L'isola degli uomini pesce

I saw this film in a movie theater in Rochester, NY sometime in the mid 80s. I was fascinated by the tag line "You will see a man turned inside-out!" What I saw on the screen really didn't impress me too much, but, considering 15 minutes had been hacked out of it, I'm not surprised at how bad the finished product was.

In the years since then I've learned more and more about European filmmakers such as Martino, Argento, Fulci, Franco and others. In fact, I now have several Martino dvds and have been impressed by his talent. I hope to get my hands on a version of this movie that is truer to the director's vision. I'm sure it couldn't be too much worse than what I saw lo those many years ago.

Menacingly marooned upon this desolated isle of multitudinous madness, malevolently manhandled by increasingly malign mermen, and tormented by a tyrannical toffee nosed toff (Richard Johnson), these ragged, starveling, long-suffering sailors fatefully discover that its gill or be killed in genre maestro, Sergio Martino's small scale, sinisterly subaquatic shocker 'Island of The Fishmen'. Luridly Lovecraftian, and teasingly exotic, this unfathomably fabulous, successfully genre-bending 70s creature feature is certain to get its hooks deep into you long before the final reel!

Handsomely shot, with an engagingly boy's own text, beloved Euro-cult icons, Richard Johnson, Claudio Cassinelli, and the exquisitely beautiful Barbara Bach provide the weighty dramatic ballast that keeps this far from waterlogged, frequently fin-tastic Italian fright-flick afloat! No mere B-Movie minnow, this leviathan of diabolical dentistry proves to be kinkier than Jules Verne, delves deeper into twisted animalistic terror than H. G. Wells, and delivers more shocks than a startled stingray! Long neglected, Sergio Martino's far-flung fright-fest now sparkles on remastered HD, revealing a dazzlingly toothsome treasure chest of tantalizing terror for future horror fans to discover! Not only is Martino's rip roaring, high seas adventure enormously fun to watch, the sinfully scrumptious, brine-soaked Barbara Bach is quite ravishing to behold, and the beguilingly boggle-eyed mermen make for uncommonly striking protagonists.

Colourful if nonsensical tale set upon an uncharted island where Richard Johnson turns in a decent performance as a mad baddie searching for the lost gold of Atlantis and Barbara Bach doesn't do very much at all. The whole thing looks like much of it was made up as they went along with little bits of excitement every now and again to keep it going. There are some decent bits, I particularly like the home made diving bell contraption that lowers them down to peek at Atlantis and I have a soft spot for the fishmen themselves. Clearly copied from the 'Creature From The Black Lagoon', they are nevertheless pretty distinctive with their big fish eyes and facial colouring and especially effective when seen six or so at a time.

I finally got a chance to settle in and compare the two versions of this film currently going around -- First, the good old scummy, sleazy Embassy VHS print called SCREAMERS, and then a new fully restored Italian DVD by everyone's new favorite media company, No Shame of Italy.

The American adverts about "men turned inside out" is as everyone says, totally misleading, and indicative of a Roger Cormanized take on what otherwise would be a superior fantasy-adventure thriller for grown ups. The complete Italian version is a somewhat sprawling, well designed and deliberately paced take on "Island of Dr. Moreau", and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a sumptuous, handsome Euro Horror outing with a brain, good plotting, character development, location shooting, period costuming and sets, etc.

But I must admit that the 14 year old knucklehead weed puffer still lurking somewhere inside of me got a bigger kick out of the more lurid, sleazy and unkempt Roger Corman version, which has some nice over the top gore, a flashy but preposterous opening segment, and then the bulk of Martino's original film, albeit somewhat abridged to make room for Roger's idea of entertainment. The pacing was somewhat quicker, the shock sequences closer together, and you see just as much of Ms. Bach's fantastic form as you do in the extended Italian version.

I still don't have much of an idea about what the specific story concerns though: there are a number of plot twists and incidental characters that were somewhat hard to keep track of. A local voodoo subplot didn't help much, and it's funny how everything culminates in just another fistfight between the noble castaway prisoner and the mad scientist ... Perhaps a few more viewings are in order. I will say this: Fans of the movie should avail themselves of one of these PAL imports and take a look at what is actually a movie rather than just another murky old home video -- the widescreen shot compositions once again reveal that Martino had an eye for filling his screen with interesting stuff. Nobody gets their heads ripped off like in the SCREAMERS print, but it's still interesting stuff, and once again proof that while his standards may have been pretty much confined to the area around the gutter, Roger Corman new good trashy fun when he had it made for him, and side by side these are actually better movies than they had to be.

7/10

I saw this movie on television as SCREAMERS and loved it. I heard an interesting story about this film. When Roger Corman released it to drive-ins in the summer of 1981, his trailer department sent out an advance trailer which was not actually footage from the film. It was allegedly footage of a naked woman being chased around a laboratory set by a monster. During the film's opening at drive-in's, irate customers complained the did not see the movie they paid to see. Theater owners called Corman and said their customers felt ripped off. So Corman had to run off copies of the footage, and send the positive film to theater owners to splice into the film themselves. Since the footage was never part of the film negative, it has not appeared in any video, DVD or television broadcast. Has anyone ever seen this footage? Anyone who saw this film at a drive-in in the summer of 1981 remember this?