Reviews & Ratings for
Humongous More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 5:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Index

50 reviews in total

---

13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
One of the better slashers of the 1980s, 5 June 2003

Author: Bryce David

This Canadian slasher is definitely one of the better slashers of the 1980s and is unjustifiably panned by everyone. When HUMONGOUS was released the biggest criticism against it was how predictable or derivative it was and it was dismissed as being just another slasher. Yes, there's a very familiar feel to the story-line but most slashers are basically the same movie done over and over again so I don't see this necessarily as a bad thing. But the fact is HUMONGOUS actually tries to be different and in some ways, it succeeds in being different. HUMONGOUS is more the unofficial companion and has more in common to that other Canadian horror film, RITUALS, than to HALLOWEEN or FRIDAY THE 13Th. Both HUMONGOUS and RITUALS have almost the same kind of deformed killer who lives in the backwoods. The killer remains unseen until the very end. And there's an obvious Canadian feel to both films.

The beginning of HUMONGOUS is brutal and sets up the familiar story-line of a gruesome incident which happened in the past that will affect a subsequent generation. In this case, the film starts in the 1940s. After a woman from a rich family is raped, she decides to live in seclusion on an isolated island where she gives birth to a deformed kid. Flash forward 40 years and we see a bunch of horny young adults who were vacationing on another island and as they're heading back to the mainland on their boat they crash on the island where the woman lived after one of the passengers, Nick the hotheaded brother, takes control of the boat and rams it into rocky shore. Everyone leaves the burning boat and they all have to go to the island and the rest of the story is basically about the group surviving on the spooky island where there's a monster killing them one by one.

The atmosphere is very good and the cinematography is actually good too. Some interesting camera positions. But like many have mentioned already, many scenes during the night are EXTREMELY dark and it's difficult at times to know exactly what's going on. I set up my TV's brightness level to the max and the image was improved greatly but there were still some moments were I didn't see anything at all. As annoying as the dark scenes were, I believe this was done deliberately, not because the film is a low budget movie and they couldn't afford lighting but because that's what the director wanted. The darkness was at times carried to an extreme which can only be attributed to a director's decision and not some low production value. With that said, I personally find it fascinating that so much happens in the dark. The darkness is stylised. Notice when the monster crashes through the door or when the boathouse catches fire, how the brightness of those scenes create a shock. I think the director wanted to shock people with light by having most of the action happen in so much darkness. In a movie theater, after watching scenes that happen mostly in the dark, a quick shot of a bright image creates tension and actually hurts the eyes. It's like when you wake up in the morning and how the bright lights outside the windows hurt your eyes. Well, that's what Paul Lynch tried to recreate here by having so much of the action take place in near total darkness. The monster's appearances during those brief scenes of brightness must have been startling in a dark theater.

The acting is mostly serviceable but the last three survivors, Janit Baldwin (the girl with the glasses), David Wallace (the blond guy) and Janet Julian (the last girl) are much better than your average slasher actor. The gore is limited and in a way it's unfortunate. I'm not a gorehound but I thought the film needed a bit more blood to be that much more creepy. The biggest weakness of HUMONGOUS (aside from the extreme darkness) is the score. There's almost no music. When the film starts getting scary it's no coincidence that it coincides with the moment when the score finally makes its presence felt. The jazzy music during the opening and closing credits didn't belong in this kind of film though. And the story itself is actually interesting and there's an underlying lurid aspect about it that's fascinating. Dogs are a major part of the underlying story and something tells me they have more to do than meets the eye.

Anyway, I personally like HUMONGOUS. The poster is cool and I really like the title. It's definitely way better than Lynch's other horror film, the uber tacky PROM NIGHT, and a good portion of other slashers made in the same period and those made today, like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, which was obviously inspired by this film.

---

8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A notch above the usual slasher., 12 January 2004

Author: gridoon

Most of the reviews would have you believe that this is completely terrible, but actually it's not such a bad effort. It's predictable, to be sure, but directed with more skill than you'd expect, with a score that reminded me (in a good way) of Italian horror movies of the period, and a cute, fairly smart heroine in Janet Julian. Reports of it being "too dark" are true to a degree, but greatly exaggerated; have you seen the much better-known "Hell Night"? (**)

---

10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Great film, sadly very underrated, 8 March 2006

Author: Tikkin from United Kingdom

It's so sad seeing how much stick this film gets when it doesn't deserve it. People complain that there's not enough lighting and you can't see the monster half of the time...when in fact the film was intentionally made that way. I watched Humongous recently and it is already one of my favourite horror films. The reason you don't see much of the monster is because if you did, it would take away the sense of mystery surrounding it. We actually only get to see the monster fully after his face has been disfigured from fire, which I think is quite clever. There's enough silly monster films out there of men wearing masks, so we don't exactly need another one!

