On Labor Day weekend back in 1946, while her father entertains several guests at their isolated island retreat, young Ida Parsons is culled from the reverie and then assaulted and raped by some drunken reprobate. But justice comes swiftly as the Parsons' prized German Shepherds answer their lady's distress calls and tear the rapist to shreds. Now, some forty years later, legend has it that the traumatized Ida never left the island after that, and, to keep her privacy, allowed her dogs to roam free as way of saying "Keep the hell off." And this legend is verified as fact when a boating accident leaves a group of teenagers marooned on the Parsons' Island. But is it the feral dogs that keep picking them off, one by one, or is it something far more sinister lurking in the dark...
Now that is one damned fine trailer. Okay, so, Humongous was (director ) Paul Lynch and (screenwriter) William Gray's follow up to the Canuxploitation classic, Prom Night (1980). And I know Humongous is often categorized as a slasher movie, too, but, even though it does carry a lot of the familiar earmarks of that genre, I'm here to tell you it isn't. Nope. What we have, here, is a bona fide monster movie on our hands, folks; and the killer is no more a slasher than the Frankenstein Monster or the Midwich Cuckoos. In fact, the film probably owes more to Scooby-Doo than Sean S. Cunningham as there is a fairly decent mystery presented as our shipwreck survivors explore the island and discover clues as to what is really out there, in the woods, baying at the moon. That, and the fact that there is no sexual or moral element to the killings is pretty unique, too, despite the Spam in a Cabin-Cruiser origins of the victims. I mean ... Even a monster's gotta eat, right?
At this point I'll also make a confession. I haven't seen all of Humongous. I watched all of it, sure; but I've only actually seen part of it. Unavailable on DVD and way, way too expensive on OOP'd VHS, I did manage to find and download two different gray-market versions but both were nth generation dubs that were so washed out all the night scenes left you staring at a black screen with a few amorphous shapes floating around.
And, sadly, about 60% of the movie takes place at night. But! Some of the scenes in the trailer are so much clearer and brighter I still hold out hope to find a better copy someday. Or, better yet, consider this a cry in the dark for an official DVD release. C'mon, folks, there's a pretty good movie lurking in there that I, and many others, are just dying to see.
Humongous (1982) Humongous Productions-Avco Embassy / EP: Michael Stevenson / P: Anthony Kramreither / D: Paul Lynch / W: William Gray / C: Brian R.R. Hebb / E: Nick Rotundo / S: Janet Julian, David Wallace, John Wildman, Joy Boushel, Layne Coleman
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