Humongous (1982)

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A group of teens crash a boat on a small island where they’re terrorized by a deformed giant, the product of a rape whose isolationist mother taught him to fear the outside world. Humongous borrows heavily from Friday the 13th and other horror touchstones, but director Paul Lynch (Prom Night) manages to make the storytelling feel somewhat fresh through surprisingly good staging and camera work. The cast of relative unknowns isn’t too bad and the moody synth score by John Mills-Cockell tickles the nostalgia bone.

Despite the horny teenagers and the rising body count, the special effects, gore, and nudity are kept to a minimum compared to other films of this ilk. You might think of Humongous as one of the scariest Scooby-Doo episode ever, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. I went in with the low expectations I always have for a derivative-sounding, low-budget horror movie and was pleasantly surprised.