ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN (1979)

You probably saw this on VHS back in the day. It made the rounds in the States as Screamers and could be found on the shelves of damn near every mom and pop video store I ever set foot in, despite claims that it was poorly distributed. Perhaps all of the copies wound up in my corner of northwest Georgia as god's way of punishing us for some transgression. And truth be told, a DVD transfer and a reversion back to a literal translation of the original Italian title do absolutely nothing to take the suck away from this movie. It's every bit as bad as I remember - and then some.

Island of the Fishmen is a riff on H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, this time using fish men as the man/beast creatures. You know the story, so there's probably no need for you to sit through this piss-poor reworking of it that involves a boatload of convicts shipwrecked on a madman's island. Sure the poster art looks cool, the creatures are magnificent in a Sid and Marty Krofft kind of way, and it does feature the lovely Barbara "Mrs. Ringo Starr" Bach, but this flick is still about as exciting as watching gravy coagulate.

Despite my own misgivings toward this turkey, I've heard many people clamoring for its release over the years. If - for some unfathomable reason - you actually dig this movie, you should still check it out via Netflix or something before plopping down the smackers for your own copy. Being a child of the VHS age, I generally could give a shit a less about having the best picture quality, but this DVD has some glaringly horrific (too bad that's the only thing horrific about it) visual problems. Namely the scene where Ms. Bach is taking a night-time journey to visit the fish men at the shore - I literally got a fucking headache just trying to make out what in the hell was going on. Here we have a Bond girl running around in a wet nightgown and we can't do any better than that with the transfer?

I think Roger Corman had some shit added to this flick back when it was initially released to the US home video market. Not having seen that version in a very long time, I can't tell you how this DVD release compares to the old VHS in a scene-by-scene recount. I'm sure some poor sucker out there has watched both side-by-side for your edification. Blessed be the dumbass...

Director Sergio Martino supposedly shot this film at the same time Fulci was shooting Zombie, with the directors sharing film locations and actor Richard Johnson. So what? Fulci nailed it, while Martino shit his britches and fell back in it. If you want to see a much better Martino flick, I'd suggest Mountain of the Cannibal God starring the uber-lucious Ursula Andress (damn, Martino was getting all the Bond girls, huh?).

What kills me is that this film, along with every other turd-tastic version of the Dr. Moreau tale (Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, anyone?), is available while 1932's Island of Lost Souls, a stone cold fucking classic starring Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, rots in the Universal vaults. The shame, the shame.

Feelings for Island of the Fishmen aside, Mya DVD is a company to watch. They've got Klaus Kinski, Laura Gemser, Joe D'Amato, and Paul Naschy films set for release, along with an assload of great releases already available.

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