In 1891, a prison ship goes down at sea and only a few of the prisoners and their doctor, Lt. Claude (Claudio Cassinelli) manage to survive, taking a lifeboat and drifting, lost and afraid. This boat runs into trouble and goes down, as well, but fortunately for them, they are next to a mysterious, uncharted island, and most of them make it ashore alive. Their fortune turns sour as they soon learn that the island is filled with natives at the beck and command of a madman, Edmond Rackham (Richard Johnson), who runs the island with an iron fist. He holds Prof. Ernest Marvin (Joseph Cotton) and his beautiful daughter Amanda (Barbara Bach) captive, as Edmond is using the scientist for some strange, hidden purpose. Oh, and there’s these fishmen, see, they live in the water and occasionally come up to kill and eat one of the prisoners from the boat. And let’s not forget the burbling volcano, or the hidden city of Atlantis, all of which figure into this convoluted plot.
I saw this movie when I was a teen on VHS by its America title, Screamers (a re-cut version by Roger Corman, with added scenes and FX), and the box promised me I would see “men turned inside out.” Well, I didn’t get that. What I got then is the same thing I got now, a strange, long, odd movie that is simultaneously wild and dull. This is the kind of movie only the Italians can do, and with Sergio Martino at the helm, things are kept interesting, if not compelling. The movie plays like a combination of old, slightly racist Hollywood dreck, and perverse Italian exploitation. The fishmen look incredible in some scenes and awful in others; it really just depends on how long the camera shot lingers. Sometimes they appear stiff and just like a guy dressed in a suit, and other times the eyes blink and the mouths move and you think, “Hey, that ain’t bad!” That’s kind of the deal with this whole movie. It’s overblown and too long and there’s too much going on. You’ve got a sort of mad scientist movie, a monster movie, an odd romance, some Tarzan kind of action, and an exploding volcano. They cram a lot in there, to the detriment of the narrative, yet you have to admire the spunk. Martino certainly tried to entertain his audience, even if it was mostly to hide just how shallow the story truly is.
Island of the Fishmen is a fun and frustrating movie all at once. I can’t really recommend it except if you’re a Martino completionist or just really into Italian exploitation movies. There’s enough in here to hold your interest, and with Richard Johnson in the film, it sort of feels like we’re getting an alternate-universe version of Zombi, which is kind of neat. And the monsters…well, they needed more screen time and more murders to commit. Bach is as beautiful as ever, and the action is pretty decent, but somehow the whole thing never quite gels.
★★☆☆