Thanks
to the entertaining BLOOD
SURF I had a serious "up from the
depths" jones running through my system.
Which meant I was easy prey for the low-budget
schlock of AQUANOIDS. The box – featuring
a clawed creature ascending from the briny
depths – sucked me in before I ever
read the JAWS-inspired plot summary.
With visions of HUMANOIDS
FROM THE DEEP, the unheralded THEY
BITE and the aforementioned BLOOD SURF
running through my head I grabbed AQUANOIDS
and headed home for some low-brow fish-attack
hijinks.
How does that old saying go?
"Be careful what you wish for..."
Cue pre-credit sequence set
in 1987. A couple frolics in the surf, unaware
that they're being watched by a horrible
sea creature and a creepy guy on the beach
who stands by and does nothing. Not surprisingly,
things go horribly wrong and our happy loving
couple get waxed by the titular aquanoid
while Jackson – the guy on the beach
– looks shocked, pained and generally
upset.
Sixteen years later, the sleepy
hamlet of Babylon on Santa Clara Island
is readying itself for the onslaught of
tourists and residents celebrating the birth
of our nation. But Vanessa (Laura Nativo),
a big-breasted environmentalist who favors
bikini tops and daisy duke cut-offs, has
discovered something wrong in the soon-to-be-crowded
waters. The aquanoids, responsible for 17
deaths in 1987, have returned and only Vanessa's
natural bouyancy prevents her from being
a victim... JUST LIKE HER MOTHER!
Not surprisingly, the town's
corrupt Mayor Walsh (Edwin Craig) isn't
interested in hearing about Vanessa's discovery
in the town's waters. With tourist season
in full swing, not to mention his shopping
mall deal with Clint The Sleazy Land Developer
(Ike Gingrich), the ol' mayor doesn't want
anything to queer the good thing he's got
going. Not Vanessa, not nosy reporter Courtney
McClure, not his slut daughter Deborah,
and not the "crazy" Ronald Jackson,
still reeling from watching the savage aquanoid
attack of '87.
What follows this "insert
Tab A in Slot B" plot set-up is 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.
Filled with montages of Vanessa
and fellow daisy duke-clad sea-hugger Christine
(Rhoda Jordan) riding around town on their
scooters and narrowly escaping the flesh-eating
aquanoids on their jet ski, it'd be easy
to mistake this for a softcore jigglefest
on an "adult" pay-per-view channel.
Of course, that mistake would
surely be corrected once you caught: the
over-the-top coroner (who eats a sandwich
in the middle of an autopsy and keeps a
stocked liquor cabinet in the morgue); self-aware
references to everything from UP FROM THE
DEPTHS and ALLIGATOR 2 to DEEPSTAR
6 and LEVIATHAN;
soap opera-type revelations about Vanessa's
heritage (no points for figuring this out);
the mayor and land developer driving around
the surprisingly-deserted town on Foruth
of July shooting anybody who interferes
with their nefarious schemes; and the aquanoid
baby that could be a ball of tinfoil.
Despite a running time that's
shorter than Vanessa's cut-offs, AQUANOIDS
is easily the longest 70 minutes I've ever
spent watching low-budget schlock. I defy
even the most hardened sleazehound to resist
the urge to check their watch, only to find
that the flick has somehow made time stand
still.
