Remake

Humanoids From the Deep

Sometimes it’s nice to follow one movie with a similarly themed one. But, I asked, where on earth do you go after The Island of the Fishmen? How could I possibly follow up this Roger Corman distributed, low-budget thriller about an island plagued by half-men, half-fish creatures?

Well… how about a Roger Corman produced, low-budget thriller about a small town plagued by half-men, half-fish creatures? It’s time for Humanoids From the Deep! (1996 version)

Right from the start it’s pretty apparent that this is a (slightly) more upmarket affair: the opening credits feature soldiers, flamethrowers and guns! Humanoids From the Deep, for all it’s shlocky monster fun is a pretty neat little film, all told, and whilst it’s missing some of the too-crappy-to-be-believed charm of the Island of the Fishmen it’s definitely an entertaining film. A shady fishing company is dumping chemicals in the water, chemicals that might well be having a terrifying effect upon the local sealife. It’s paint-by-numbers monster horror in many respects but it’s none the worse for it.

I don’t really want to say too much about the plot, suffice to say that within the fishing company we have the necessary conscience-stricken good-guy and the profit-at-all-costs badguy, content to poison the water with unknown growth hormones. Of course, the situation comes to a bit of a head when Good-guy’s daughter goes missing (along with several local environmental protesters) and he starts to investigate. Before long, Government agencies have arrived, scary fishmen are grabbing people all over the place and all hell has broken loose. The film suffers from the occasional dull moment in it’s opening half but, from about 45 minutes in, it’s a rollercoaster of murder, mayhem and fish!

This is not the original Humanoids of the Deep (1980, IMDB page here) but rather the 1996 remake. This new version is, by all accounts, less sleazy and less splattery. While that might be a shame, as I haven’t seen the original I am in no position to judge this one in relation to it. I know for sure that this is an awful lot of fun and, thankfully, doesn’t take itself too seriously at all. If the original’s even better… well, I’d better watch that one too!

Let Me In // Let The Right One In

This is just a short and grumpy post.

Let Me In. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that it’s the forthcoming remake of 2008’s (?) Let The Right One In, a Swedish film that is easily one of the best horror productions of recent years (maybe even the decade?) and an antidote to the sparkly fang-less prancing of the Twilight saga.

Matt Reeves, the director of the remake is reported in Empire as saying that he simply can’t understand the furore around the remake, claiming it should be normal as Hollywood has been churning out remakes for years. Quite apart from the fact that the “it’s happened lots of times before” argument is a completely pathetic method of avoiding the point entirely, he has also chosen to ignore that the remake culture he refers to is usually concerned with remaking films that are twenty or so years old. Not two.

As an example, the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, although completely unnecessary, is clearly catering to an entirely new audience, a younger generation who haven’t seen the original but are (perhaps unwittingly) just waiting to be shepherded in to the world of gory horror flicks.

Let Me In, however, is surely only really being made to cater to those who are too damn lazy to read subtitles. The recent Spanish zombie masterpiece [Rec] was given the same treatment and turned into Quarantine, a move almost universally condemned, and I really struggle to see how the situation will be any different here.

For anyone who’s read the (fantastic) original novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, there is perhaps a glimmer of hope that they’ll go back to the text and pick out some of the interesting sub-plots that were stripped in the first transition from page to screen. This is surely the only thing which could justify a re-make. It is, however, pretty unlikely as Lindqvist wrote the screenplay for the original and hasn’t touched the new version (as far as I can see, anyway)

So, it’s fingers crossed hoping for increased faithfulness to the text, but I’m afraid I’m entirely sceptical. I’ll still watch it, but it’ll have to work twice as hard to convince me that it’s a worthwhile film.

Trailer for the original:

Poster Hunt #5 - The Erotic Adventures of Zorro

What with November being quite busy and the poster for The Killer Shrews being quite so fab, Poster Hunt got left somewhat by the wayside this month.

Still, just over half-way through, the showcase of fabulous and/or strange posters returns with the Erotic Adventures of Zorro. How classy.