AQUANOIDS ** USA 2003 76 mins
Busty hot chick Laura Nativo is an environmentalist (yeah, right!) facing a fresh assault of HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP-style fish-man monsters 16 years after her mom fell victim to the same creatures. Boasting porn-style production values and acting, this officially features the horror genre’s most OTT comedy coroner of all time.
While the dialogue smugly references Roger Corman movies and other water-based horror films (including TENTACLES!), our heroine spends a lot of time riding around on her scooter and approximately five extras try to convince us of the hustle and bustle of an imperilled JAWS-style 4th of July weekend. In direct “homage” to HUMANOIDS you get an unnecessarily topless woman giving birth to a fish-thing baby, while the usual shady mayor character looks uncannily like Boris Karloff. It might be the only no-budget horror movie in which the monsters unintentionally look like members of Lordi, and therein lies just one part of its cheap ‘n’ cheerful charm.
Review by Steven West