The story starts off very well with the rape scene, and then the title screen with photographs in the background. I think it's great how they use photographs of the woman to explain her back-story rather than flashbacks as most films do. The photograph of her with blank eyes and a scar on her face after the rape tells more than any flashback ever could. Next thing we know, it's 36 years later and a group of good-looking teenagers crash their boat on the island where the woman once lived. We find out that she got pregnant after the rape and gave birth to a deformed son. The son has become a wild monster, having been shut off from civilisation on the island. The monster stalks the stranded teenagers and slowly kills them off.

There are some amazingly tense moments such as when the girl is pretending to be the monsters mother, you can see her hand shaking from fear. And also when one of the guys looks through a keyhole and sees the monsters eye peering back at him. The story of the woman and her anguish from giving birth to her deformed son is very well explored - one of the girls finds the woman's diary which is how she knows how to calm him down. When the 'monster' is finally killed, the grunts and noises he makes are very realistic and emotional, and you know that he doesn't want to die. This scene made me feel rather sad. You can also tell that the girl is upset by the fact that she had to kill him.

I can't believe that no one is giving Humongous the credit it deserves, this is one of the better horror films I have seen recently, and I've seen loads! Most films rely on special effects, cheese or gore to make them good, but Humongous relies on mood and atmosphere. That's not to say that it doesn't have any gore, but it's not exactly a gore-fest. If you're a horror fan I strongly urge you to see Humongous and draw your own conclusions, don't dismiss it because of other peoples comments, for it is a great film.

---

7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Underrated slasher, 4 March 2006

Author: Andrew Taylor from Calgary, AB, Canada

I very much enjoyed Humongous. Yes, it's dark, yes, it's slow, but it's honest. The story is unlikely but plausible. The acting is sufficient to convey the story, and even good by Janet Julian. I immediately contrasted it with Last House on the Left... gritty and plausible, good stuff done by talented amateurs. It is best seen on a TV/monitor with the brightness turned way up.

It is easy to overlook slasher horror of that period due to production quality or unknown performers, but, the early 80s was a boom time with VHS/beta reaching market and semi-professional gear coming to market. With the advances came a greater variety of scripts and interpretation, tho perhaps without the backing of large studios or with less finesse. Don't be so shallow as to overlook them, for they seem to have had quite an influence on the diversity of fringe cinema today.

Give humongous a go if you're a fan of the genre.

---

8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Second slasher effort from Paul PROM NIGHT Lynch., 22 June 2002
Author: RareSlashersReviewed from London

Second slasher effort from Paul Lynch. HUMONGOUS pits a group of stereotypical early eighties youngsters against a demented hermit on a remote island. So far so good...

A group of fun loving teens head out on a luxury vacation aboard a large boat. Eric (David Wallace), Nick (John Wildman), Donna (Joy Boushel), Carla (Janit Baldwin), and Sandy (Janet Julian) are in deep, dangerous waters when they come across Bert (Lane Coleman) stranded on a lifeboat. They let him climb aboard before the six of them continue on their doomed excursion. As the warm summer's day gives way to a foggy night sky, the overly cocky Nick looses control of the boat and it crashes into some hidden rocks. Just after they all manage to jump into the safety of the cool water, the ship bursts into a ball of flames and disappears into the depths of the ferocious sea. The group manage to swim to a nearby rocky shore, where the screams that pierce the haunting night sky make it sound like it's inhabited by a pack of wild dogs. Bert knows of the stories of Idah Parsons, a lonesome woman who lives all by herself on the island and keeps the animals for protection. They hope that maybe she can call for help. When Nick goes looking for her and doesn't return, the gang begin to realise that there is something far more sinister than a group of mutts or an elderly lady lurking in the dense forest that surrounds them...

