1980: "Humanoids from the Deep"

                                Humanoids from the Deep is an 1980 monster movie, produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures, about a small California coastal town overrun by green "Black Lagoon" creatures who kill men and rape women so they can produce more "Black Lagoon" creatures.

                               Who doesn't love a Corman movie? Despite their low-budgets and their lurid, pulpy subject matter, his films managed to be fairly well-made B-movies. They walked the fine line between trash and sophistication. However, Humanoids from the Deep is not one of his strongest efforts.
                             Though it's meant to be an homage to camp creature films like The Horror of Party Beach, it feels too much like a pale Jaws rip-off, right down to the quaintly rustic Amity Beach-like fishing village. There are occasions of tongue-in-cheek humor but they are few and far between. The movie plays it straight for most of the running time and doesn't quite succeed in being as fun as it should be.
                             If there are positives, the gore effects are good; actually, they're quite disgusting. The climax at the carnival is fairly scary in a hectic sort of way. Vic Morrow was a very natural actor and he's good as the bigot character.

                          That's really about it. Not terrible, but minor.