‘Under water, no one can hear you scream.’
Aquanoids is a 2003 American horror film about a small island terrorised by half-man/half sea creatures.
The movie was directed by Reinhart ‘Rayteam’ Peschke [as Ray Peschke] from a screenplay by Mark J. Gordon (producer of The Attendant; Maniacal; Butchered) and Eric Spudic (Creepies and sequel; Bloody Tease; Evil Unleashed). The Cinemacabre production stars Laura Nativo, Rhoda Jordan, Edwin Craig and Ike Gingrich.
Plot:
In Babylon, a small town on an island off the California coast, it’s the Fourth of July and tourists are washing up dead in Babylon Bay, once again!
In 1987, rumour has it that mysterious sea creatures called Aquanoids were responsible for seventeen vicious deaths. The corrupt and greedy mayor dispelled the sightings as urban legend to protect the local tourist trade.
Environmental activist Vanessa DuMont’s fight to save the endangered species on the island turns into the fight of her life. Will she save the island from the latest Aquanoid attacks? Or will the greedy locals let more innocent people be slaughtered?
Reviews:
” …there’s a curiosity to this lurid film for all its nudity and gore in other details. How the production managed to splash out for an actual fish-man costume only to depict the attacks in shonky, shambolic editing, or the curiosity, even in lieu of its coastal town setting, to how bright the fashion is. The batty bits of earnest and tacky oddness are few but significant…” Cinema of the Abstract
“The most unforgivable failing of the film is that the Aquanoid, which looks like a rust-colored merman with a demonic gargoyle head, is relegated to making cameo appearances in its own film. Well, other than its hands, which get far more screen time than the rest of it.” Jon Condit, Dread Central
” …a lunatic hodgepodge of every creature attack flick to follow in JAWS’ wake. And what makes Aquanoids even more monumentally absurd is its combination of shot-on-video porn flick quality and a compressed running time of somewhere around 65-70 minutes (not counting credits) that feels much, much longer. And not in a good way.” Dan Taylor, Exploitation Retrospect
” …there’s nothing to pull Aquanoids out of the sludge, and it never even reaches the level of a good Troma flick. The acting generally is passable, but too often veers into an area where you feel uncomfortable laughing at actors who seem to think they’re doing a good job. The dialogue occasionally is witty, but the story is a mess…” Film Threat
“With it’s cheap, shot on video look, the film can’t afford to take itself too seriously, so a knowing, ironic Troma-style humour is used to mask the obvious deficiencies in script, acting, and special effects, etc. The performances are deliberately overstated in a parody of B-movie bad acting, and the special effects are cartoonishly gory…” Horrorview
“This somewhat tongue-in-cheek effort is like a low-rent update of Humanoids from the Deep that has a lead actress who’s cute and creature effects that are a bit silly but okay (and are thankfully shown just in quick cuts) with acting that ranges from okay to amateurish only to suffer from having a script that has slim character development…” The Video Graveyard
Cast and characters:
- Laura Nativo … Vanessa DuMont
- Rhoda Jordan … Christina
- Edwin Craig … Frank Walsh
- Ike Gingrich … Clint Jefferson
- Laurence Hobbs … Jackson (as Hugh Laurence Hobbs)
- Suzan Spann … Courtney McClure
- Robert Kimmel … Stanze
- Christopher Irwin … Bruce
- David Clark … James
- Doug Martin … Doctor Remsen
- Kari Betizer … Debra
- Nita Nichols … Julie
- Ron Petronicolos … Chad
- Jeff Ryan … Roger
- Jake Solima … Eric
Filming locations:
Leo Carrillo State Beach, Malibu, California
Santa Catalina island, Channel Islands, California
Technical details:
- 74 minutes
- Dolby SR
- Aspect Ratio: 1.33: 1
