A young stock market tycoon, Paul, has been plagued by strange dreams of a green-eyed mermaid. His girlfriend, Barbara, feels it is most likely an indication of excessive stress and tries to convince Paul to go on vacation with her and their older friends, Howard and Viki, to the sunny shores of Spain. Paul, however, is reluctant to go citing work, though his girlfriend won't take no for an answer and the four of them set sail in a yacht for Italy.
Everything goes fine at first. However, a sudden storm near a small fishing village named Imboca dashes the yacht against the rocks. A large rock has pierced the cabin below deck and Viki's leg is trapped between the rocks and the yacht. Luckily, the yacht is otherwise stable and in no risk of sinking. Howard stays behind to care for his injured wife while Paul and Barbara go ashore to look for help....
No relation to Mehrunes Dagon.
Provides examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: An odd case because it ends with more or less the same thing happening: the protagonist joining the Deep Ones in their Underwater City. The difference is that in the movie, he doesn't choose it.
- Adaptational Villainy: The people of Innsmouth were Ambiguously Evil at worst, and all the Deep One-on-human pairings are presented as consensual. Here, the Imboca people are Always Chaotic Evil monsters who flay people alive and propagate themselves exclusively by rape in Obviously Evil Human Sacrifice rituals.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Paul and Barbara are reunited with Viki, they find her in a state of complete shock because the cultists cut off one of her legs.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: A tense scene gives us dueling ones from Paul and the Deep Ones, each trying to break down a door to either escape or catch the other.
- Big Bad: Uxia is directly responsible for the terrible things befalling the main characters in the present, as the High Priestess of the Cult of Dagon.
- Bilingual Bonus: English and Spanish are present here.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Than Lovecraft, who was an advocate of Nothing Is Scarier.
- B-Movie: Its creators willingly admit this and state they engaged in sex, horror, and camp willingly in the style of Stuart Gordon.
- Body Horror: Those fish people...not all of them were born that way.
- Brother–Sister Incest: What Uxia intends for her half-brother, Paul.
- Bowdlerise: A version was aired on American TV with some changes for that audience.
- Nakedness was covered or otherwise edited out.note
- Most of Ezequiel's skinning scene was cut.note
- When Dagon comes out of the water and takes Bárbara, her arms aren't left behind, in spite of her wrists being shackled. No justification is given.
- Child by Rape: You're going to submit to Dagon whether you want to or not.
- Cosmic Horror Story: By association with the Cthulhu Mythos.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Surprisingly frequent. A couple include being skinned alive to make ceremonial masks and suicide by pocket knife Hara-kiri style.
- Cthulhumanoid: All the Dagon cultists in the village are various types of Fish People. Uxia's father has a face that resembles an octopus.
- Cute Monster Girl: Uxia turns out to be a Cute Monster Girl Deep One by way of Our Mermaids Are Different... for certain definitions of "cute".
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Considering the setting of Ezequiel's flashback (the 1930s, assuming he is roughly the same age as his actor), the sacking of Imboca's church, the smashing of sacred statues and icons by a mob, and the murder of the priest are almost certainly meant to parallel the very real desecrations and anti-clerical massacres that took place during the Spanish Civil War.
- Downer Ending: The Bad Guy Wins. Our hero goes from Roaring Rampage of Revenge to Driven to Suicide to And Then John Was a Zombie in the course of two minutes.
- Eldritch Abomination: Dagon itself is only seen for a split-second near the end, but it lives up to its Lovecraftian nature.
- Eldritch Ocean Abyss: The movie ends with the protagonist growing gills and traveling into an underwater abyss to meet the Eldritch Abomination that spawned him and his sister.
- Fanservice: Uxia is quite attractive (until you get to the fact that her legs are tentacles), and spends a fair amount of time underdressed, or just plain undressed.
- Fan Disservice: The afforementioned tentacle legs. Also, Barbara has a nude scene near the end of the film... after she's been raped by Dagon and Covered in Gunge. Well, we hope it's gunge.
- Foreign Remake: Despite being directed, written, and starred in by Americans (who play American characters) and being filmed in English for a wider release, it is a full Spanish production that changes Innsmouth to a fishing village in the Galician coast (or, the closest thing in Spain to Lovecraft Country).
- Girl of My Dreams: Paul has recurring dreams of a beautiful mermaid who beckons him to join her. After he and his friends get stuck in a coastal town inhabited by a Fish People cult, he finds out that the girl in his dreams, Uxia the high priestess, is real. At the end he's told that they're both the demi-human offspring of a sea god and that he is destined to become his sister's lover.
- Gorn: Most notably the scene in which Ezequiel's face is cut off his head while he's still alive and screaming in agony.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Dagon, of course, but Captain Orpheus Cambarro counts as well: a disciple of Dagon who came to Imboca, seduced the townsfolk to worship his god, which turned them into the murderous Deep Ones, and is a distant progenitor of both Uxia and Paul. He's long gone: either dead or dwelling as a Deep One by the time the film starts, and has no direct hand in Paul's plight, but the story never would have happened without him.
- Hell Hotel: Barbara picked a great place to look for help. As Paul discovers, it comes complete with a Disgusting Public Toilet, smashed windows, and a bed in which someone—or something—has apparently died recently.
- Insult Backfire: An instance that is at the same time unusually messed up, and funny.Uxia: Dagon needs her sacrifice!Paul: Fuck Dagon!Uxia: Yes, and their child will live forever!
- Lovecraft on Film: An adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, with some elements of "Dagon".
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Said by one of the fish people to Paul.
- Man on Fire: Paul douses several Imbocans in kerosene and lights them on fire before doing the same to himself.
- Mars Needs Women: In contrast to the book, where the Deep Ones' sexual interest in human beings was unisex, here, they are exclusively after our women. This adds to the Adaptational Villainy.
- The Mermaid Problem: Averted via tentacles with certain *ahem* functions.
- Monster Progenitor: Dagon, responsible for, er, directly siring all the assorted Fish People.
- Mood Whiplash: The slow pacing and dramatic mood of the film is interrupted by a flashback to a surprisingly dramatic depiction of the town's corruption by inhuman forces.
- Only Sane Man: The old drunk Ezequiel; though he admits to being crazy in his own way as well.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: Really, "mermaids" here are just another slight anatomical variation on Fish People.
- Scenery Gorn: The town of Imboca with its flooded houses, caving in roofs, and broken windows everywhere.
- Shown Their Work: The movie is actually almost completely faithful to Lovecraft's themes and stories. The director and producer also did extensive research on comparative religion, which shows in the design work regarding the various implements and decorative items the cult uses. The movie seems to imply "Dagon" is Cthulhu himself instead of a distinct entity, which is one of the actual interpretations of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. About the only true inaccuracy is the film being an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth as opposed to...well, Dagon.
- Sinister Minister:
- The town's priest disguises himself in a regular catholic priest's attire, but he's actually part of Dagon's Religion of Evil.
- Captain Cambarro was this in years past: after turning Imboca to Dagon worship, he became the town's head priest.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Paul is half Deep One.
- Town with a Dark Secret: If you've read this far down the page and don't know Imboca is that town, we don't know what to tell you.
- Unscaled Merfolk: They're more cephalopod than traditional merfolk or Fish People.
- Verbal Tic: "There are two possibilities..." for Paul. Eventually it changes to "No possibilities," when he tries to kill himself to avoid becoming the lover of his sister Uxia the Dagon high priestess.
"We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever."
