While Battle Beyond the Stars featured clearly the best music of Horner's association with New World Pictures, all such efforts, including Humanoids From the Deep, contained significant resemblances to temp tracks and the composer's sources of inspiration. In the case of this trashy horror film, the connections are nowhere as obvious as they are in Deadly Blessing or the far more famous and acclaimed Battle Beyond the Stars, but they do exist. Add to the equation the need for a fair amount of glum suspense music and you get a score that is definitely one to forget, even for Horner enthusiasts. While the score for Humanoids From the Deep is basically sufficient at its task, it remains a work better destined for study by Horner collectors than appreciable to enjoy casually. The soundscape is sparse, orchestrated for strings, woodwinds, piano, harp, xylophone, percussion, and lone trumpet. Its percussion rhythms and lengthy whole notes on strings or keyboards maintain the needed ambience of mystery. The harp is omnipresent as the expected representation of underwater intrigue. Woodwind solos convey occasional melodies of tortured human interest, but not as compellingly as in Deadly Blessing. Abrasive synthetic tones pulse underneath jabs of metallic percussion and waterphone while occasional Blaster Beam thuds carry over from Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The solo trumpet sometimes accesses the reverberating echoplex from Goldsmith's Patton. Just as Horner's Battle Beyond the Stars was an homage of sorts to Goldsmith's music, this one additionally takes an assortment of other techniques and motifs from several Goldsmith scores as well. Aside from the Blaster Beam and echoplex trumpets, the most obvious are the woodwind and trumpet motifs from Alien, an irony considering Horner's eventual replacement of Goldsmith in that franchise. In the attack sequences, Horner switches to The Boys From Brazil, though you can also hear similarities to David Shire and Laurence Rosenthal at times. The pretty woodwind theme that disintegrates in the score is a leftover from Goldsmith's 1960's small drama scores. This Noyo town theme debuts on piccolo at 1:14 into "Main Title" and recurs on cello at the start of "The Buck-O," late in "The Search," and more prominently in "Jerry and Peggy" and "Aftermath."

The "humanoid" monsters of Humanoids From the Deep receive the score's other theme, heard on trumpet at 0:37 into "Main Title" and then turning to woodwinds in "Men Discover Dogs," flute in "The Underwater Boat By," and strings in "Tommy's Struggle" and "Carol's Final Confrontation." Supplementing this idea is two-note phrasing that the composer accesses more often than this theme to denote lurking suspense. Unique melodic phrasing passes by in "Trip Up River" and "Drake's Lab," too. Don't expect these identities to carry the listening experience, however. Only in the final trio of cues does Horner explore substantial expressions with the full ensemble, by which point you'll be bored out of your wits. Overall, Humanoids From the Deep is too sparsely ambient to merit much attention, despite the raw intrigue of its placement early in Horner's career. The score has been released several times on CD, its initial albums emulating Horner's carefully edited LP presentation. This arrangement was first paired with Battle Beyond the Stars on a GNP Crescendo product in 2001 and then alone on a 1,000-copy follow-up from BSX Records in 2011. The latter album follows the Horner score's LP experience with three cues of 17 minutes total from Christopher Lennertz's largely synthetic music for the 1996 remake. Interestingly, Lennertz, who was himself breaking into the industry using Corman at the time, reprises several motifs and instrumental tones from Horner's score, albeit mostly sampled. (Interestingly, Corman was tracking his early Horner music into projects all the way up to 2001.) Out of Horner's foundation, Lennertz takes a more tonal approach in the remake, including a lovely sequence for piano and woodwinds that occupies most of "Part #2" of the suites on the album. Also on the 2011 product is an additional 10 minutes of outtakes from Horner's score, though the sound of these is muted and the material is redundant. In 2023, Intrada Records revealed that superior sources had been located for the 1980 score, and they pressed the complete work in better sound quality and its original film arrangement. (The LP version is appended as well.) This presentation nicely illuminates the woodwinds, among other orchestrations. If the improved sound quality and film version of the score are not important to you, then the 2001 album is the better deal, as it also contains the far worthier Battle Beyond the Stars. Alone, Humanoids From the Deep earns little praise as it stews aimlessly through derivative ideas.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download