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Humongous (1982)

Dir: Paul Lynch

After she is raped on her family's private island, Ida Parsons' life slowly disintegrates as her spirit and sanity are sapped by the ordeal of her rape, the aftermath, and the offspring that came from it.
Now a recluse, Ida raises her mysterious son on the dog protected Island.

Years later a group of teens get stranded on the island and as night closes in they hear strange snarling sounds and soon they start to fall victim to the 'Humongous'....

Stuck on an island Canadian Slasher that has finally got a DVD release thanks to 'Scorpion Releasing', in a thankfilly much brighter and clearer print.
Notoriously it was stuck with dark, dark, transfers (of an already dark looking film) so "Humongous" fared little better on VHS than it did at the cinema, despite coming out in the Slasher movie's heyday, a seeming curse for Canadian Slasher films.
True it's overly slow and sometimes too uneventful, but it's technically well done (one bad moment of a crew member getting into shot in the back of a supposed one man boat aside) and has some effective sequences and sights.
Just as most American Slashers.

The (now uncut) brutal pre-credit sequence, where Ida (Shay Garner) is very crudely raped (complete with the rapist licking his fingers to 'lube' the woman up!) before said rapist is gloriously chewed up by dogs, kicks things off brilliantly.
This optimism for things to come is carried over into the excellent opening credit sequence, which is made up of lilting music played over colourised photographs of Ida's passing years as her life visibly darkens as she cares for her baby born of rape.
In fact one of the biggest regrets of the film is that the dead behind the eyes, faded beauty hardened and scarred Ida, seen in the final chilling photo, is not a flesh and blood character in the film.

Instead we jump 36 years to the bunch of boating teens (including two warring Brothers who's OTT rivalry takes up too much screen-time) who come across a guy stranded on his broken boat only to nearly blow him up when Nick The Dick (John Wildman) wets his man-nappy and accidentally sets their boat on fire!
Stranded on 'Dog Island' they wander about a lot and sit around a lot until some of them are eventually bumped off.

So It's a bit slow to get going after the great opening and not much happens for a long while.
Thankfully the first kill is a master-class in editing, features one of the best screaming scenes in horror history and is wonderfully in your face without actually showing anything.
The next attack sequence is also well done, with clever use of editing again, but by this time we needed some good old red stuff splashed around as well as the technical flair. It's a particularly weak death (though again made more punchy by the excellent sound/visual editing) for one of the main girls we have spent 40 minutes following.
Not satisfying sadly.
In fact nothing in the film is as graphic as the pre-credit sequence, apart from a great and gruesome head crushing demise later, which is a strange decision to make.
The makers (it’s directed by Paul Lynch, of "Prom Night") were willing to go that far initially, but then got squeamish.
Although they weren’t squeamish about dishing up as many breast shots as possible, courtesy of Joy Boushel who plays to the power of her two best assets, and for which we give praise to the Sleaze Gods.

Dubious plotting comes in the form of going back to the killer's house to get some matches to light a warming fire. Not sure how cold it's meant to get on this island, but I doubt it's that colds so I say...forget the matches!
The matches do come into play in the finale, but that was not planned by the characters so it seemed a big risk to take for very little.
Acting is average at best, weak at worst. But Janet Julian ("King of New York") makes for a good, brave and likeable lead girl.
Sadly Janit Baldwin as Carla (the Brother's sister) does not follow on through with the promise she showed in "Ruby".

The island is a nicely creepy and atmospheric setting and it's nice to have a 'killer's lair' to enjoy, stocked with messy bits 'n' bobs...including hanging carcasses.
And there are some nice backlit shots of the lumbering 'Humongous' that add power to his frame.

Talking of the killer, he looks fun in a cheapo-mutant type of way, and he does come across as strong, but his lack of chasing/grabbing abilities is unintentionally funny and sap him of scare power.
Worst example being a laughably slow chase sequence through the woods.
The climax to the finale fight does not help the killer either, as it seems he's farcically clumsy as well as hilariously slow.
He does have some very good screams though (I assume by actor Garry Robbins), which are genuinely blood curdling at times during the finale.
The end scene with the killer is very good too and adds a depth to the tragic back-story of him and Ida.
It's a classy and effective ending.

Overall then "Humongous" is a schizo film that throws in solid gore one moment than goes all coy the next, then gets sleazy before getting classy, while all the time being rather tedious and uneventful with sudden doses of frantic action.
But it’s ultimately a satisfying Slasher thanks to the infrequent effective moments being good enough to overcome the more frequent flawed ones.