I cannot justify any claim that Monster (Humanoids from the Deep) is a good movie. First of all, were coastal fishing towns in California ever even a thing? I have the sense that every inch of usable beach is for being beachfront for zillionaires, not for fishing boats that compete with each other and sometimes blow up and also there’s a cannery being built that will save the town, unless it will violate a treaty with the local tribe and they decide to sue about it and ruin the town. It’s like, what even was the point of manifest destiny?

None of that has anything to do with any humanoids from the deep, but then again neither does a guy in a tent seducing chicks with a ventriloquist dummy (and the same ventriloquism jokes you hear every time that concept is raised), and yet here we are. My point, if I am somehow failing to make it, is that this movie doesn’t make a lick of sense, and is also generally offensive in that 1980 second card on the late night double feature kind of way.

But that’s okay! It revels in being nonsensical, since really everything that happens is a vehicle for ladies to get naked so they can be chased (and as you can clearly see on the poster, be mated with) by fishmen (not to be confused with the fishermen, although clearly this also happens from time to time; the difference is the fishermen understand consent) who have evolved for… some reason? The scientist who was clearly an inspiration for the scientist lady in Deep Murder explained it at some point, but I didn’t really follow.

Roger Corman was probably not a good man? But he knew how to produce a B-movie, is all I’m really trying to say here. Another thing I suppose I cannot justify is how to square being a modern liberal with loving this kind of trash. Mostly I don’t try, though. It’s just who I am?