stranded on this island "Humongous" may have had a cheesy name, but really, it was a good movie. Five kids on a yacht are cruisin' around when they pick up some guy stranded on his little boat. Then they crash on this island. It's a good storyline there, and could be scary, but the thing that really brought this film down was--as everyone knows--the lighting.
Humongous was made in 1981, released in 82, due to the switching of studios. It's the coming of those early 80's horror films, that usually deal with slashers. But humongous is a little different, not better, but different. It starts out in 1946, labor day weekend on an island of a rich man and his daughter, and a pack of dogs. Well, the daughter is raped by a drunk suitor and then is devoured by the dogs. Picks up in 1982, where a bunch of friends are spending a vacation. To make a long story short, the friends crash their boat on the island, where they are stalked by a humongous monster. (the son of the raped woman). It has some scares and cool camera angles, and neat music but the real trouble here is, it's too dark. I mean you can't see anything. We get a quick glance at the monster in the end. From the director of Prom Night (1980), a little something different. It was on cable HBO when most of us were kids. Cool poster too.
AND YET ANOTHER ONE! Oh! man how many of these were there???? Meaning the killer killing the teens in the woods. I swear I love 80's HORROR and some of the GREATEST flicks came from that decade,but also some of thee LAMEST! Like this pile of SPEW! First the plot! A bunch of teens become stranded on a island/woods and are chased by a deformed killer who worships his mother's corpse(Oh! That's a new one?!?) Not a honest moment of HORROR or SUSPENSE in this movie. If you like a SLASHER in the woods HORROR buy JUST BEFORE DAWN and SLEEP AWAY CAMP! Stay away from CRAPTURDGOUS! I'd rather watch SISTER ACT 3:LIKE MORE..NUN FOR ME PLEASE!
Anti-climatic... [brief plot synopsis] In 1948 a teenage girl is raped by her boyfriend, and in revenge is killed for the act. Years later after she gave birth to his bastard retarded son, she secludes herself on a desolate island to raise him. After she died he is left to defend for himself, not knowing how to take care of himself he preys on the islands animals and his own guard dogs for food. Late one Summer evening, a group of teens out for a summer boating ride breaks down aside the island, looking for help they stumble onto his territory, and just in time-- he is hungry and hunts the teens like they were wild animals for food.
[good things] First off, the movie's first kill was the bloodiest, a dog attack and pretty well done, in my opinion. I liked the setting. Of course, it being an 80's slasher flick it took a lot from movies like Friday The 13th. The movie was set in the middle of nowhere, it had a potentially menacing villain, beautiful heroine to be, a nice backstory, and a nice body count. I also liked the stalking nature of the killer, very similar to the P.O.V. shots in Friday The 13th. The movie was set over the course of a few days, and seemed to have nods to movies like Friday The 13th, Psycho and even Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie's killer was Garry Robbins, who played Saw Tooth on Wrong Turn.
[the bad] The movie was old, and I had a DVDr sourced from VHS. The movie was too dark at times to see anything. The killer went unseen because of this, the lighting in the movie also sucked. Directing was lack lustre' and the movie in general was very anti-climatic. So much could have been done with the ending, and it completely fell limp. The movie I saw lacked blood, the kills seemed to be cut out all together. The teens would see the killer, and it would cut to another scene and later on they would be found mutilated. That was one of my biggest complaints with the movie.
[final thoughts] In certain areas the movie was tense, it had a couple good scares, but all in all the movie was flat. The killer could have been so much meaner, and there could have been more blood. Some of the kills were pretty brutal, but let's thank the MPAA for the cuts. The movie seemed to have a lot taken from Friday The 13th Part 2. first off the concept for the killer; no father, retarded/deformed, killing people in mourning of his dead mother. Second, the killer had his dead mother displayed in his home for a memorial and third, in one scene one of the girls stumbles onto the memorial and acts like his mother to try and get away from him. There were a lot of other similarities, but these were the ones that seemed almost blatant to me. Finally, this movie is a good addition to any slasher collection, the movie stands neck to neck with slasher movies like Madman and The Final Terror, but lacks blood and it lacks the scares that movies like Friday The 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Burning gave us.
Beauty is in the eye.. Not all horror movies are classics, let's get that straight. But for those of you who appreciate monstrous killers, moody settings, and Janet Julian, Humongous is the flick for you. Yes it is typical of the genre. Idiot kids destroy thier boat, wash ashore on what they believe to be a deserted island, and run afoul of death. What seperates this movie from others of its ilk is the mood created by this film. Dark, well scored, and of decent acting, Humongous may be considered a hidden gem.
For the movie, not the tape Humongous is a likeable enough movie even with its flaws. For one; the actor playing Humongous is not that humongous, although this is not particularly noticeable except for one fight scene where the two guys fighting are not all that different in size, and one of them is supposed to be humongous. Let's not even talk about the obvious influence of 'Psycho' in this movie. Or even a scene right out of 'Friday the 13th, Part II'. I still found this to be an enjoyable romp when I saw it in the theatre when it was released. I wish I could say the same for the VHS tape, however, the transfer is horrible. Nighttime scenes are so dark that at times the screen is just black with only audio. Unfortunately, a lot of this movie takes place at night, making the tape unwatchable. It was not this way in the theatre. Some may like this movie; some may not; nobody will like this tape. Of note to those who care: the cute redhead sister in this movie is Janit Baldwin ('Ruby', 'Gator Bait').-Bob
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