As where PROM NIGHT owed more than a touch of inspiration to HALLOWEEN, Lynch's second effort looks as if it's more influenced by backwoods slashers such as THE BURNING or FRIDAY THE 13th. In one scene Sandy dresses as the killer's mother to try and trick him into thinking it's really her. I had to check the cover to make sure I was watching Steve Miner's second edition to the FRIDAY series! But as I've said before 'pinching from your peers' is a common practice in slasher cinema, so this didn't particularly surprise me! To be honest there's loads to recommend about HUMONGOUS. For a start there's some genuinely fine acting on display. David Wallace who plays the heroic Eric is brilliant and so was his leading lady Janet Julian. Director Lynch keeps things smooth throughout and adds some interesting ideas of his own. One bit that immediately caught my attention was when John Wildman was searching the boathouse for some help. He hears strange grunts coming from the other side of the gate and moves closer to see if he can see what's making the noise. He finds a hole big enough to look through and moves his eye up to it to see what he can spot. He jumps back in shock, when he sees a grotesque eye looking through the same hole back again! It's the little touches like that , which can make a movie all the more memorable. The butcher himself is pretty darn creepy too. He's your typical backwoods psycho, in the tradition of Jason, Marz and Cropsy! Big, mean deformed, surly and nasty! He also possesses super human strength and lets just say you wouldn't like to meet him on your way home late at night! He makes his presence known pretty early on in the runtime and he doesn't stay far out of sight for long ever after! So with all that HUMONGOUS has going for it how could it possibly ever fail?

Well...there's a terrible lack of lighting in the night scenes. Some of the best moments of the film can barely be seen because it's just too dark! We only get to see the killer's face for a couple of seconds tops, all the other shots either have him surrounded by silhouette or it's just too poorly lit to get a good view! You may think that this is only a minor set back and I'm over reacting, but when you've watched through the best part of the feature in broad daylight and built yourself up for the 'final showdown' so to speak, it pretty much spoils it when you can barely see a damn thing that's going on! I'd have thought that a director as experienced as this would've been able to handle a problem like that with ease. But that inconsistency alone prevents this flick from ever touching true greatness. As it stands it's not rubbish, but still, with a little more care with the lighting this could've been a classic.

In the odd small way, this manages to even outshine the director's previous effort. It's far more brutal with a stronger emphasis on horror. But due to that aforementioned flaw PROM NIGHT remains the best of Lynch's slasher work. That said though it's still worth watching for the superb cast and some exciting sequences. But be warned...bring your night vision goggles!

---

5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
a killer on an island; dark scenes at night; not bad, but definitely derivative, 26 February 2005

Author: FieCrier from Upstate New York

In 1946, a woman is raped during a party on her father's island. Her dogs come to the rescue, viciously attacking her attacker.

More than thirty years later, two brothers, their sister, and their two girlfriends go out on their large boat on a large lake. One of the brothers is a rather disturbed individual, who fires a gun he has nearly pointed at his brother at point-blank range, among other things. They have some trouble navigating the boat at night, and come across someone stranded in his boat. They bring him aboard, and he's grateful. He tells them about the island they are near, where a crazy old lady lives with lots of dogs.

The psycho brother decides he wants to try driving the boat at night, though they had anchored already. He grabs his gun when they try to stop him. The boat runs aground and blows up, landing everyone on the island.

Though they had heard dogs barking, the only dogs them come across are skeletons. There's no sign of the old lady, and someone starts killing them off. It's no secret that the killer is the old lady's son, the son of the rapist, presumably. Though we never get a good look at him, a diary they find indicates he has acromegaly. Having that doesn't make a person a monster (André the Giant and Rondo Hatton, among others, had that condition). Evidently he is brain-damaged as well, or severely screwed up because of the way his mother raised him.

The movie is pretty derivative. I've seen quite a few movies where at some point a young woman pretends to be a killer's mother to try to save herself, for example. At a couple points, the good brother, his girlfriend, and his sister reminded me of Fred, Daphne, and Velma, respectively, from Scooby-Doo.

Many of the scenes take place at nighttime, and on the videotape, yes the picture is often almost completely or completely black. Evidently this was not true when the film had been projected, so it is probably a matter of a bad transfer.

