HUMONGOUS
Great, GREAT title...for a porno flick
But alas, this ain't a porno flick. From the writer-director team that brought us Prom Night comes this minor riff on the slasher movie. Instead of teens being knocked off by an anonymous maniac, teens are stranded on a strange island...and knocked off by an anonymous maniac. (as usual, he's tall and misshapen) The closest thing to porno we get to see in this movie is when one (un?)lucky bastard catches a chill, so a helpful female cast member opens both their shirts and presses her warm, willing breasts against him to keep him warm. Really. And they just met.
The movie opens up with...rape! Oh, boy, it's just what you've always wanted, boys and girls, a rape filmed from the victim's point of view, so that we can really see this drunken lout show us what we've been asking for. And while the victim puts up one hell of a verbal fight (screaming, yelling, shouting, shrieking...no, it's not King Diamond), she puts up nary a kick nor a scratch...no attempted eyeball-gouges, no pulling the scrotum up over his head like an atomic wedgie...she lies perfectly still. Strange. I always thought the two would go hand in hand, although I'm happy to not know firsthand. Immediately afterward, he's torn apart by dogs.
Flash-forward thirty-six years, and five teens are setting out to sea for a weekend on Dad's yacht (or stinkpot, as Matt Dillon in Wild Things would call it). Soon enough, they pick up a stranded boater (no, it's not Jon Voight, you're thinking of Manaconda, not Humongous...wrong porno movie) whose only purpose in the film is to explain the mythology of the island they're about to become stranded on. And, of course, to catch a chill and...hey, I already told you about that.
What follows is a good effort, but ultimately, still just a silly little slasher movie that doesn't distinguish itself much from the rest of the crowd. I liked that there was a mythology behind the island, how rumors went that it was populated by free-running, wild dogs, and I liked the gradual buildup of the "mystery" regarding its human inhabitant(s?), even though any seasoned slasher flick watcher will see it coming a mile away. And yes, I did like one lonely cast member - Janet Julian as the not entirely angelic "good girl" who is, of course, the last one left alive. I also liked some of the so-bad-it's-hilarious dialogue, like "Dogs don't break paddles and smash boats. Or do they?" and when one guy mocks his lover by saying "If you'd ever cum, that'd be an historic event" (as if that was somehow a reflection on something other than his own lacking sexual skills).
I'd put it at about a par for slasher flicks. Yes, there are below-par slasher flicks - see enough of them, and you'll know what I mean. You could do worse - but why, when you could do better?