Humongous (1982)

The monstrous offspring of a violent crime grows up in seclusion on a remote island, where a boat-full of hapless teens have shipwrecked, unaware of what's lurking in the woods.

Director:

Paul Lynch

Writer:

William Gray (screenplay)

Stars:

Janet Julian, David Wallace, John Wildman

Cast

Cast overview:
Janet Julian	...	Sandy Ralston
David Wallace	...	Eric Simmons
John Wildman	...	Nick Simmons
Janit Baldwin	...	Carla Simmons
Joy Boushel	...	Donna Blake
Layne Coleman	...	Bert Defoe (as Lane Coleman)
Shay Garner	...	Ida Parsons
Page Fletcher	...	Tom Rice
John McFadyen	...	Ed Parsons
Garry Robbins	...	Ida's Son
Mary Sullivan	...	Teenage Ida

Storyline

Woman is raped at cocktail party. Years later, her son grows up to be a big hairy murderous monster who stalks a group of teens shipwrecked on his island.

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Plot Keywords:

island | monster | cult film | blood | blood splatter | 

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Taglines:

It's loose... It's angry... And it's getting hungry!

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Genres:

Horror | Romance

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 June 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Ilha dos Cães

Filming Locations:

Georgetown, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

CAD 2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Humongous Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Released in Sweden as "Dog Island."

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Goofs

When the dog pen is shown with the skeletons of the dogs, while one skull does belong to a dog, the close up shows a skull of an herbivore like a deer.

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Quotes

Nick Simmons: You just blew it Donna! This was your last chance at this bed; an historic occasion.
Donna Blake: Yeah right, Nick. Everything with you is an historic occasion.
Nick Simmons: Well, maybe you'd have come. That would have been an historic occasion.

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Connections

Referenced in Sneak Previews: The Secret of NIMH/The Devil's Playground/Gregory's Girl/TRON (1982)

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Soundtracks

Magic to Me
Lyrics by Lisa J. Sweeting and John Mills-Cockell
Music by John Mills-Cockell
Performed by Dawn Aitken

User Reviews

Another Dark Transfer....

After the success of 1980's Prom Night, screenplay writer William Gray and director Paul Lynch teamed up once more to output another film in the genre, albeit lesser known, that could've counted as another hit for Canada if audiences could tell what was going on for more than 50% of it.

The film opens in 1946 at a cocktail party – Ida Parsons is chased into the woods and raped by a drunken patron. After the completion of this evil deed, the guard dogs on the premises break loose from their protective cages and savagely maul the perpetrator, allowing Ida to procure a sizable rock to smash his skull in with. Fast forward 36 years into the 1980's - three siblings and a couple of friends head out on a boat trip only to experience trouble later that evening when they rescue a stranded sailor who warns them about Dog Island – a reclusive locale that houses a lonely old woman and her dogs. While the night fog renders the coastline invisible and a disagreement between two of the siblings to complicate matters further, the ship runs aground and the troupe of younglings experience first-hard the terrors of Dog Island.

This early Slasher is plagued with various issues throughout the film's duration; quite possibly the most glaring would be the quality. The majority of the story takes place in the black of night and it's very difficult to make heads or tails of what's happening from scene to scene. This final film release is known as the American Embassy video and is not only a horrendously displayed transfer but a sizable chunk of the film's gratuity is trimmed out. There is a Canadian VHS release that's uncut and a more accurate representation of Lynch's lighting scheme for the majority of the film. As of November of 2010, fans are still waiting for an official DVD release of Humongous. For now, the best option available is to purchase it on DVD-R, (basically a VHS copy burned onto a disc) made available on the web.

For those who are aware of this film's existence, they fail to point out another obvious problem with the audio. During many sequences of dialog, as the actors and actresses perform their lines, one can't help but notice that their voices resonate as if they've rattled them off in a studio. Regardless of whether they are trotting outside or sitting in a room, the result is the same. The audio is extremely poor and this could be chalked up to the scrubs over at Embassy or Lynch and the gang failing miserably incorporating the over-dubbed dialog into the film. On account of American Embassy botching the VHS release so horrendously with the visual aspects of the film it wouldn't surprise me if the same could be said about the audio as well.

Well…now that all of the technicalities are out of the way, what should we expect from Humongous? A bit of sleaze, a bit of beer, and a giant deformed human wandering the woods of the island that has no qualms sending each character off to the Charon. There's over an hour of build-up with only two brief killings prior; we've witnessed plots dragged out numerous times from the Slasher vault so it's no longer a shock. Viewers will never truly get to see the face of the monster which could've existed as a highlight of the film. There are some fans who blame the VHS transfer and some that theorize that Lynch purposely executed this idea to compensate for a lousy special effects job. I consider Humongous a rare title that has its share of problems but if one has the patience to overlook them, he or she may be treated to a slightly entertaining film.