Rubber Suit Madness: The Fishman

What is Lovecraftian?

The Fishman for the most part can be traced back to the influential writings of H.P. Lovecraft. A man who created an entire universe not for a brighter future but full of humanoid-like creatures with the appearance of fish, dragons, and octopi. Usually grotesque in nature, but also misunderstood in many cases. From a dimension parallel to ours full of dark, ominous, and depressing subject matter. Spanning imagery of the cosmic nature and not so subtly going against the religious grain. Lovecraft’s world was built on pain, and his own life reflected that in his agonizing early age death due to cancer of the small intestine—nothing bright, nothing cheery, all gloom, and all doom.

Fishman Don’t Hurt Me……..

In 1954, the world was given its most famous glimpse of an idea that Lovecraft would have written about. The Creature From The Black Lagoon. The benchmark film that gifted the world its most famous and beloved rubber suit creature outside of Japan or Skull Island.
Ricou Browning and Ben Chapman would bring the suit to life, inspiring a generation of rubber suit monster flicks. A suit that Universal literally threw out after the last of the 3 Creature films were made. They popped up years later after a janitor found it in the back lot dumpster and gave it to his son. He thought it would make a great costume for Halloween. The creature and the suit would become a beloved character, but the creature would only survive three films.

Over three years, the Gill-man would come and go in a matter of 3 films. The stories had run out of direction and possibilities for the Creature. I mean, by The Creature Walks Among Us, he had almost purely become a science experiment—meandering aimlessly on land to wreak havoc, but not before they teach him to talk and only breathe air. His time was over, but not before he struck fear into anyone jumping into darker waters. An irrational fear was born. Our rubber suit, sculpted perfectly out of foam rubber and latex, had come to its end. For all accounts, there are no remaining or surviving pieces of any of the original suits from the Creature series.

Gill-Man…. No More.

Over the years, the creature seems to be forgotten and then suddenly brought back in a singular film that develops a cult following and then lost again. The Italians gave us the Island of Dr. Moreau-inspired Island of The Fishmen. A film with two titles and two cuts. One is Sergio Martino’s cut, Island of the Fishmen, and the other is Roger Corman’s cut, known as Screamers. I prefer Island over Screamers. Island, to me, seems more coherent with better editing. Corman moved some scenes around and wanted to add more boobs and less blood and took it from a rated R film to a Pg-13 film. The suits are very much more fish than humanoid, with the heads being extremely unnerving with bulbous eyes.

Doug McClure’s Humanoids From The Deep is criminally underrated in my opinion. The fishmen suits are drastically different from anything we had seen or would ever see since. The Gillmen want to breed with the humans in a pre-Alien vs. Predator creature birthing scene that still shocks. The suit design has always stuck with me as it seemed more versatile and mobile. A great thing about this film is that we are given the appearance that there are dozens of monsters. Sometimes even multiple creatures are on the screen at one time. But, alas, there is only one complete suit. The others are just partial parts shot at convincing angles: a little seaweed and some extra moss and wala. It’s still one of my favorite repeat monster flicks.

The grandest, at least for me, and my favorite and most terrifying Fish Man is the first one I ever saw. Monster Squad. I was hooked the moment our creature rose from the swamp after being summoned by Dracula. This time our suit was created by special effects wizard Stan Winston—a man who became synonymous with spectacular special effects from his work on Aliens to Jurassic Park. The Gill-man in Monster Squad was all prosthetics and sculpted over a life-sized cast of the creature. Its coloring was all airbrushed on. I think this is the most horrifying of all the rubber and foam sub-aquatic fishman designs.

Over the years, the horror movies seem to forget that Gillman exists, but then he randomly pops up and is the star of whatever film it is. In Cabin In The Woods, when the fish creature shows up towards the end, it is always a talking point about the film. In Hellboy, everyone loves Abe Sapien—Doug Jones’s work is next-level. Because of that single performance, Doug was given the chance to captivate audiences in Del Toro’s love story, The Shape Of Water. The Shape Of Water had to bring us back to the tragedy of the lonesome creature from the original Black Lagoon. Nobody else could have given us that performance in a suit as graceful as Jones.

Now, remember there are still many underwater creatures in film to this day. The problem is they are mostly CGI. Nothing is as gripping as an actual creature suit. The suit makes it real. It strikes our imagination. It brings to life a character we can only fathom (ha). People still keep the Creature’s spirit alive through low-budget films like The Barge People. Quality notwithstanding, the suit was alive and well.

The closest thing to well-done CGI Lovecraftian abyssal humanoid fish-man greatness is, of course, the highly underrated and forgotten already, Underwater. Even though it was all CGI, it was the rare instance where the CGI limitations didn’t hinder the creature’s design. In fact, the abyss’s darkness made it even more terrifying. It slinked and slithered effortlessly through the water, stalking its prey while still having a playful curiosity—right before it eats you, of course.

Rest easy Creature. You will never be forgotten; even in your watery grave, your suit lives on.