Double Feature: Hush (1998) & Humanoids From The Deep (1980)

Next double feature is here as we move to the H selections. Two very random titles picked on my part. The first is 1998’s thriller Hush and followed by 1980’s Humanoids From The Deep. Let’s check it out!

Hush (1998)

Director (and writer): Jonathan Darby

Cast: Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnathon Schaech, Nina Foch, Debi Mazar

A couple with jobs and apartment in NYC, decide to move to his mom’s farm, get married and have the baby there. They can also make the changes to get a better price for the farm. However, there’s something seriously wrong with his mom. – IMDB

What to say about Hush? I think its fairly laid out in the plot summary above. Its one of those movies that doesn’t really give you more than its presenting. Jealous mother-in-law who plans out a great plot to get her son and daughter-in-law back to the farm house and then has some more plotting going on. The way the story itself is executed is actually also quite following that line. It doesn’t give the characters a lot of place to guess where its going, perhaps because we have something of a “god’s eye” to the situation, its meant to build the tension of how the characters will do. There are some little moments where its much more intense in the scene of what the mother-in-law characters decides to do and how far she will go to reach her objective that has a shocking element but its much more in the end. The movie in general is a fairly slow paced business with  not a whole lot going on.

Gwyneth Paltrow is being mostly how you would expect her to be. She does fit well enough into her role as Helen, the daughter in law who eventually does see through to her mother in law, Martha’s schemes to a certain extent. At the same time, the son character, Jackson played by Johnathon Schaech is more written to be a bit of an idiot. Some things that he believes doesn’t quite make sense. The biggest issue with the characters is that Martha, played by Jessica Lange does everything in such a suspicious way from every dialogue to every reaction to deliberate move that its all in her face that its hard for someone to not notice something is wrong and yet, the son and daughter-in-law characters seem too absorbed in their own situation to notice (or maybe that’s its intention?).

I’m honestly  not really hating on Hush. There wasn’t a lot of expectations going in as it was a random pick but at the same time, the movie felt a tad disappointing to watch as it didn’t have much of a high point. When it did reach a more shocking point, it was already in the final act and felt a little bit too late to re-ignite interest. The premise itself is alright but the movie just needed to be executed with a little more mystery perhaps.

Humanoids From The Deep (1980)

Director: Barbara Peeters & Jimmy T. Murakami

Cast: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, Lynn Theel, Meegan King

Scientific experiments backfire and produce horrific mutations: half man, half fish, which terrorize a small fishing village by killing the men and raping the women. – IMDB

I sometimes wonder why I keep choosing these 1980s horror movies to watch. There’s this feeling that some movies really haven’t aged well over time and Humanoids From The Deep feels a little like that. The crazy part is that the poster itself already reveals the general plot. It sounds like I’m hating on it but putting all the aging part aside, Humanoids From The Deep is not all bad. The Humanoids itself is pretty fun to watch. The way that it attacks and its design and all that actually is entertaining enough. After all, isn’t that what creature features are meant to do?

Humanoids From The Deep does feel like its inspired by movies like Jaws and Alien in some ways. However, those movies are meant to be rather serious whereas this one feels like it feels like its a lot more serious than the movie needs to be. I’m not exactly sure how to feel about this one. On one hand, there are some good bits, mostly with the Humanoids bits but then everything else feels a little forgettable.

While I don’t think that Humanoids From The Deep is something that I’d rewatch, the plot itself actually might be more relevant science experiment gone bad and movie technology combined in the landscape where remakes/reboots/sequels are frequently done that might actually give this a nice reboot quality in the right hands. In whose hands? I don’t know but it could be fun (unless its already a thing and I just don’t know about it which is also highly probable).

That’s it for this double feature!
I’m rather meh about both of these but let me know how you liked them if you’ve seen them?