Humanoids from the Deep (released as Monster in Europe and Japan) is a 1980 American science fiction horror film starring Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow.
Roger Corman served as the film's uncredited executive producer, and his company, New World Pictures, distributed it.
Another angler prepares a flare gun, but he slips and accidentally fires it into the deck, which is soaked with gasoline dropped earlier by the boy.
Later, Jim and Carol's dog goes missing and the pair finds its dismembered corpse on the nearby beach.
More attacks follow; not all of them successful, but few witnesses survive to tell the public about the incidents; only Peggy is found alive, though severely traumatized.
The murderous, sex-hungry mutations are apparently the result of Canco's experiments with a growth hormone they had earlier administered to salmon.
The salmon escaped from Canco's laboratory into the ocean during a storm and were eaten by large fish that then mutated into the brutal, depraved humanoids that have begun to terrorize the village.
By the time Jim and Canco scientist Dr. Susan Drake have deduced what is occurring, the village's annual festival has begun.
The idea was to update old monster movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon to reflect modern day concerns like pollution.
"[5] Executive producer Corman said Peeters' version of the film lacked the required exploitative elements needed to satisfy its intended audience.
According to a journalist from the Los Angeles Times who attended the screening: I looked at the faces of the women crew-members.
She also unsuccessfully petitioned the Screen Actors Guild to halt the film's release, on the grounds that it bore no resemblance to the motion picture she was hired to make.
The Los Angeles Times praised "Peeters' real flair for capturing small town folk without condescension" and the "interesting, stylised, liquid cinematography" but called the movie "a mangled monster horror" with "no consistency of tone.
"[14] Paul Taylor said in Time Out, "Despite the sex of the director, a more blatant endorsement of exploitation cinema's current anti-women slant would be hard to find; Peeters also lies on the gore pretty thick amid the usual visceral drive-in hooks and rip-offs from genre hits; and with the humor of an offering like Piranha entirely absent, this turns out to be a nasty piece of work all round".
Hardy continued, "As weighed down as it is with solemn musings about ecology and dispossessed Indians, it looks as if it had always been a hopeless case".
[9] Nathaniel Thompson said on his Mondo Digital website, "Director Peeters claimed that Roger Corman added some of the more explicit shots of slimy nudity at the last minute to give the film some extra kick, but frankly, the movie needed it.
[17] In his Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, Michael Weldon said, "Many were offended by the rape aspect of this fast-paced thriller featuring lots of Creature from the Black Lagoon-inspired monsters.
It starred Robert Carradine, Emma Samms, Justin Walker, Mark Rolston, Danielle Weeks and Clint Howard.