Island of the Fishmen (1981)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Screamers (1980) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Lieutenant de Ross (Claudio Cassinelli) is leading some convicts through a rough sea when they end up washing up on a mysterious island. The island has a volcano but that's not what the men needs to be afraid of. No, it's the half-man, half-fish monsters that are ripping at each of them.Sergio Martino's ISLAND OF THE FISHERMEN was a tad bit too boring for American artists so producer Roger Corman bought the film, cut it down and then added about twelve minutes worth of new footage at the start of the picture. This new footage features a lot of gory deaths and it certainly gets the picture off to a good start. The American version, known as SCREAMERS, became a huge hit at the drive-in thanks to its promotional trailer but it should be noted that an earlier version played theaters under a different title and didn't do much business.You've gotta love Corman.As far as SCREAMERS goes it's a pretty good little film. It certainly seems HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP borrowed a little from the Martino film but that film is basically just CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON meets THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. I think the added scenes actually help a lot and especially if you're a gore fan because there are a couple bloody and graphic decapitations. The original stuff in Martino's version is certainly mildly entertaining but the lack of gore, violence and nudity makes it easy to see why Corman wanted to spice it up.The film features a terrific cast with Cassinelli making for a very good lead and we've also got Barbara Bach, Richard Johnson and Joseph Cotten. The American version also features Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer in small scenes.SCREAMERS certainly isn't a masterpiece but the cast, the added gore effects and the rather fun monsters make it worth seeing.

Yes, the video cover of this movie made me want to watch this film as a child. It was called "Screamers" on this particular cover with the tagline "Men turned inside out!". It even featured this warped looking skeleton on the cover as well that made all sorts of cool gory images run through my mind. Perhaps some sort of movie about some strange virus that caused a person's flesh to burn off, maybe a movie about undead zombies that are more bloody looking than what you usually get, a science experiment gone incredibly wrong and now strange men with the flesh dripping off their bones go on the rampage. Yes, all these thoughts ran through my mind, one that did not was fish guys on some island with virtually no gore and all bore. This movie is really more like the Island of Dr. Moreau than anything else and quite frankly that movie bored me too, it is way to much scientist and not enough killing for my tastes. These films are to much figure stuff out and not enough blood for my tastes. Yes I know, I have strange tastes, but I can not help it, I like my horror movies either really bloody or fast moving and exciting this movie is really neither.

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