Island of the Fishmen (1981)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

~Spoiler~First of all, they're not men. And they're not turned inside out. What is the box art to this movie all about? Screamers is completely misleading in it's attempt to convey the plot of what lies within said box. It's actual Island of the Fishmen, a film that was directed by the legendary Italian Sergio Martino. Legend has it that Roger Corman acquired the rights to the movie, changed the name, and flared it up a bit with some over the top gore (specifically the intro scenes with Cam Mitchell and Mel Ferrer). Screamers is an Italian take on Dr. Moreau with good actors and bad, knock-off "Gillman" suits. Richard Johnson (who looks like he's on the same set, wearing the same clothes, and playing the same part as in Fulci's Zombi), Barbara Bach, Joseph Cotten, and the aforementioned added Mitchell and Ferrer are pretty big names for a project like this (of course they've all done their fair share of trash too). Screamers is entertaining enough, but nothing special. Only really noteworthy for the audacity of the misleading marketing.

Enjoyable spaghetti creature feature with a solid cast and some cheesy make-up effects. When survivors of a shipwreck stumble upon an unchartered island, they encounter an inhospitable welcome from the self proclaimed king of the dominion (Johnson) and his amphibian servants. Not intimidated by Johnson's anti-social behaviour or Cunningham's voodoo rituals, the ship's doctor (Cassinelli) treads on just about everyone's feet to get to the bottom of the mystery. Bach plays Johnson's unwilling companion, complicit in the mystery, but desperate to escape his coercive brutalisation (ostensibly done in the name of philanthropy).Director Martino made a string of Bach-Cassinelli-Johnson flicks in 1978-79, this being probably the best. Borrowing wholesale from "Island of Dr Moreau", "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and any "Atlantis" picture you care to mention, Martino has conjured a lightweight homage to all three themes. His experienced cast play their parts with conviction, and the cinematography and set design is quite attractive. Contextually, this picture is a success, although experimental transmutation in rubber suits with English over-dubbing will struggle on the urban market; suffice to say it's best viewed with a healthy appreciation for this type of spaghetti sci-fi.A couple of years after its initial theatrical release, Roger Corman added a few minutes of vaguely relative footage to the pre-title sequence, featuring Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer, and re-titled the picture "Screamers"; the additions are negligible though, so whichever version you happen to see, pack your modesty, as great expectations will go unrequited.

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?

Watching this odd little adventure movie, it's hard to believe that it was directed by the same man who brought us such high quality Giallo classics as The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh and The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, but it has to be said that despite it's low quality production values, Island of the Fish Men is an entertaining ride and one that surely deserves more praise than it's getting. Like many Italian films from the seventies, this is one is a rip off of a successful American film, the one in question this time being the critically panned Island of Dr Moreau. Sergio Martino's film takes ideas such as mutation, greed and adventure and moulds it into one slightly compelling film, which makes up for what it's lacks in coherency and logic with a load of mostly intriguing ideas. The central plot follows a boat which crashes on a small island. It quickly becomes apparent that not everything about this place is normal, and it soon transpires that half of the population has been turned into "fish men" - a cross between a man and a fish, which exist for purely selfish reasons...The truth about this movie is that it's a lot more fun if you ignore the trashy production values. The central monsters look completely ridiculous, and much of the movie takes place on sets that look like they cost someone a few pennies - but the movie is well shot in spite of this, with the underwater photography being a particular highlight and the pacing of the movie is well done in that the film never becomes boring. The way that the plot comes together isn't exactly genius, but it takes in a lot of ideas and I've seen films made on plots with much less thought put into them than this one. The biggest location standout in the film is definitely the lost city of Atlantis. To be honest, I'm not a massive fan of adventure movies, and therefore don't see this lost city get mentioned much - but it is always nice to see it in a movie. The central island location is good in that it provides an apt setting for the story and also provides the movie with the right amount of mystery, as Martino makes good use of the voodoo theme. Overall, this isn't exactly a classic and there are certainly a lot worse trashy adventure movies out there than this one.