Buy it... on the 2001 album pairing this score with Battle Beyond the Stars, for its sparse, mundane, and derivative suspense really doesn't merit its own album.

Avoid it... if you have no need to hear James Horner shamelessly emulate Jerry Goldsmith in yet another of his early scores for B-rate films, though the similarities here are not quite as obnoxious.

Horner

Humanoids from the Deep: (James Horner) Although Roger Corman's New World Pictures studio was attempting to expand into the realm of mainstream science fiction in 1980 with the space fantasy Battle Beyond the Stars, the inevitable pull towards the unsavory realms of sex and gore led the gang of B-rate filmmakers to tackle Humanoids from the Deep the same year. The low-budget flick was a variation on the "monsters from under the water" scenario realized so many times before, but with Corman as the financier, this entry would appeal to teenage boys with its gratuitous scenes of nudity, rape, and death. Ironically, its script and original direction (by female director Barbara Peters, no less) emphasized the story's more serious character-based conflicts and prejudices, assigning false blame for declining fish counts in an American Northwest town to easy human targets rather than beasts from the ocean. During post-production, it was determined that the movie needed more of the typical Corman touch, so most of the sex and nudity seen in the final cut was shot and inserted late in the process. The monsters in Humanoids from the Deep are giant bipeds that come out of the water to procreate with women, and like most teenage men, they seem to prefer sexy types with large breasts. By the end, however, they declare war on the town and tear apart its festival for good measure, leaving bodies everywhere for the cameras to feast upon. It's the type of movie destined for a life on home video, where it has received a fair amount of attention in part due to a remake by Corman himself in 1996. The rising house composer for New World Pictures at the time of the original production was 26-year-old James Horner, fresh out of graduate school and looking for a break in the industry. The Corman films were largely that stroke of luck, introducing the composer to several of his later collaborators, including Ron Howard and James Cameron. While Battle Beyond the Stars featured clearly the best music of Horner's association with the studio, all such efforts, including Humanoids from the Deep, contained significant resemblances to temp tracks and the composer's own inspiration. In the case of this trashy horror film, the connections are nowhere as obvious as they are in the far more famous and acclaimed Battle Beyond the Stars, but they do exist. Add to the equation the need for a fair amount of glum suspense music and you get a score that is definitely one to forget for even Horner enthusiasts.

While the score for Humanoids from the Deep is basically sufficient at its task, it remains one more interesting to study than appreciable to enjoy. The soundscape is sparse, dominated by percussion rhythms and lengthy whole notes on strings or keyboards that maintain an ambience of mystery. Harp is omnipresent as the expected representation of underwater intrigue. Woodwind solos convey occasional melodies of tortured human interest. Deep synthetic tones pulse underneath jabs of metallic percussion and occasional synthetic leftovers from Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Just as Horner's Battle Beyond the Stars was an homage of sorts to Goldsmith's music, Humanoids from the Deep additionally takes an assortment of techniques and motifs from several Goldsmith scores. The most obvious are the woodwind and trumpet motifs from Alien, an irony considering Horner's eventual replacement of Goldsmith in that franchise. In the attack sequences, Horner switches to The Boys From Brazil, though you can also hear similarities to David Shire and Laurence Rosenthal at times. The pretty woodwind theme that disintegrates in Humanoids from the Deep is a leftover from Goldsmith's 1960's character scores. Only in "Final Confrontation" and "End Title" does Horner explore substantial expressions with the full ensemble, by which point you'll be bored out of your wits. Overall, Humanoids from the Deep is too sparsely ambient to merit much attention, despite its placement early in Horner's career. The score was released twice on CD, first paired with Battle Beyond the Stars on a GNP Crescendo product in 2001 and then alone on a 1,000-copy follow-up from BSX Records in 2011. The latter album follows the prior presentation with three cues (amounting to 17 minutes) from Christopher Lennertz's largely synthetic music for the 1996 remake. Interestingly, Lennertz, who was himself breaking into the industry using Corman at the time, reprises several motifs and instrumental tones from Horner's score, albeit mostly sampled. Out of Horner's foundation, Lennertz takes a more tonal approach in the remake, including a lovely sequence for piano and woodwinds occupying most of "Part #2" of the suites on the CD. Also on the 2011 product is an additional 10 minutes of outtakes from Horner's score, though the sound of these is muted and the material is redundant. In the end, if you desire a taste of Horner's original Humanoids from the Deep, seek out the 2001 album that also contains the far worthier Battle Beyond the Stars. Alone, it earns little praise in its ability to stew aimlessly through derivative ideas. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.