Le Continent des hommes poissons

Survivors of an ill-fated French vessel (Claudio Cassinelli, et al.) end up on a nameless Caribbean isle run by a self-appointed despot (Richard Johnson) who supports the dubious experiments of a sickly professor (Joseph Cotton). Barbara Bach is on hand as the latter's daughter.

"Screamers" (1981) is the recut American version of the Italian "Island of the Fishmen" (1979), which adds an unnecessary and irrelevant 12-minute prologue to beef up the horror, as well other negligible changes. People usually say "Screamers" is the superior version, but I've never seen the original to compare the two.

In any case, this is an adventure/horror that mixes "Mysterious Island" (1961) and "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1977) with the amphibian monsters of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) & "Humanoids from the Deep" (1980) yet with the Italian style (and cast) of "The Great Alligator" (1979). Whilst this is the least of these, it's not far off. If you're in the mood for deserted island adventure mixed with horror you can't go wrong.

Regrettably, except for Bach's face and the blonde in the prologue, there's little feminine appeal. The creators needed to study the wise usage of Beth Rogan in "Mysterious Island" (1961) and Dana Gillespie in "The People that Time Forgot" (1977).

The film runs about 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot in Sardinia & Nuoro, Italy, with interiors done in Rome. The fog-laden night prologue was shot in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park, Los Angeles; the volcanic shots were done in Maui, Hawaii.

GRADE: C+

This is a very enjoyable lost island adventure movie. A group of men are shipwrecked on an island ruled by a white "master" accompanied by an attractive white woman (Barbara Bach), inhabited by voodoo-practicing natives as well as some CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON type "fish men". The plot is silly (as in most movies of this type), the acting and the lines are cheesy in most cases, but it is a v-e-r-y polished-looking effort. The scene of Barbara Bach secretly leaving her manor at dawn (or dusk), crossing a shallow lake, and feeding the fish men a potion on the seashore is especially very poetic looking. The undersea footage of the ruins of Atlantis is also very impressive. One minor defect: the voodoo subplot seems to go nowhere. Surely, there are elements of THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU in the plot, but I think the idea to make this movie was kicked off by previous year's WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS from Britain. By the way, I think the "man whose inside turned outside" tag-line in the movie's US publicity refers to the scene of a man in the lab tank who is slowly being mutated towards a fish man.

Although the video box for many copies of this film claims it is about people turned inside out, this is a total lie. In fact, apart from the opening segment, the film isn't even a horror movie. With its sunken treasure, legions of fish people, and mad scientists, it's a lot more like a Doug McClure adventure movie. Obviously, this film is no work of art, but it's kind of fun to watch... Just be warned that the beginning is quite gory.

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.

Screamers is an Italian fantasy film (L'Isola degli Uomini Pesce) bought by Roger Corman and released through his New World Pictures. Of course Corman has to carve his initials on it by having one of his lackeys (Dan T. Miller) direct some additional gore footage before he has it released in the states.

L'Isola degli Uomini Pesce is a very entertaining retelling of the Island of Dr. Moreau. It is 1891 and Claudio Cassinelli is shipwrecked on a mysterious island with a few newly escaped convicts. Claudio comes across the stellar Barbara Bach and Richard Johnson. Johnson plays the dastardly Edmund Rackham: a man who is able to manipulate scientist Joseph Cotton into turning the local native population into amphibious deep-sea diving creatures, (they look like a cross between the Black Lagoon creature and one of The Humanoids From the Deep), by convincing Cotton that the mutations are being created for the highest of scientific and humanitarian motives.

Having discovered the lost city of Atlantis, Rackham is using the amphibious creatures to loot its treasures. Sexy Barbara Bach plays Cotton's daughter who has a psychic link with these mutations. In one memorable scene, Bach takes a midnight swim with these mutants wearing only a thin white cotton dress that leaves little to the imagination. Claudio discovers one of the convicts he has befriended has been turned into a gill-creature and then all Hell breaks loose.

Filmed at the same time and in the same location as Zombi 2, Richard Johnson didn't even have to change suits between films. The house where the experiments take place is the same house Johnson uses to conduct experiments in Zombi 2. Talk about economic filmmaking!

The additional footage features a few bloody beheadings, (way to go Roger!), and a laughably bad Cameron Mitchell doing his best pirate imitation. All that's missing is the parrot.

Spanish title: Le Continent Des Hommes Poissons