---

5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
*1/2 out of 4., 8 June 2002
Author: Brandon L. Sites (brandonsites1981@yahoo.com) from USA

A woman is raped, but her attacker is devoured by dogs. Several decades later, a group of teens arrive on the island, but fall victim to a humongous, deformed mutant; the result of the rape. Starts out interestingly enough, but quickly goes downhill with cliched characters and routine script. It's biggest problem though is it's awful lighting and you never ever get a good look at the creature.

Rated R; Rape, Brief Nudity, Violence.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
"No sounds here"., 5 February 2011

Author: lost-in-limbo from the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Lights. Camera. Action. Hey what happen to the lights? "Humongous" turned out to be quite a frustrating experience since most of the film occurs within the dark (poorly lit exteriors within confinements or simply the night time sequences), which it was that pitch-black (even after adjusting the brightness on my TV) that made it hard to make out what was really going on. Purposely done for that reason or not, it could have been executed much better. Especially if it was catered for the fact of hiding the monster (as there was a main focus on the heavy-breathing POV shots leering on its victims and the constant wailing that was pulled off rather effectively), which wouldn't bother me but it was simply hard to care at times when you just can't see what's going on. Gladly they revert to using fire in the climatic scenes to brighten things up.

Director Paul Lynch (who directed the 80s slasher "Prom Night") cooks up a raw, primitive if choppy as hell island backwoods survival deformed killer fable which has an engrossing, but back-story penned by William Gray (The Changeling "1980", Prom Night "1980" and "An Eye for An Eye"). While simple in its long build-up, it tried to be deep in its context (especially the whole Scooby gang doing some investigating) and Lynch was obviously trying for moody suspense than anything really exploitative (despite the opening rape scene). Maybe that's more so a budget restraint as its cheaply projected, but the atmospherics (the island setting) worked despite not always managing to sustained tension due to pitch black confusion. An unhinged electronic score keeps that brooding tone, which definitely can get under your skin. The performances are acceptable enough (Janet Julian is rather good and Joy Boushel adds the spunk); rowdy teenagers and stupid actions.

Fair if somewhat vanilla, but disappointing technical handling is what harms it.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
above average slasher, 19 April 2007

Author: DannyBoy1972 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Made by Paul lynch - who made the notorious "Prom Night" - this is actually a lot better than its more famous cousin. A cast of unknowns take to a summer in the Canadian lakes and stumble across Dog Island, its back history is supplied in the opening prologue and its quite brutal. the kids rescue Bert, a fisherman heading to another island and warns them off dog island,named for all the constant howling. the old lady who lives there is brutalised in the opening credits and has become a recluse with her dogs and her mysterious (un-named) son. they soon get drunk, run aground on the island and are picked off one by one by the son. its quite atmospheric, if a little slow to get going. the lighting is quite bad but it has a fairly decent script for a low budgeter and the 'homages' to Texas chainsaw, death trap and Halloween are all there but, it is very watchable and a good scare if there's nothing on the box.. enjoy..

---

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Quite interesting if rather bloodless little slasher, 19 November 2006
Author: DrLenera from UK

Humongous has been largely forgotten amongst the glut of 80s slasher flicks. However,that is a shame. It's certainly no masterpiece,not even of the slasher genre,but it's quite interesting and better than quite a few of the other,similar films released around that time.

It opens with a brutal rape,and it almost gets the movie off on the wrong foot as although not that graphic it's hard to watch. Then we jump forward to the usual small group of young people discovering an island. Much time is spent of them wondering about,which does make the film a little slow,but there is a fair amount of suspense,sometimes underlined by the synthesizer score,which shouldn't work but does. As has often been said before,the film is too dark,but some of the photography is pretty good,which makes one wonder if the darkness was a deliberate experiment which didn't quite come off.

This movie was obviously {well,in the versions I've seen} heavily cut,during the killings we cut away just before we think we'll going to see something nasty. There's just about enough suspense to almost compensate,and the acting isn't too bad,but gore hounds will probably be disappointed. The climactic scenes are pretty exciting though and even though you still don't get much of a look at the monster,this is actually quite effective.

There's a underlying element of sadness to Humongous which is provided by the film's back story,and it's perhaps this which most sticks in the mind. Nothing in the film is especially remarkable,but it does have it's interesting elements. It certainly deserves a proper,uncut DVD release,and far more than some of the other films of this type which already have been!

---

---

Page 1 of 5:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Ratings
External reviews	Plot keywords	Main details
Your user reviews	Your vote history