Theme Song: Yeah, right.
Interesting Dated References: Nick wears one of those awesome leather gloves with the fingers cut out, but that’s about it.
Best Line: Everything the bad ass brother Nick says. This guy is only in the movie for like fifteen minutes and he’s totally insane.
Social Context: None. Maybe something about unwanted children needing to be cared for, but it’s not explored at all.
Summary: Humongous begins with a rape scene. But not just any rape scene – a rape scene set in 1947! This results in a moment of hilarity when the rapist has to tear through three layers of undergarments in order to gain access the private parts. It’s good to see the costume department wasted all their time researching the underwear practices of women in the 1940s as opposed to, say, building a costume for the fucking monster.
Long story short, woman gets raped by drunk man at house on island, woman has deformed baby, woman never leaves island, woman goes crazy, deformed baby grows up, woman dies, deformed baby is starving … bring on the teens.
After the flashback we go back to present day and meet the kids who will be slaughtered. Let me tell you, this is some bunch. There’s the Nerdy Sister, her handsome Surfer Guy Alpha Male Brother, and his Levelheaded Girlfriend. Then there’s Nick.
In his first scene, he yells at his girlfriend, acts all misogynistic, and crushes an empty Budweiser can with his hand and throws it. In his next scene, he shoots a gun at his brother just for fun.
He has the shittiest attitude for no reason in any movie I’ve ever seen. In general, he terrorizes the whole group and still finds time to crush empty Budweiser cans and throw them (this is done two to three times throughout the film). Then everyone gets on a boat, and then it’s nighttime. This movie is so old and dark you can’t tell what is going on. Somehow they pick up a guy who was stranded on a boat. Then drunk Nick steers the boat into rocks where it burst into flames, but they are all able to escape. Then they wind up on an island, which happens to be crazy deformed kid island. Then Nick dies at the hand of “the mysterious beast.”
After that, everyone else dies except the Levelheaded Girlfriend. Did I mention the monster is just a guy with a bunch of torn up soiled towels all around his head? Remember that wrestler guy, The Undertaker? It’s him, but with a bunch of wet dark towels all over his body. And guess what else? The reason he attacked everyone is because his mom died and he was hungry. Oh, and half the killing scenes are at night so you can’t even see what is happening. Levelheaded Girlfriend is smart enough to kill “the mysterious beast” with fire, and the only gore is a picture of the dead thing’s face. It’s hardly worth it and just looks like a burnt marshmallow with 2 eyeballs on it.
RIP Nick. I found it a little interesting that the director went on to direct TV show-based remakes of previous TV shows (The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, Star Trek), and then still not graduating to film, but to directing TV shows that were spin-offs of movies (Robocop, F/X, Poltergeist). He also directed Prom Night, which I guess I have to mention.
Poster and Box Art: Humongous actually has a pretty good illustration for its cover. It looks like something Pusshead would do if he were shitty and drew movie covers.
Availability: A DVD is available.