clone of the 80's.

There are a couple of things this movie has going for it: number one, it's real fucking weird. The atmosphere, the set design, the setting, the characters, all weird. Aesthetically, it has such an original feel to it, that I don't think I would have called it an Alien ripoff until after I watched the last 15 minutes. The sets are very well done. The costuming is pretty excellent as well, and the effects are standard 1980's eye-candy fare. There's nothing excessively amateurish about the production values on this movie, so the reason for people panning it so completely are a bit above my head. This isn't groundbreaking cinema, but it's good fun for fuck's sake.

Number two, this film has Klaus Kinski. Maybe he should be part of reason number one, but he makes the movie even fucking weirder. Because, his character is...weird. German and weird.
Good fun.

Number three, as is SOP for movies of this kind, Creature boasts its own incomprehensible alien life cycle, complete with mind-controlling parasites that turn its victims into sleep-walking zombie hybrid things. The parasites were cool looking, yes. The zombie makeup was awesome (the people would keep moving and attacking, even when severely wounded, making for some excellent gory makeup).

However, I think what dissappointed people so very much was the...uh...creature itself. It's kind of bad looking. But...on the upside, it has so little actual screen time, that you can't really see it anyway. And isn't that like Lovecraft's rule? Talk about the monster, describe it second or third hand, give us grisly glimpses of it, but never, ever under any circumstances actually show it because the illusion dies right there? Well...director William Malone doesn't precisely follow that rule, he does show the monster, but only for milliseconds or under extremely lowlit conditions. So, to me, Creature has so much going for it, I can't help but not slight the movie for this failing.

I haven't even gotten to the last big fat reason to love Creature: it is seriously fucking gory. Down to the last decapitation and exploding zombie head. Fucking gory. Way gorier than Alien. Way gorier than Aliens (not saying a lot), or Predator, or even Xtro--so if this film is just an Alien-wanna-be, it is one badass, blood-spurting, zombie-ridden, gung-ho wanna-be, and isn't that, after all, the best way to go?

My biggest complaint (as per usual) is the DVD. Totally pisspoor. This one is certainly transferred from video. The picture quality can be bad nearly to distraction at times. It seems like the picture only reaches passable quality at just the right moments, but most of the time it is pretty murky looking. Plus it's in fullscreen. It's not unwatchable though, and at a 3$ price tag, I guess you (sometimes) get what you pay for.

Watch anyway. At some point maybe Anchor Bay or someone will hit this shit and re-release it the way it deserves.

Title: Humanoids from the Deep
Director: Barbara Peters
Year: 1980

The real intellect behind this 1980's eco-mutant-sploitation flick was the great Roger Corman. His justification for the movie was doing an updated version of a 50's b-movie but showing everything you couldn't get away with in the 50's. And that means three things: breasts, gore, and mutant fishman rape.

In fact rumor has it that most of the shock and nude footage were shot after director Barbara Peters had completed her cut of the film. When she refused to shoot some of the more gratuitous stuff Corman wanted (i.e. naked chicks running around, copulation sequences, and gore scenes), he fired her and got an uncredited stand-in director to shoot the rest of the stuff. Arguably, without that extra stuff Humanoids wouldn't be the cult classic that it is.

While it does what it does with a pretty straight face, Humanoids is still a kick-ass, over-the-top, outrageous product of the 1980's. While incongruously plot-heavy and serious at times, it's still loaded with ridiculous moments, such as the bare-breasts cue that always signals a humanoid is about to pop out and try to mate with an unwilling female. Ah yes, did I mention that part of the movie's premise is that the titular monsters have a strong desire to copulate with the fairer of the Homo sapiens sexes? The gore sequences and humanoid attacks are done with such gleeful tastelessness and heavy doses of brutal camp that once you've seen the culminating festival scene, it's pretty hard not to love this movie.

The humanoids themselves, a horde of mutant salmon-men produced by genetically altering some such to benefit industry and the like, were designed and created by a young Rob Bottin (of The Thing, Robocop, Total Recall), so if you're a fan of his work, or a completist about that kind of stuff, you may be interested in seeing this for that reason. The creatures aren't necessarily the same quality of work as Bottin would achieve on John Carpenter's The Thing, but they are fun, and pretty neat-looking (considering he was like 16 or 17 when he worked on this flick). The gore effects are also nice when they occur, prompting the appropriate bellowing response from me during my first time through.

All in all, Humanoids is certainly not for everyone, and I think the closing scene (let's just say that sometimes a fish man sexual assault bears fruit) will probably turn a lot of people off, but for me, I loved every minute of this schlocky, blood-splattered, seaweed tangled classic.

The DVD is a boot (as I've mentioned before) of the European cut of Humanoids (known in Europe as Monster!). The picture quality is excellent, though my burn of it is skippy in spots, but nothing that really ruins the experience for me. The original US version was heavily cut (mostly prejudiced against the gore), and is out-of-print. If you find it it will probably run you upwards of 50$. Try tracking down a boot of the Euro cut for way cheaper and for more graphic decapitation.