Grossest scenes in HUMONGOUS
HUMONGOUS is a forgotten, underrated gem of a low-budget horror movie at the tail end of the golden age of teen horror flicks from 1977 to 1983. True, it was very dark in the movie but at the time I attributed this to deliberate actions by the director to increase the scary atmosphere and dread. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. The director and his assistants have light meters. They knew what the effect would be like. If anything they may have erred on the side of caution, allowing too much dark.
SPOILERS ALERT!
Most people liken the rape scene to the grossest if not among the grossest scenes. You don't have to worry though, Canadian actress Shay Garner didn't have to endure that freezing rape scene and therefore leaves with her dignity intact. It's obvious a body double was hired for the gut-wrenching rape scene. It's true...you have to have a strong stomach to watch it, though. The body double's face is never shown as the rape scene is filmed showing Ida Parsons (rape victim - no, she wasn't a teenager in the movie, but a young woman quite possibly in her mid-20s, since the rapist calls her an 'old woman') from the neck down. I never can figure out how Hollywood props and costumes comes up with such easily tear-off clothing. Most guys would be struggling with the material and would have to excuse themselves to go fetch a scissors. Yet this dude - an intoxicated, frustrated, horny, young man smoking a cigarette while he's doing all this - easily rips open Ida's full dress, her slip, rips apart bra, tears off panties, then the last indignity, rips apart garter belt - all as if the material was made of disposable napkins. The resulting nudity is quite stark. To this day I speculate the film's director went out and hired a stripper for the body double rape sequence. Why? Because the naked Ida Parsons was fully 'waxed', something unheard of not only for 1946, but women in 1983 didn't do full Brazilian waxes, either, unless their occupations required it, ie, female entertainers, professional swimmers, but it was rare. I kid you not. This body double was fully 'waxed' for this 1983 horror flick. By the way, Ida Parson's screams and crying are noticeably dubbed onto the scene. The body double isn't doing any talking.
Well, continuing on with the story folks, and don't let your kids read this stuff. Horny, frustrated, angry young man, finishes disrobing Ida Parsons, while puffing on his cigarette and declares he's gonna give Ida what she really needs, you get the picture. I kept wishing he would spit out that nasty cigarette. Then the scene briefly cuts away to Ida's dad, rich old man plantation owner/businessman Mr. Parsons, who resembles The Colonel of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This old dude is puffing on a cigar. Hearing all the yelling in the distance and his German shepherds going nuts in their cage, old man Parsons, like the good concerned father he is, doesn't bother to go check. What? Could that yelling, arguing, and crying be his daughter, Ida? Well, no, continuing to casually puff on his stogie, old man Parsons simply lets loose his eager German shepherds to take care of whatever is bugging them all the way down the pathway into the swampy woods.
The final scene is what truly adds to the gut-wrenching. It's a stellar piece of outstanding but dangerous stuntwork, too. The dogs reach the 'couple' in the swampy woods, just as our horndog has finished servicing Ida and is zipping up his pants. Gimme a break! This guy just finished doing Ida Parsons in something like under ten seconds. Is this for real? That's got to be a record for fastest rape intercourse scene in movie filmmaking, outdone only by the five-second rape scene in the 1994 softporn mystery drama flick, "TRYST", starring Barbara Carrerra and Jamie Luner. In Tryst, the guy does it with his jeans still completely on...impressive. The dobermans attack the dude and one rips his throat. That revealed the actor was in fact a stuntman. To this day I don't know how the director managed to choreograph that dangerous stunt of the doberman chewing on the guy's throat.
Ida Parsons arouses herself out of her shock to call the dog off, but the guy is already history. You don't mess with the Parsons and get away with it alive! But for good measure, she scratches his check badly, but no more, after all, Ida is supposed to be an educated, cultured, upper class southern belle. By the way she was also smoking, too while arguing with her would-be suitor in the swampy woods. And then both of them were rolling around on the ground fighting while smoking at the same time. I guess heavy smoking makes you horny and belligerent at the same time. The stuntman actor was actually a handsome man although he had to look drunk and messed up. His short dialogue left an insinuation that Ida Parsons was still unmarried in her middle twenties because she may have been frigid or afraid of intimacy. She was pretty but had no boyfriend or previous known beaus. There might have been truth the storyline's insinuation because Ida remains a spinster for the remainder of her life, dying of natural causes while sleeping in her rocking chair upstairs in the big plantation house.
Old woman Ida Parsons was the only one feeding her monstrous, deformed and brain-damaged mutated, bastard son. Why the child was not committed to an institution was never explained. Perhaps when grown-up the monster child made for an ideal guard and deterrant for would-be island trespassers. Little Parsons was forced to resort to canine dining when his deranged mother passed on. When that gave out there was the lucky intrusion of a group of young, lean, low-fat, and clueless teenagers on the island for sustenance. These classic teen horror slasher movies of the time gave you the impression that white teenagers/young adults must all be sexy and horny, but clueless, and possibly possessing poor hearing since they could never hear the monster or slasher killer huffing, puffing, and groaning right up behind them until they turned around at looked at it straight in the face.
I told you all, HUMONGOUS is an underrated classic gem of 70s to early 80s horror. Go find a copy of it!